Social trust in 2007: E Pluribus Unum — diversity and trust in A

Francis Fukuyama argued that large-scale economic coordination depends on "spontaneous sociability" beyond family clans — but he and later scholars stress that such trust is cultivated by history, religion, state quality, and inequality, not written in genes. High-trust societies often combine strong institutions with everyday norms learned in schools, workplaces, and media.

This page explains trust as competitiveness: when people expect fairness from unknown others, markets deepen, tax compliance rises, and public goods get funded. It is not a racial trait. Surveys that compare countries or neighborhoods describe institutional and cultural outcomes — never IQ-by-group ranks or cranial hierarchies. Critiques of Putnam's early diversity findings remind us that trust can fall when inequality and segregation persist, even in diverse cities — a design problem, not destiny.

What is generalized vs particularized trust? Particularized trust targets people you know — kin, co-ethnic networks. Generalized trust extends to strangers and abstract institutions. Economic scale usually needs the second kind, backed by courts and norms when personal ties fail.