Guardians of trust are themselves trustees requiring ever-higher-order oversight
Evidence
So who guards the guardians? Trust does. The guardians of trust are held to the same standards of disinterestedness, full disclosure, and role competence as those they oversee. And because of the fear that they are no more likely to abide by these norms than are first-order trustees, third-order trustees of trustees of trust-systems of social control over social-control agents-respond. In complex societies in which agency relationships are indispensable, opportunities for agent abuse sometimes irresistible, and the ability to specify and enforce substantive norms governing the outcomes of agency action nearly impossible, a spiraling evolution of procedural norms, structural constraints, and insurance-like arrangements, each building on the former, seems inevitable. One of the ironies of trust is that we frequently protect it and respond to its failures by bestowing even more trust. In the jargon of investment, we sometimes throw good money after bad. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 127
Categorization
- XREF: This regress of guardians guarding guardians echoes the reader’s Simmel-triad reading of Raskolnikov — guilt requires ever-more-external witnesses, just as trust requires ever-higher-order guardians. — connects to: Gatekeeping mechanisms like licensing and peer review make trustees reproduce themselves in choosing successors. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 84; Guardians of trust are themselves wide open to bribery and cooptation. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 116; Even honest guardians may not actually deliver the protection principals assume. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 122 (+5 more)
- DEFINE: Defines the nth-order trust structure and its inherent infinite regress.
Broader Connections
- Escalating trust guardianship distorts the original agency purpose
#expands(0.85) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 128 - Third-party trust guardians create new opportunities for exploitation.
#corroborates(0.80) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 141