High-wage market economies substitute self-interest for unreliable charitable trust.

Evidence

This is the Smith who argued that if one were to go over to an economy of high wages and a high division of labour, one would not only generate more wealth; one would also insure the poor against the capricious charity of the rich; one would replace an unpredictable provision by persons of quality with a predictable if minimal quantity; one would replace trust, which was not self-reinforcing, with a mutual interest in the results of the pursuit of self-interest, which would be. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1542

Categorization

• XREF: Core to the reader’s Luhmann/Hardin synthesis — Smith here claims market structure replaces the need for ‘familiarity’ with self-reinforcing mutual interest, the same move Brzezinski makes in diplomacy. — connects to: Gift economies spontaneously produce self-restraint that low prices cannot — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 107
• DEFINE: Defines what ‘self-reinforcing’ means in economic terms: a predictable mutual interest that needs no ongoing charitable goodwill.