In simple systems law and trust fuse and distrust becomes socially prohibited

Evidence

However, trust and law can remain closely congruent with one another only in very simple social systems, those which have barely any structural problems, and are small enough for all members to be familiar with one another. In such systems trust is expected and distrust becomes an affront, an offence against the rules of collective life and thus against the laws of the system, and vice versa, any breach of trust claimed and proven is sanctioned as wrongdoing. Under such circumstances anyone who distrusts cannot give expression to his feelings and fears without becoming a social isolate. As a consequence, the basic laws of the system steer him in the direction of a socially typified trust. Perhaps trust of this nature lies at the root of the development of law in general, and, for example, of contract as a juridical phenomenon. At any rate in such simple social systems the mechanisms of law and trust cannot be separated from one another. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 173

Categorization

• XREF: Structurally parallels the social-capital/community finding from Coleman’s Social Capital — closed small-group norms enforce trust — and anticipates Luhmann’s later argument that complex systems must separate law from trust. Also illuminates Darlington Hall as a ‘simple system’ inside a complex society, where Stevens’s distrust of the House would socially isolate him.
• ADDENDUM: Supports ‘On Sacrifice’ argument that small stratified communities enforce conformity through reputational/social sanctions rather than formal law.
• DEFINE: Defines the limiting case where trust and law converge — the baseline against which modern differentiated systems diverge.