One-shot trust in strangers appears to resist the encapsulated-interest account.

Evidence

An extreme version of supposing that trust is merely a matter of the characteristics of the trusted, characteristics that are not grounded in the relationship between the truster and the trusted, is one-way, oneshot trust, as in the one-way trust game presented in chapter 1, but played only once. Fredrik Barth tells the story of his dealing with a rug merchant in a bazaar in the Middle East. Barth found a rug that he liked, but he had no way to pay for it at the time. The dealer told him to take the rug and send the money later. Many of us have had similar experiences of seemingly being trusted by an utter stranger who would quite likely never see us again and who could not compel our trustworthiness. The experience seems striking and virtually inexplicable in its virtual uniqueness. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 391

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the crux case for the whole chapter — a genuine puzzle for the encapsulated-interest view that the reader’s analytical integration must resolve. How does the dealer’s trust fit a monitoring/observability account?
• XREF: Connects to Milgrom on reputation systems and one-shot trade games: repeated interaction enables cooperation, yet Barth’s case shows seeming exception.
• CANDY: The rug merchant anecdote is a vivid, shareable story: a stranger extends pure trust with no way to compel payment.