Stable open government with countervailing institutions is needed to stimulate trustworthiness

Evidence

Part of the answer in large-scale societies is to create stable governments that are relatively open, which generally, although not necessarily, means democratic governments, and to balance these with other institutions that have relatively autonomous power to stand against the government. At other levels and in societies of lesser scale, part of the answer lies in social structures that create incentives for trustworthiness. Much of the literature on the social benefits of trust neglects the question of how to stimulate trustworthiness; and in any case, there is relatively little on this question in general other than for the problem of creating orderly, liberal government. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 519

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s analytical integration: the erosion of government and countervailing institutions in Saramago’s Blindness is exactly the condition under which Hardin says trust cannot be stimulated in large-scale society. — connects to: Democratic institutions can again produce countermeasures to abnormal accumulation — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1644; Democratic institutions can successfully reclaim authority over the digital future from private power. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 185; Government policy can deliberately foster social-capital formation. — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 79 (+6 more)