System trust rests on trusting that others also trust

Evidence

Whereas in personal trust reflexivity is an exception, system trust builds upon the fact that others also trust and that this common quality of trust becomes conscious. Certainly it is not necessary in each individual case to remember that the ability to function rests on trust in trust. It seems rather that familiarity with money, power and truth is learned as behaviour and that typically the reflexivity of this mechanism remains latent, as does its highly risky character. Such latency can make the creation of trust more simple and act as a safeguard against uncontrollable fears – what would happen if everyone suddenly wanted to cash in all their money, or if everyone appeared armed on the streets. Nevertheless, the rational basis of system trust lies in the trust placed in the trust of other people. The uncovering of this basis through sociological analysis can make the conditions under which this type of trust functions transparent and thus alleviates the type of latent insecurity which typically accompanies a reliance on mechanisms which are not understood. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precise operational definition of system trust as trust in others’ trust, distinct from personal trust where reflexivity is exceptional.
• XREF: Directly maps onto Giddens’s ‘faceless commitments’ — confidence in abstract/expert systems rather than interpersonal facework; and onto Stevens’s unreflective reliance on Darlington Hall as a functioning institution. — connects to: Trust presupposes a structured environment supplied by the existence of other systems.; Institutionalized money trust replaces countless individual acts of personal trust; Modern trust takes the form of trust in specialized information processing (+21 more)
• SEED: The latent risk of system trust (‘what if everyone cashes in’) is a publishable angle: how societal panic is forestalled precisely by keeping trust’s reflexivity unconscious.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261

Broader Connections

• Trusting others and trusting oneself develop together. #expands (0.70) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 231
• System trust operates independently of individuals’ personal readiness to trust #contradicts (0.60)
• Trust rests on structural system guarantees that relieve individuals of risk assessment #qualifies (0.60)
• Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others. #complicates (0.55)