Thick trust cannot extend beyond small groups except via mystified elite authority

Evidence

Conclusions 1, 2, and 3 together imply that if anything will do by itself it will have to be non-egoistic micro-motivation. This will presumably have to be something like ‘thick trust’ - reliance on and between a group of persons in terms of their known dispositions, personal relations, and so on. It is not easy to see how this could be extended beyond a very small society. The only apparent way of taking it beyond that is to identify a particular set of people, a government or elite group, in whom thick trust is invested, and whose activities, example, or regulation serve to sustain cooperative activities throughout the society; but if this is conceivable at all, I find it impossible to see how such a structure could be the basis of our arrangements without an arrant degree of traditionalist or charismatic mystification. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 219

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘thick trust’ as reliance grounded in known dispositions and personal relations, and traces its scalability limits.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 219
• XREF: connects to: Blind trust in authority can be culpable stupidity rather than virtue; Socially extensive trust requires an aristocracy to create it, which then undermines it; Socially extensive and enduring trust is inherently difficult to create — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1499 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Socially extensive trust requires an aristocracy to create it, which then undermines it #corroborates (0.82)
• Socially extensive and enduring trust is inherently difficult to create #expands (0.78) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1499