Trust-based social order loses plausibility as economic inequality and division of labour grow

Evidence

At its most optimistic anarchism simply consists in the universalization of trust towards all humans who are not themselves bearers of concentrated coercive power. Its sociological realism therefore varies very greatly with historical setting, from the Nuer (‘deeply democratic, and easily roused to violence’: Evans-Pritchard 1940: 294) to the classes dangereuses of a great Third World metropolis like Cairo (or Beirut) or a centre of advanced capitalist civilization like Manhattan. As Locke pointed out (1967: II, chapter 5), and as most subsequent social and political thinking has amply confirmed, this sociological realism diminishes markedly with a deepening division of labour, enhancement of productive power, and widening of economic inequalities. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1093

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s Luhmann/Hardin synthesis: division of labour and inequality degrade the ‘familiarity’ substrate that makes trust possible without formal constraints.
• SEED: Essay angle: trust as a luxury good — the sociological conditions that make anarchic trust viable (small, equal, undifferentiated communities) are exactly the ones modern economies have destroyed.