Trust emerges as a result of cooperation rather than an element of social capital.

Evidence

It appears, however, that the core of the meaning of social capital in the work of these scholars is not trust but rather the social relationships, or the networks of such relationships (as emphasized by Brehm and Rahn), that enable us to undertake cooperative endeavors. These relationships, of course, ground trust among the participants in them. They do so because we have incentive to be trustworthy to those in our networks, therefore making it beneficial to us to trust one another in various undertakings. Hence it seems wrong to think of the trust itself as an element of social capital. As Gambetta (1988, 225) says, trust is “a result rather than a precondition of cooperation” (though Bacharach and Gambetta hold a contrary view). It is actually both, as is not surprising in an iterated interaction in which there can be feedback from each to the other. Nevertheless, Gambetta’s (1988) point seems to be basically correct. I risk cooperating and, if it pays off, I begin to trust you. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 409

Categorization

• XREF: Core payoff for the reader’s integration: trust is generated endogenously by successful iterated cooperation, consistent with the repeated-interaction equilibrium logic from the law-merchant material. — connects to: Social trust and civic engagement co-vary across societies as one underlying factor. — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 59; Social trust is an outcome and byproduct of social capital — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 41; Social capital grows from participation, not prior endowment alone. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 49
• DEEPTHINKING: The ‘both result and precondition, via feedback in iterated interaction’ point reaches beyond a definitional claim into how trust institutions bootstrap themselves.