Trust is structurally precarious because agents control symbolic wealth at a distance from principals.

Evidence

Agents create and administer symbolic wealth, often taking custody of tangible property in exchange for worthless promissory symbols of potential earnings. And, even when they resist these temptations, trustworthy agents are beset by conflicting claims from their various role identities that may undermine overall fidelity. Agents therefore hold structural opportunities to “take the money-in all its manifest forms-and run,” while unwitting principals, blinded by distance, organizational structure, secrecy, and lack of expertise, idly await the future dividends of symbolic promises made by faceless strangers. ” Hence, the problem of trust. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 35

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core agency-relationship problem of trust: agents hold symbolic wealth that principals cannot easily verify.
• XREF: connects to: Trust is structurally vulnerable because agents can exploit principals’ ignorance and distance. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 35; Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 51; Pre-modern trust is anchored in local place rather than abstract systems. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 245 (+5 more)

Related

• Trust is structurally vulnerable because agents can exploit principals’ ignorance and distance. (similarity 0.93)
• Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. (similarity 0.86)
• Principals mitigate distrust by hoarding wealth, self-sufficiency, or acquiring expertise. (similarity 0.86)
• Impersonal trust persists despite agency tensions and varies greatly across conditions. (similarity 0.84)
• The same features enabling trust also enable agent abuse. (similarity 0.83)
• The very mechanisms that enable trust also enable its abuse. (similarity 0.82)
• Trust is a social relationship of investing responsibility in another for uncertain future return. (similarity 0.81)
• Mechanisms for controlling impersonal trust themselves create new opportunities for abuse (similarity 0.81)
• Modern wealth consists of symbolic promises exchanged among strangers. (similarity 0.81)
• Impersonal trust emerges where face-to-face control mechanisms are unavailable (similarity 0.81)
• The same factors enabling agency relationships create the opportunity for agent abuse. (similarity 0.80)
• Controlling trust creates new opportunities for abuse in an inflationary spiral. (similarity 0.80)
• Trust control is a specialized occupation that sidelines ordinary actors (similarity 0.80)
• The very conditions that create agency also preclude personalizing trust relationships. (similarity 0.80)
• Trust-based agency relationships fail when the principal cannot exit or evaluate. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. #expands (0.82) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 51
• Trust, like power and equality, is reducible to structural terms #expands (0.82)
• Loss of positional power can void the sanction backing a trust relationship #expands (0.80)
• Principals mitigate distrust by hoarding wealth, self-sufficiency, or acquiring expertise. #responds-to (0.80) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 35
• Socially extensive trust requires an aristocracy to create it, which then undermines it #complicates (0.78)
• Pre-modern trust is anchored in local place rather than abstract systems. #qualifies (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 245
• Trust control is a specialized occupation that sidelines ordinary actors #expands (0.75) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 57