Trust reduces the complexity created by other people’s freedom

Evidence

All three structural components of the trust relationship (firstly, the substitution of an internal order and its problematic for the more complex external order and its problematic; secondly, the need for learning; and thirdly, symbolic control) confirm our assumption that trust is associated with reduction of complexity, and, more specifically, of that complexity which enters the world in consequence of the freedom of other people. Trust functions so as to comprehend and reduce this complexity. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 165

Categorization

• DEFINE: Authoritative summary of trust’s three structural components and its core function in Luhmann’s system.
• XREF: This is exactly the complexity-reduction mechanism the reader wants to map onto Stevens’s substitution of Darlington Hall’s internal order for the world’s complexity. — connects to: Widespread mutual trust alone makes large-scale non-domination freedom possible — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1300; Risky personal trust overtures presuppose and expand the trustor’s freedom — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1301