Under modern states, personal safety depends on patronage chains rather than kin groups

Evidence

These considerations confirm our conjecture that, under the conditions set by civilized society, personal trust becomes a type of system trust in the ability of systems to maintain conditions or performances which are, within certain limits, identical. Other examples of system trust also show this characteristically reflex engagement with fictions that is functioning. For example, whether one is a member or outsider, one trusts large organized systems which process goods or data, although one knows that the objectives of these systems are not the goals of the people who work in them. Rather one knows that everyone concerned in them must be motivated by complex, prone-to-failure and not readily visible detours to produce four-fruit jam, insurance notices, or whatever. The purchasing power of money is trusted, although currency is known to rest on an overdraft, so to speak, and is not covered by a corresponding value in the institutions which issue the currency. It rests instead on the expectation, supported by experience, that not everyone wants to turn his money credits into real cash simultaneously. One relies on the fact that the state has the power to guarantee peace and make decisions about problems, although one knows that its power of coercion is not adequate to do these things, if a considerable percentage of the population were to rebel at the same time or refuse to recognize decisions. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 257 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Institutions substitute for the need to trust in risky interactions; Kinship-based trust fails when its sanctioning institutions do not migrate; Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 257 (+4 more)

Related

• Institutionalized money trust replaces countless individual acts of personal trust (similarity 0.89)
• Trust extends kin-group loyalty outward to the whole society (similarity 0.88)
• Trust requires freedom be transferred from uncontrollable potency to institutionalized personal responsibility. (similarity 0.88)
• Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions (similarity 0.87)
• Social complexity forces the shift from personal to impersonal, system-governed trust. (similarity 0.83)
• Social institutions function through trust only at the individual micro level (similarity 0.83)
• In patronage societies trust depends entirely on special personal relationships (similarity 0.82)
• System trust rests on trusting that others also trust (similarity 0.82)
• Kinship provides reliable trust bonds regardless of personal sympathy. (similarity 0.82)
• System trust operates independently of individuals’ personal readiness to trust (similarity 0.82)
• Modern statehood displaced kin-based security with chains of dyadic patronage (similarity 0.81)
• Modern society still depends on personal trust despite system complexity (similarity 0.81)
• Modern society needs non-personal trust beyond what individuals provide (similarity 0.81)
• System trust rests on expectations that most won’t test the system (similarity 0.81)
• Modern trust is vested in abstract capacities, not individuals (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Institutions substitute for the need to trust in risky interactions #expands (0.82)
• Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions #expands (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 257
• Kinship-based trust fails when its sanctioning institutions do not migrate #expands (0.78)
• Social complexity forces the shift from personal to impersonal, system-governed trust. #expands (0.78)
• Trust extends kin-group loyalty outward to the whole society #expands (0.75)
• System trust rests on trusting that others also trust #expands (0.74) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261