In whom we trust

It is 15 years since academic and writer Francis Fukuyama popularised the view that trust is key to prosperous economies. In his 1995 book Trust, he wrote: “People who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have been negotiated, agreed to, litigated and enforced.” Low trust, he argued, “imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay”.

If Fukuyama is right, our present prospects are grim. Economically we may have entered calmer waters but numerous surveys carried out last year reveal the heavy toll the recession has taken on trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer, for instance, run by PR company Edelman for the past 10 years, shows public trust in business “to do the right thing” declined from 58 per cent in 2008 to 38 per cent in the US in 2009, while in the UK it has bobbed around the 45 per cent mark for the past seven years.