A Critique of Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

A Critique of Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity Why are some countries richer and more prosperous than others are? Francis Fukuyama argues, in his book, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, that some societies are able to develop cultural norms, such as hard work and mutual trust, more than others. Fukuyama maintains that economic activity represents a crucial part of social life and is knit together by a …

…to understand, as well as formulate for myself, why it was, exactly, that certain societies are much better endowed with social capital than others. Understanding that trust and spontaneous sociability precipitates a prosperous economy was a theme that I found to be easy to buy into with minimal explanation. Understanding why the social capital existed in the first place, however, requires a lifetime of human study that Fukuyama shares with us through his masterful text.