The Moral Foundations Of Trust

The Moral Foundations of Trust The Moral Foundations of Trust seeks to explain why people place their faith in strangers and why doing so matters. Trust is a moral value that does not depend on personal experience or on interactions with people in civic groups or informal socializing. Instead, we learn to trust from our parents, and trust is stable over long periods of time. Trust depends on an optimistic worldview: the world is a good place and we can make it better. Trusting people are more likely to give through charity and volunteering and are more supportive of rights for groups that have faced discrimination. Trusting societies are more likely to redistribute resources from the rich to the poor and to have more effective governments. Trust has been on the wane in the United States for more than thirty years, the roots of which are traceable to declining optimism and increasing economic inequality, trends Uslaner documents with aggregate time series in the United States and crosssectional data across market economies. Eric M. Uslaner is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has taught since 1975. His many publications include The Decline of Comity in Congress (1993) and The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate (1999). Uslaner’s edited books include Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life and Social Capital and the Transition to Democracy. © 2001 The New Yorker Collection from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. The Moral Foundations of Trust ERIC M. USLANER University of Maryland published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Eric M. Uslaner 2002 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2002 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Sabon 10/13 pt. System QuarkXPress [BTS] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Uslaner, Eric M. The moral foundations of trust / Eric M. Uslaner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. isbn 0-521-81213-5 – isbn 0-521-01103-5 (pb.) 1. Trust – Social aspects. 2. Trust – Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Social participation. 4. Trust – United States. 5. Social participation – United States. 6. Social values – United States. I. Title. hm1071 .u75 2002 302.5–dc21 2001052721 isbn 0 521 81213 5 hardback isbn 0 521 01103 5 paperback With love to my favorite optimists and trusters, Debbie, Avery, and Amber Contents Preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 page ix Trust and the Good Life Strategic Trust and Moralistic Trust Counting (o