The point that’s stuck with me from Fukuyama’s book on this topic (http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Social-Virtues-Creation-Prosperity/dp/0684825252) is that there’s not just one fungible bucket of trust—the types of people and institutions that attract trust within a society tend to shape and limit the types of organizations that can be formed and sustained. He argues that what permits organizations to both scale (relatively) smoothly and then subsequently persist over multiple generations is the ability of essentially random people to form bonds of trust (as opposed to forming those bonds with family members or relying on the government).
The point that’s stuck with me from Fukuyama’s book on this topic (http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Social-Virtues-Creation-Prosperity/dp/0684825252) is that there’s not just one fungible bucket of trust—the types of people and institutions that attract trust within a society tend to shape and limit the types of organizations that can be formed and sustained. He argues that what permits organizations to both scale (relatively) smoothly and then subsequently persist over multiple generations is the ability of essentially random people to form bonds of trust (as opposed to forming those bonds with family members or relying on the government).