
The Social Transformation of Trust in Government (2005) [pdf] - justaguyonline
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un-dpadm/unpan044542.pdf
======
justaguyonline
Found this document referenced in an article [1] I read about trust in
American institutions. I usually skim these things but I was so surprised to
hear that America's dropping trust in institutions is shared internationally
that I ended up getting fascinated enough to read it.

I'm especially fascinated by the facts that a) this drop started at roughly
the same time for most of these nations (the 1960-70's) and that b) we
evidently know that in both Germany and Japan trust in government was rising
heavily post-war until this point.

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/03/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/03/americans-
have-lost-faith-in-institutions-thats-not-because-of-trump-or-fake-news/)

------
afsina
Wish I could say "Because more people read anatomy of state?"

~~~
guelo
I find radical libertarian ideology more childish and ahistorical than
socialism. A strong state is a miracle that has enabled humanity's most
amazing achievements. There is almost no history of societies without a strong
state because without a strong state humanity has proven time and again that
it is unable to achieve much more than violent tribalism.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
The State is a parasite that feeds off the productive class. People have been
prospering as a result of technology and the market in spite of the state.

> "There is almost no history of societies without a strong state"

Umm, what about the Renaissance which happened in relatively small & weak
Italian city-states.

~~~
woodandsteel
Human beings have always lived in organized societies, and indeed cannot
survive without them.

Once you move from foraging to agriculture, inevitably it leads to large
states. The only question is how much power the state will have. There has
never been a large society in which the state has as little power as the
libertarians wish, and I doubt there ever will be.

As to the market and modern technology, they exist only because there is a
state to guarantee things like paper money and contracts, and to sponsor
scientific research and also new technologies like the internet.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Organized society != State. Agriculture does not require a large state. Just
because we haven't had a large society without the state doesn't mean it isn't
possible. Money can be provided without government paper, for instance
Bitcoin. Contracts can be make without the government, for example etherium.
Anarcho-captitalism provides a framework for which contract enforcement can be
provided in a distributed p2p fashion. People may still pool their resources
to sponsor scientific research and new technologies. Considering that people
are willing to do these things nowadays means that people will still be
willing to do these things without a state.

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yorwba
Am I just dense or are the figures in this paper completely unrelated to the
text?

~~~
justaguyonline
Nope, it took me a while before I realized I wasn't just stupid and that that
graphs were completely unrelated too.

Here's a link to a version that seems to have the correct graphs: [http://sci-
hub.cc/10.1080/03906700500038819](http://sci-hub.cc/10.1080/03906700500038819)

I found Figure 3 particularly striking. Education (pre-1950) used to be
correlated with greater trust in government, now it's correlated with less.

~~~
esbranson
Civics courses are and were little more than rote indoctrination in the status
quo. It makes you appreciate the political system. (E.g., take them in the UK
and you will learn how great monarchy is.) But our current education policy
has less civics now.

~~~
justaguyonline
I'm not sure if you're referencing the paper or not, but its conclusion lead
me to a similar idea. The author points out that previously, higher education
was mostly reserved for the elites of society and that its increasing
prevalence among developed countries happened around the same time greater
education began to gradually change from being correlated with greater trust
in government to being correlated with less.

The obvious idea I had was that a greater amount of people were coming into
contact with more information about the various failures their government (and
every government) has. People are getting a "reverse civics" class now -- and
in a way, ignorance was bliss.

