October 17, 2019
By Trevor Bratton
Trust runs deep into
the fabric of the American experiment—it’s an imperative element in making our
country work. John Locke wrote of the importance of trust within a community, and
that trust that links citizen to citizen is the same trust that exists today in
interactions at the grocery checkout counter, the doctor’s office, and the
cubicle at work.
This link, however,
is coming undone. A recent study
by the Pew Research Center found that the overwhelming majority of Americans
between the ages of 18 and 29 (73%) believe people only to be self-serving,
while 71% believe most people would defraud them if given the chance. It should
come as no surprise, then, when 60% say most people simply can’t be trusted. On
the other hand, of those 65 years and older, these percentages vary
significantly: 48%, 39%, and 29%, respectively. These discrepancies matter—and
they constitute a worrying trend for the direction of the country.
So where should we
look to boost the waning trust we have in each other? The answer is the free
market.
There is clear
evidence that as trust in a society declines, a desire for greater government
intervention fills the gap. An analysis
published in the Quarterly Journal of
Economics found a strong link between societies of low trust and high
government regulation. Economist Alex Tabarrok coined
this shift to higher regulation stemming from low social trust as the beginning
of a “distrust trap” in which further forms of regulation tamp down the
potential of its citizens, resulting in less economic prosperity, leading to
more distrust and more regulation. Many Americans reveal this truth when they
step into the voting booth: If you can’t trust your neighbor, your pastor, and
the local cosmetologist, then government intervention must be the answer!
Then of course, there
are the polls that show the growing appeal of socialism and socialist policies,
especially among young people. A Harris
poll from earlier this year found that about 73% of Millennials and
Generation Z believe the government should provide universal healthcare, and
about 67% say the government should provide tuition-free college. And, believe
it or not, just about half say they would prefer living in a socialist country (even
though, as
discussed on this blog, many young Americans don’t really understand what
“socialism” is).
Distrust of fellow
citizens blinds us into believing that government is the lesser of two evils.
But if it is true that humankind is selfish and corrupt, then the bureaucrat is
just as corrupt and self-interested as the businessman. Only, the businessman’s
power is harbored by the rule of law and profits, whereas the bureaucrat is
left without restraint. The politician’s profit are votes. Who, then, is most
dangerous?
The free market is,
instead, the source of trust. Who would have thought 60 years ago that today we
would be willing to hop into the backseat of a person’s personal car to drive
us to a destination 20 miles away? Or who would have thought 60 years ago that
today we would be willing to purchase a product directly from a relatively
faceless seller? Or who would have thought millions of people would be willing
to rest their head in a home owned by a person whom they know little? Because
of the myriad of incentives (Uber’s star ratings), consumer protections (eBay’s
member-to-member contact policy), and vetting processes (Airbnb’s background
checks), access to solutions that make consumers’ lives easier and allow for
the attainment of additional income make the world today—transaction by
transaction—considerably safer than before.
Despite all this, many
Americans say that free markets are more a rusty method of exploitation than a
means for prosperity—and they certainly don’t see how free markets are a strong
contributor to the feelings of trust that do exist in our daily lives. These
Americans focus so much on how the pie is sliced that we forget we must first
have a pie. When people ask us “Why do you believe in free markets?”, our
answer should be that we believe in potential and dignity and trust others to
realize theirs. The question we should ask ourselves is: How are we
contributing to it?
Trevor
Bratton is a Koch Associate and Policy Analyst Fellow at the
Goldwater Institute.
