Trust: Self-Interest and the Common Good

ISBN-13: 9780199217922 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 160 str.

Marek Kohn

Opis

Trust--whether between parents and children, merchants and shoppers, banks and investors, or citizens and their government--lies at the very heart of our relationships, our society, and our everyday lives.
This vividly written compact book reveals how modern thinkers--scientists, social scientists, and philosophers--have shed much light on the nature of trust. Beginning with some fascinating evolutionary puzzles about the origins of trust--for instance, how cooperation can evolve among individuals pursuing their own selfish interests--Marek Kohn incorporates many different perspectives from the fields of science, sociology, economics, and politics, to draw out the wider implications of trust in human society today. The book discusses trust in gods and how people have sought to reinvest this trust as religious faith has diminished; the effect of low social trust on economic development; and the loss of trust between mutually antagonistic communities, each warming itself by the flames of its hostility to the other. He shows how Communism relied on distrust, and devoted much of its energy to seeding it among its subjects, and Liberal democracy is also based on distrust, but in the opposite direction: it is founded upon the suspicion that the powerful will be tempted to abuse their power, and so must be subject to checks and balances. Perhaps most important, he shows that if we understand what makes trust possible, and why it matters, then we will live better lives in a fast-moving, fast-changing, global society.

Recenzje

Lucid and illuminating essay.

O autorze

Marek Kohn is a writer and journalist who lives in Brighton, England, with his wife and son. He has written five previous books, the last three of which have explored aspects of evolutionary thinking and their implications for society. The most recent, A Reason for Everything: Natural Selection and the English Imagination, received exceptionally high praise. A.C Grayling called him "a wonderful writer"; Graham Farmelo called him "supremely intelligent"; and several reviewers, including Neal Ascherson, called the book "brilliant".