Trust is easy when it’s there, but hard to generate when it’s gone (or never arrived in the first place).  I was curious about Ridley’s assertion that a relatively high trust quotient precedes income growth, rather than the other way round.

Trust, apart from from being an emotionally and even spiritually rewarding way to engage with people, has practical benefits. Essentially, it can reduce transaction costs, financial and practical. If the bus company can trust us to buy our tickets without checking everyone, they have more money to buy buses… and so on.

Cherish it where you find it. Extend it as far as you can without harm to yourself or others.

‘The more people trust each other in a society, the more prosperous that society is, and trust growth seems to precede income growth.’ 

Source: Matt Ridley,The Rational Optimist (London: Fourth Estate, 2011 (2010)), p. 97

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