Trust – underpinning our feelings and progress

In this paper I will seek to demonstrate the importance of trust in our existence and how it underpins or impinges upon our progress or the lack thereof in its absence.    

There are many questions that come to mind:

To what extent can one trusts a loved ones side of a story in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Another thought is to what extent do we trust others and how do we determine a sensible balance. In other words what is a reasonable level of informed trust warranted in our existence and how does this play out in daily lives. 

Is there a crisis of Trust today? But is it more a matter of a lack of informed trust? Is there an ever increasing stream of anonymous information or conspiratorial theories undermining trust in general to be dissuaded away from scientific enquiry?  How we felt let down at periods in our life due to misplaced trust?  Do we consider trust a virtue?  

By way of example I simply follow the adage to trust someone until such time as there are reasons not to do so. But there is no doubt there is also a degree to which past events shape our present expectations. This is the distinction between placing your trust in another and delegating authority to the extent you accept that involves allowing someone to make mistakes, as opposed feeling one is aggrieved when there is the matter of the betrayal of that trust.

In some cultures the so-called loss of face is a much bigger issue than in the west. A trusting environment can also be enhanced by one’s surroundings and the built environment. The accompanying notes are aimed at providing food for thought.

Introduction

Trust is an essential feature of our existence and for the most part we trust in all manner of things that assume we won’t be let down. Walking out the door each day there is a high degree of trust that our technology will mostly work, people will be honest and institutional support will be provided when we need it. 

In personal relationships there is an assumed level of trust that unites people in a common bond. The other side of the coin is what some individuals might describe as a healthy dose of scepticism that underpin one's approach to life and particularly one's beliefs. The degree to which we feel we can place our trust in people, systems and institutions, will in turn be a reflection of our experiences and the underlying culture and system  of governance that permeates existence at given points of time. Invariably trust hinge on ethics and the extent or otherwise confidence will wax and wane as revelations of betrayal of trust emerge. In the aftermath there is the ongoing flurry of measures introduced to avoid so called systemic failures in the future. The degree of expanded knowledge has also led to ever increasing complexity in the modern world. We are now much more part of a global village as is the built environment coupled with economics which now play an increasingly important role. 

Building an environment of trust – Physical buildings                 

I recall a keynote address at a philosophy conference by three New Zealand academics namely Elizabeth Aitken-Rose, Douglas Pratt and Jennifer Dixon on “Community and Incarceration: The Architecture of Alienation and the Politics of Redemption”. 

‘According to the International Centre for Prison Studies (Kings College, London) New Zealand has the fifth highest rate of incarceration per head of population in the OECD – after the USA, Chile, Poland and Czechoslovakia – and well ahead of Australia. New Zealanders pride themselves on breaking records and perhaps the most impressive is the rate at which they lock people up and throw away ongoing responsibility. A new prison in the city of Auckland looms large over the surrounding urban landscape: it is a larger, gloomier, shadier and more embarrassingly obvious human cage than anyone had anticipated. From a Correctional perspective, the locality addresses essential needs. It is close to the courts and a perfect situation for the requisite remand centre. ‘

The presenters argued for a radical improvement in the design and administration of prisons to combat the world wide high degrees of recidivism. Their multi-faceted approach highlighted the physiological and religious fundamentalism perpetuated in the design roots from a medieval societal view of incarceration. Those involved were working with the NZ government to instigate design improvements and were of particular interest to the press in Australia. The cost in NZ then was $90,000 pa per prisoner.

Aristotle’s Most Beautiful City
Scholar Andrew Murray was then involved within the Australian government to bring peace and stability to this troubled Solomon Islands located close to Australia. His key reference was the harmonious philosophy of Aristotle which underpinned his vision to bring peace and tranquility to these troubled Islands.
‘In Book VII of the Politics, Aristotle notes that beauty is realized in number and magnitude, and the city which combines magnitude with good order must necessarily be the most beautiful. ‘{Politics VII, 4 (1326a33-35)} Not much else is said there about beauty itself, and so the sentence must refer to other discussions. What is Aristotle‘s understanding of beauty? How is it found in the physical features of a city as discussed in Book VII? How does it relate to the moral entity of the best possible city? The paper will in three sections discuss Aristotle‘s understanding of beauty, the beauty of the built city and the beauty of the constituted city’.

Andrew provided some very useful insights as to how the design and architect of a city create a welcoming friendly beautiful environment. This approach was in contrast to the fortress mentality which only engenders mistrust as a bar to peaceful co-existence with one's neighbors.

But Aristotle’s ideas about living a more purposeful existence were very practical and extended to the built environment, which is of relevance to day as evident in his "Beautiful City” concepts. If we want to create a trusting environment we need to pay attention to providing warmth and appeal in a welcoming design layout for a model city.

Building an economy in which we can trust

Moral ethicist Adam Smith- introduced the idea of trusting in the invisible hand – trusting in free trade.

During the Victorian era philosopher and moral ethicist Adam Smith published in 1776 his influential classical economic work entitled ‘Wealth of Nations’ to criticize the 'mercantilist' system. Smith articulated the view that business and money was the invisible hand of free markets which will produce a satisfactory price return for land, labor and capital because the self interest in any free market benefits the whole of society as competition keeps prices low. The advantage of free trading has always benefited nations and was evident in that of the Australian aborigines. Like indigenous groups elsewhere, they traded ceremonial artefacts, grinding stones, sea shells, ochre, shields, axe heads, spears and even 'water rights' along the permanent waterways that marked trade routes. This enabled a "United Nations" approach to trade as scarce resources in one region were exchanged for another's in the same manner as Adam Smith suggested trading between nations having different natural resources yielded optimum outcomes.

Absence of trust

The trouble is, of course, with such free trade agreements today are reliant on the trust and goodwill of the respective negotiating parties – something that is prone to be absent in secret deals where each party vies to outwit the other.  The word “free trade” touted by politicians when entering into these agreements is misleading since invariably it involves the conferring of rights or preferences only disclosed later to the public.    

Smith was acutely aware any concentration in power would distort a free market and pointed out Merchants wielded monopolistic power afforded them as a consequence of bans on foreign competition. Mercantilism was also associated with a monetary system which used exported bullion to pay for imports- mainly from Asia- which reduced money supply to exert downward pressure on prices and economic activity at the expense of impoverished workers.

Mercantilism also adversely affected the colonies which were forced to use English ships, pay duties and only trade in commodities whose prices were set by the British Empire to effectively create an underclass of colonial citizens - a significant factor that led to world war and eventual American independence.

Although the classical economics of Smith was successful in overturning the unethical mercantilist system and his free market ideas remained popular up until the 1930’s his influence soon waned. In the period afterwards the inevitable boom and bust cycles continued in tandem with the growth of the larger financial institutions such as banks whose occasional lending sprees exceeded loanable funds beyond the level of maintainable voluntary savings to cause severe social dislocations. An arrogance took hold to disregard the lessons learnt in the past until the shock onset of the Great Depression years in the 1930’s.

The great ethicist and economist John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes was to present a radically different system to offer hope we could trust in his system of economics to avoid recurrences of the painful boom bust trade cycles. His sensible theory was we cannot rely on business as in markets to automatically adjust to ensure full employment so long as workers remained flexible in their demands. Rather his theory saw an active role for government intervention with both fiscal (taxation and spending measures) and monetary policy (control over the level of interest rates) to ensure economic growth and stability. Banks were to be regulated but enjoyed ‘Lender of last resort’ from a reserve to ensure confidence was maintained in the system.

Hence Keynesians thought it was imperative for government action during severe economic cycles to introduce government spending, tax breaks and reductions in interest rates during recessions but to reverse the situation during highly expansionary times. In other words to increase those same levers during inflationary times.

Following the outbreak of World War II Keynes's ideas were universally adopted throughout the western world with commensurate success so that by the time we reached the mid-fifties all western capitalist nations mirrored his views to share in the relatively strong, stable economic fortunes of the immediate post war era. When I first studied economics in the mid-sixties Keynes and Samuelson dominated our textbooks, and there was a sense of confidence and trust that sound economics would guard against recessions. I remember student debates where we considered the ethics of economic theory and how its implementation would benefit or otherwise society in general.

For Keynes was one of the first philosophical economists who insisted economic theories must lead to fairer more ethical outcomes for everyone. No one could argue his philosophy was the mirror of a more virtuous system first championed by Aristotle and then Smith.  

Keynes' views were no doubt forged from his desire to avoid a repeat of the great depression where he held onto his shares and subsequently lost his fortune along with many others. His theories, supported by extensive mathematical modelling, suggested the need for a strong regulatory regime to prudently effectively use both monetary (supply of money and interest rates) and fiscal policy (government spending and taxation) to help iron out the inevitable economic imbalances. His theories were largely adopted in Australia with some considerable success.

Keynes influence begins to wane

As Keynes influence began to wane many of his sound principles were jettisoned – particularly in relation to banking which has led to the more recent malaise where arrogant reckless and immoral activities became embedded into an economy whose systematic banking was destined to failure and become a blight on society at large. The paucity in intellectual enquiry during this period is breathtaking and I can only conclude much of it was only possible due to the growth in “crony capitalism” such was the utter nonsense that underpinned its erroneous applications.

The monetarists who gained ascendancy were skeptical over the ability of governments to effectively regulate the economy with fiscal policy as suggested by Keynes, mounting arguments his measures were both costly and unnecessary – a boon to the naïve politician striving to appease lobbyists.  Their argument was one could rely solely on tight control of money to maintain price stability, a nonsensical concept never capable of sustaining any modern economy anywhere. These highly simplistic theories were both easily understood and very appealing to politicians at a time of high inflation but selectively seized upon by crony capitalists and vested interests with no interest whatsoever in supporting a free market economy.

Philosophical materialism

Concurrent to that change in economic focus was a type of philosophical materialism which had taken an even firmer root to assert our wellbeing or happiness in terms of business prosperity measured solely by money. This became linked to the fundamentalist type religions who promised future wealth as if synonymous with salvation. Simply put -if it doesn’t make money it doesn’t matter! A type of economic fundamentalism persuasively joined forces with branded religion to present a rather potent cocktail of political inspiration based upon a minimalist role for regulation, suggesting business as in markets are sufficient as the sole arbitrator except for control over the money supply. Undoubtedly this was simply ego driven madness on a rather grand scale underpinning many of our current problems and the lack of a moral compass in business today, although the shock of the GFC and several royal commissions later we are now seeing many encouraging trends.

Placing our trust in consumerism

Whilst we associate 'consumerism" as a modern phenomenon the underlying human condition to gravitate to materialism seems unchanged - given the opportunity a desire inevitably arises to accumulate material wealth.

The story of Solomon reminds us there is nothing new about how our desire for material wealth can be all consuming. Solomon was both wise and ruled as king during a period of unrivalled prosperity, - as a great trader who secured from King Hiram of Phoenicia the materials for the magnificent temple. But towards the end of his reign he succumbed to the great trappings of immense wealth and worshipped idols.

The point to all of this is that all of us, even those with the Wisdom of Solomon, may not be immune to an excessive desire for material goods. It also serves as a sobering reminder that what we may regard as basic human material needs can be the equivalent of rampant consumerism to a struggling African family or even those homeless within our shores.
This also applies to nations just as it does to individuals and the amount we are willing to pledge in aid. Going against the trend it is remarkable that a tiny country such as Ireland whose generosity as a percentage of GDP puts other countries, including Australia to shame.

Although you cannot effectively legislate morality or orchestrate more even social outcomes you can have regulations to ensure free markets operate in a regulatory environment which specify basic human rights. That is to create a trusting environment and one that enhances a sense of pride to belong to an egalitarian society

We can make provision for safety nets and ensure ethical principles or codes are operational for both corporations and citizens alike. The irony is once nations become industrialized, the potential exists for more equal societies to do much better in terms of health, well-being and social cohesion. 

There are less income inequalities which have the capacity to destroy the social fabric and the quality of life for everyone. We can place our trust in such an outcome as it can be ably demonstrated at every level  

Much of this inequality is driven by a desire to have more and be rewarded with more as end unto itself which can lead to treating people like goods. The trouble with having too many possessions is that eventually they may own you.

Changing with the times for the better.

But it is not all bad news, as the groundswell in collective consciousness to embrace a more ethical application is gaining momentum wherever you look. All of our big institutions are moving towards more sustainable practices to reduce the carbon footprint which mean they only occupy the very top independently assessed 5 star energy efficient buildings.

The question of trust then is dependent on the nature of individuals and their attitudes or reliance on the governance systems that underpins existence. This in turn is influenced by one’s cultural roots. 

It is very important the degree of trust one feels as this in turn leads to people feeling they have a degree of freedom and general wellbeing that they are living in a caring environment. This in turn relates to the economic factors that are often overlooked as to the degree of fairness or otherwise inherent in an idea of say individualism compared to a more egalitarian based vision. 

So we need a vision to encompass ideas of what a trusting society would resemble rather than encompass an economic, social and justice system that supports such a vision.  Terms like ‘whatever it takes’, if it doesn’t make money then it’s of no interest and make it happen’ exemplify the sort of materialistic led ideas that are rooted in self-interest. We have ceded control economically to a vested market greed which is exactly what the first founding fathers of economics rallied against

Without wanting to convey any sense of self that suggests a moral paradigm of virtue, but due principally to my field of employment I have been involved in many instances of stamping out corruption that I believe exists at a much greater level than most people realise.

Conclusion

There is no easy answer to the question of the extent one places trust in one's own judgment about individuals and institutions. Central to this idea is the way systems have attempted to evolve to reflect justice and good governance, but fail due to corruption or ambivalence of one kind or another. The extent or otherwise they are perceived to offer fair and just outcomes underpins societies attitudes to the extent to which trust exists. On a personal level in a democracy that is not perpetually engaged in conflicts just about everything one does is based on the idea we can mostly trust people and those institutions that operate under such a system. What becomes of critical importance is the ability of such a system to incorporate inbuilt safeguards designed to uncover corruption that betray the goodwill or faith inherent in any system. Institutions can build up a reputation of trustworthiness, this is just as easily dissipated caused by greed or corruption. 

The same principles apply to individuals and the perils of procrastination inherent in not acting on our inner compass that tells us when to act against injustices and corruption. The two are inextricably linked, the failure to act on what is known to be wrong is often because of the discomfort such a stand would have on the status quo and the pressure it imposes upon us. Many times I have been told corruption is just another cultural difference or it's just idealistic and impractical to make a stand against corruption. All I can say is that my experiences tell me otherwise.