Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of ProsperityFrom the bestselling author of The End of History and the Last of Men comes a penetrating assessment of the emerging global economic order, arguing that a nation's social unity depends on its economic strength—and America is at risk for losing both. In his bestselling The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama argued that the end of the Cold War would also mean the beginning of a struggle for position in the rapidly emerging order of twenty-first century capitalism. In Trust, he explains the social principles of economic life and tells us what we need to know to win the coming struggle for world dominance. Challenging orthodoxies of both the left and right, Fukuyama examines a wide range of national cultures in order to divine the underlying principles that foster social and economic prosperity. Insisting that we cannot divorce economic life from cultural life, he contends that in an era when social capital may be as important as physical capital, only those societies with a high degree of social trust will be able to create the flexible, large-scale business organizations that are needed to compete in the new global economy. A brilliant study of the interconnectedness of economic life with cultural life, Trust is also an essential antidote to the increasing drift of American culture into extreme forms of individualism, which, if unchecked, will have dire consequences for the nation's economic health. |
Contents
Languages of Good and Evil | |
The Social Virtues | |
PART II | |
A Loose Tray of Sand | |
The Buddenbrooks Phenomenon | |
Job of a Lifetime | |
The Money Clique | |
German Giants | |
Weber and Taylor | |
Trust in Teams | |
Insiders and Outsiders | |
The HighTrust Workplace | |
Eagles Dont Flockor Do They? | |
Italian Confucianism | |
FacetoFace in France | |
The Chinese Company Within | |
PART III | |
HighTrust Societies and the Challenge of Sustaining Sociability | |
FrictionFree Economies | |
A Block of Granite | |
Sons and Strangers | |
Rugged Conformists | |
Blacks and Asians in America | |
The Vanishing Middle | |
After the End of Social Engineering | |
Returns to Scale | |
The Spiritualization of Economic Life | |
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Common terms and phrases
American argued Asian associations authority behavior Cambridge central chaebol Chalmers Johnson China Chinese family Chinese societies church companies Comparative competitive Confucianism contrast corporations counterparts countries create culture degree democracy economic development economists efficient employees enterprises entrepreneurs ethical Europe European example factory familistic family businesses France French German global groups growth guilds high-trust History Hong Kong human iemoto important individual individualistic industrial structure institutions Italy Japan Japanese keiretsu kinship Korean labor lean manufacturing lean production liberal lifetime employment lineage loyalty manufacturing mass production Max Weber modern moral Mormon neoclassical neoclassical economics network organizations obligation overseas Chinese peasant percent political problem professionally managed Protestant relations relationships relatively religious revolution role scale sector skills social capital Sociology solidarity spontaneous sociability Studies suppliers Taiwan tend traditional trust twentieth century unions United virtually Weber workers workplace York zaibatsu