Allow me to
make a little detour and some sweeping generalizations. Cooperation pays off; this is true for different levels
of complexity. Regarding the most basic unit of social interaction, there is
the well-known example of the two farmers that help each other harvest their
goods at different times of the year. On more aggregate levels, division of
labor – that is the twin processes of specialization and cooperation – dramatically
increases effectiveness.
Cooperation, in turn, requires trust – trust that the parties to the work-sharing agreement each do their part. Even more so if there is no third party that helps to enforce the – implicit or explicit – contract such as a tight-knit community or police forces. Moreover, as Axelrod has shown with his famous computer simulations (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cooperation), if you are generally trusting, that is, if you are ready to cooperate rather than defect when you first encounter a new potential cooperation partner, in the long run, you will maximize the benefits from these interactions – even though you will sometimes be taken advantage of by others. So far the social science bit of this blog entry.
Cooperation, in turn, requires trust – trust that the parties to the work-sharing agreement each do their part. Even more so if there is no third party that helps to enforce the – implicit or explicit – contract such as a tight-knit community or police forces. Moreover, as Axelrod has shown with his famous computer simulations (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cooperation), if you are generally trusting, that is, if you are ready to cooperate rather than defect when you first encounter a new potential cooperation partner, in the long run, you will maximize the benefits from these interactions – even though you will sometimes be taken advantage of by others. So far the social science bit of this blog entry.
Now, we all know examples of these small village stories
where people do not lock the doors of their houses or where children are left
to play in the streets unattended, because, you know, the last time there was a
murder or rape or whatever in the community they still used horse-drawn
carriages instead of cars. From telling these stories, most people go on quickly to condemn the
anonymity of our modern city life, where you barely know your neighbors, you always have
to take care to lock your car lest it will be stolen, where you feel uncomfortable to walk home
alone through dark parks and so on, because you simply can't trust others.
Now to my point: Having lived in Berlin and Bucharest for some time and having now gained some first impressions of life in Lusaka, I must say that regarding trust in strangers, there are huge differences between these capitals. Probably not smaller than those between the tiny villages in the feel-good stories and those anonymous mega cities we are used to compare them with.
Honestly, I find it shocking to what extent there seems to be generalized mistrust around me in Lusaka. I remember I had the same impression while I was living in Bucharest in Romania. (There are huge differences between these two cities, but I would say that they are in that matter both more different from Berlin than they differ from each other. And please note: I am not saying that I didn't or don't trust anybody there or that I have felt or feel I shouldn't.) How often have I been told in Bucharest to trust no one – the least if people appear friendly. And in Lusaka, in the few days that I have been staying here, I have already seen a couple of written advices to that effect (one sticker, for example, in a minibus reading “I know you look trustworthy, but I also know I can’t trust you”) and have been told countless times to be very careful with strangers. In short, nobody seems to trust anybody else, if they don't happen to have a shared history.
Now to my point: Having lived in Berlin and Bucharest for some time and having now gained some first impressions of life in Lusaka, I must say that regarding trust in strangers, there are huge differences between these capitals. Probably not smaller than those between the tiny villages in the feel-good stories and those anonymous mega cities we are used to compare them with.
Honestly, I find it shocking to what extent there seems to be generalized mistrust around me in Lusaka. I remember I had the same impression while I was living in Bucharest in Romania. (There are huge differences between these two cities, but I would say that they are in that matter both more different from Berlin than they differ from each other. And please note: I am not saying that I didn't or don't trust anybody there or that I have felt or feel I shouldn't.) How often have I been told in Bucharest to trust no one – the least if people appear friendly. And in Lusaka, in the few days that I have been staying here, I have already seen a couple of written advices to that effect (one sticker, for example, in a minibus reading “I know you look trustworthy, but I also know I can’t trust you”) and have been told countless times to be very careful with strangers. In short, nobody seems to trust anybody else, if they don't happen to have a shared history.
Now, I can’t
say “this is why”, but it is astonishing how little seemingly easy cooperation
is possible among people with similar interests in Lusaka. Taxi drivers, for
example, seem incapable to jointly finance a person taking calls and then coordinating
the drivers, although it would be tremendously more efficient to do that than
always have to drive a triangle (from where the taxi driver is based to the
place he is picking you up and on to the place you want to get to and then back
again where the taxi driver is stationed) with only one third of it being paid
by the customer - all because they each have only a couple of customers that call them. If you ask them why there is no call center, they seem puzzled
as to how this should be organized – couldn’t it then be that the call center
agent is giving all the customers to one single driver (and getting some extra money from that driver in return)? The same happens if you want to make a deal with a taxi driver - "give me a good price and I will keep calling you" - doesn't happen. Who knows whether you gonna call again? (Why this is all about taxi drivers? It's basically the only people here I have to cooperate with and I am not at the same time embedded in a common network with.)
I know this
is no convincing evidence for my train of thought, but this is a blog and not a PhD thesis. Stay tuned :)
Hi Wolfgang,
ReplyDeletefirst of all: I'm impressed by your english! I didn't know you had such a good command of it. Where did you learn to write like that?
And just a comment on the trust issue: The more people you have with little money and the worse the wellfare system is working (if there is one at all) the more probability there is that people try to improve their lives illegally. It actually makes a lot of sense. No wonder there is more trust between people in Berlin: few need to "improvise" to make a living because they are taken care either because they have a job or the get social wellfare. Thats why you dont find so many walls and dogs and guards here in Prenzlberg ;o)
Greetings to the south from a too cold Berlin!
Charlotte
It's one of those hen and egg problems - because you could also argue that where there is no trust, there is no cooperation - and running a larger community that extends beyond personal networks (not to speak of a modern nation state) requires a lot of cooperation. And thanks for the kudos :)
ReplyDeleteIt would make an interesting study: does willingness to cooperate correlate with wealth?
ReplyDeleteAnother thesis: groups develop trust over time, and Lusaka is a younger community than Berlin / Prussia / Germany.
@Victor: Yes, I think it has something to do with the age of communities. Maybe mistrusting strangers is the natural state of mind - after all, before the advent of cities, people used to live in communities with relationships that were all based on personal acquaintance. And every stranger was highly likely a potential threat to the community. Maybe living in the city requires a lot of adaptation in this regard: Due to the huge number of people you meet in your everyday life you have to start judging with whom to cooperate based on generic features and not on your personal knowledge about a person. After a long time, Axelrod's winning strategy - tit for tat - spreads among the population and prevails. Now, Bucharest and Lusaka are both cities that grew very quickly in a very short period of time. That is, most of the inhabitants are first generation city dwellers - their families only recently moved from usually very small and relatively isolated communities into big cities. That is, it's old habits of mistrust of strangers yet prevailing in these cities.
ReplyDeleteSomebody should write a thesis about that.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure about any of this - the presence of trust in Western societies or the lack of trust in Lusaka (or the lack of radio-controlled cabs - there is one company doing this, I'll give you the number - and I suspect this has much more to do with technology and licensing arrangements than anything else).
ReplyDeleteOne counter-example, how do you get home in the middle of the night from a party in Lusaka? You don't need a radio-controlled cab because if you hang your arm out as you walk down the road, the first passing stranger will pick you up. With a minimum of negotiaiton, as everyone knows the going rates, you're off home. Every car is a taxi where everyone is keen to make money by giving strangers lifts. Most people have to hitch-hike to get around Africa. Most Westerners would consider similar behavious in their own societies the height of stupidity. Here's the state-sponsored fear-mongering we put up with in London in relation to the same thing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/4470783/.
I rather suspect in poorer communities it is more necessary to trust and co-operate to get anything done precisely because of the absence of bureaucratised systems. The important point thought is that bureaucratised societies do not operate on the basis of trust - for Weber the state's impersonal violence underpins the regulations that enable modern citizens to co-operate without trusting.