Study: distrust in government leads to more government.

[Phocion]

A study titled "Regulation and Distrust" has demonstrated that the more individuals distrust certain (usually large) institutions such as government and business, the more they demand regulation. Atlantic summary:

Quote:

People living under the yoke of corrupt governments tend to want … more government regulation. It’s a vicious cycle: in trusting societies, people act civilly and expect less government interference. In distrustful societies, people act selfishly and expect tighter regulation. But more government corruption leads to less-trusting societies, and citizens will generally “prefer state control to unbridled production by uncivil firms”—even when they know their leaders are crooked.

Here are some of the more relevant introductory paragraphs taken from the paper:

Quote:

In a cross-section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital. We document, and try to explain, this highly significant empirical correlation. The correlation works for a range of measures of social capital, from trust in others to trust in corporations and political institutions, as well as for a range of measures of regulation, from product markets, to labor markets, to judicial procedures.

...

The model predicts, most immediately, that distrust influences not just regulation itself, but the demand for regulation...distrust fuels support for government control over the economy. What is perhaps most interesting about this finding, and also consistent with the model's predictions, is that distrust generates demand for regulation even when people realize that the government is corrupt and ineffective; they prefer state control to unbridled production by uncivil firms.

When it comes to distrust of business, it is little surprise that people clamor for regulation, but why would individuals who are distrustful of government desire more involvement by government?

Abstract

In a cross-section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital. We document this correlation, and present a model explaining it. In the model, distrust creates public demand for regulation, while regulation in turn discourages social capital accumulation, leading to multiple equilibria. A key implication of the model is that individuals in low trust countries want more government intervention even though the government is corrupt. We test this and other implications of the model using country- and individual-level data on social capital and beliefs about government's role, as well as on changes in beliefs and in trust during the transition from socialism.

Abstract.

What, if any, are the implications of this? Does this mean, if we discount the variations from country-to-country in this paper, that we should generally be wary of those who claim to have little faith in government?

[Le Pere Duchesne]

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

*trundles out guillotine*
So do we start with the senators, representatives, or career bureaucrats?

[Amongst_many]

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

*trundles out guillotine*
So do we start with the senators, representatives, or career bureaucrats?

Make it a "trickle down" revolution.

[kdogbillion]

Phocion

Abstract

In a cross-section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital. We document this correlation, and present a model explaining it. In the model, distrust creates public demand for regulation, while regulation in turn discourages social capital accumulation, leading to multiple equilibria. A key implication of the model is that individuals in low trust countries want more government intervention even though the government is corrupt. We test this and other implications of the model using country- and individual-level data on social capital and beliefs about government's role, as well as on changes in beliefs and in trust during the transition from socialism.

Abstract.
What, if any, are the implications of this? Does this mean, if we discount the variations from country-to-country in this paper, that we should generally be wary of those who claim to have little faith in government?

Do you have a source for this last claim that we don't have to pay money for to see? Because the data in this document is what makes your argument (the other two points actually suggest that government is more trustworthy than most institutions, specifically businesses in an unregulated market). Without that third point, you present the argument that distrust of businesses leads to more government.

The third source I would question the integrity of, without knowing what resources they use to establish the models they use, to make the very questionable claim that regulation is correlated negatively with social capital. That's a big jump without proof.

[BlueCollarJoe]

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

*trundles out guillotine*
So do we start with the senators, representatives, or career bureaucrats?

Better start with the lawyers or you're going to be twenty years before you get to even oil that damn thing.

[Wraith of Azrael]

It makes some sense.

In a society which has plenty of distrust people don't trust the businesses so they use the government as a way to control the corporations. However, at the same time they don't trust the government so for other things they try to make limited government and limited government intervention.

I tend to compare it to a four way tug of war.

On one side there's corporations
On the other there's not for profit organizations and the people
One the third there's government
and on the fourth there's the unions.

Occasionally one side gets ground.

As long as all tfour work against each other as a balance then everything will be fine.

If one or the other gets lazy the other side gets stronger.

[Less Than Liz]

kdogbillion

Phocion

Abstract

In a cross-section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital. We document this correlation, and present a model explaining it. In the model, distrust creates public demand for regulation, while regulation in turn discourages social capital accumulation, leading to multiple equilibria. A key implication of the model is that individuals in low trust countries want more government intervention even though the government is corrupt. We test this and other implications of the model using country- and individual-level data on social capital and beliefs about government's role, as well as on changes in beliefs and in trust during the transition from socialism.

Abstract.
What, if any, are the implications of this? Does this mean, if we discount the variations from country-to-country in this paper, that we should generally be wary of those who claim to have little faith in government?

Do you have a source for this last claim that we don't have to pay money for to see?

I believe the first link in the post ("Regulation and Distrust" ) is the full ungated study.

[Phocion]

kdogbillion

Do you have a source for this last claim that we don't have to pay money for to see?

Yes, it was my first link. Here it is again.

[Baron von Darrin]

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

I was with you until you implied establishing a new state in its place.

[kdogbillion]

Read through it, thanks. I... have a lot of issues with the study, and how they prepared the model. Why is the survey data in blocks of 4 years, for instance, 1980-83, 1990-93, 2000-3? The survey questions, in the format they were presented (the questions were asked and the economic climate analyzed in a method that lacked any real control varibales), also seemed to lack a significant enough correlation to be anything more than a crude model. Even the conclusion of the document seems to come to the conclusion that the link between free market conditions and political capital has yet to be consistently defined. I mean, I know economics is hardly real science, but these "economic models" seem to be somewhat of a joke. The paper makes the assumption to have this model plausible, that regulation results only in negative market consequences, which is shortsighted at best.

Are these researchers well known?

[Mobilize For War Crimes]

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

*trundles out guillotine*
So do we start with the senators, representatives, or career bureaucrats?

Republicans. Or anyone even slightly right of centre.

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Barron von Darrin

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

I was with you until you implied establishing a new state in its place.

The state is a body which holds a monopoly of legitimate violence withing a given territory. In using that guillotine, or rifle, or grenade, or whatever means you have to destroy the current state and to stop it's supporters from building it up again, you will be creating a new state. It may be looser or not, centralised or not, competent or not, but it is a state, and no amount of Anarchist or semi-anarchoid jargon can change that.

@Crimes:
So start with the democrats and don't stop until gotten rid of the last fascist?

[Baron von Darrin]

Gracchia Saint-Justine

Barron von Darrin

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

I was with you until you implied establishing a new state in its place.

The state is a body which holds a monopoly of legitimate violence withing a given territory. In using that guillotine, or rifle, or grenade, or whatever means you have to destroy the current state and to stop it's supporters from building it up again, you will be creating a new state. It may be looser or not, centralised or not, competent or not, but it is a state, and no amount of Anarchist or semi-anarchoid jargon can change that.

@Crimes:
So start with the democrats and don't stop until gotten rid of the last fascist?

Anarchists do not promote the idea that legitimate use of violence held in monopoly ever has just consequences.

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Barron von Darrin

Gracchia Saint-Justine

Barron von Darrin

Gracchia Saint-Justine

The answer is obvious:
Destroy the state, and make something new that the vast majority of the people will actually trust and want.

I was with you until you implied establishing a new state in its place.

The state is a body which holds a monopoly of legitimate violence withing a given territory. In using that guillotine, or rifle, or grenade, or whatever means you have to destroy the current state and to stop it's supporters from building it up again, you will be creating a new state. It may be looser or not, centralised or not, competent or not, but it is a state, and no amount of Anarchist or semi-anarchoid jargon can change that.

@Crimes:
So start with the democrats and don't stop until gotten rid of the last fascist?

Anarchists do not promote the idea that legitimate use of violence held in monopoly ever has just consequences.

Really? Because last I checked, killing the oppressors, exploiters and their paid agents in civil war is doing just that. "Your violence is wrong, our's is right!" is what you are saying through that very act, and rightly so. So in order to fight a civil war, in order to prevent the oppressive state taking over once again, you need a new state, one based on the entirety of the revolutionary people, armed and mobilised as a whole, expressing their will democratically.

You could say that this could have unjust consequences in the form of tyrany of the majority and whatnot, but in fighting for power you have just exercised your willingness to destroy a given minority to achieve your aims, for the benefite of the infinite majority.

The very logic of revolution implies a new state, and a dictatorship, at that ('unfettered by any laws'). The question is how this revolutionary dictatorship is organised, in who's interests, and all that fun stuff.