TRUST
Trust /trəst/ : Firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. The foundations of the working of human society are built on trust. This has been so since the beginning of recorded history. As our communities evolved from hunter gatherer groups into agricultural chiefdoms, and ultimately modern states their operation, increasing complexity and success relied not only upon our cultural evolution as posited by Robert Wright in Non-Zero ( Non Zero ) but also upon trust. Trust is integral to our ‘culture.’ The birth of capitalism and the rapid economic and technological growth of the last five centuries began with the pooling of capital used by investors to underwrite a ships trading expedition called the ‘ contratto di commenda ’ . Such ventures could not have happened without the inherent trust that the investors had - that the expedition’s captain would return the profits to the investors. Today we could not conduct our modern li