Against Egalitarianism

Highly redistributive taxation and left-wing regimes like property-owning democracy and liberal socialism cannot create trust for the right reasons. They are either likely to reduce social and political trust or cannot be publicly justified, or both. For example, property-owning democracy and liberal socialism are likely to sacrifice economic growth, violating the principle of sustainable improvements, and undermining the economic bases for political trust in particular. However, liberal societies can probably increase trust for the right reasons by adopting coercion-reducing policies aimed at compressing economic inequalities, such as reducing local control over residential zoning. The market may also be restricted to protect workers from workplace coercion. This chapter addresses important work on the matter from John Rawls, Thomas Piketty, and Martin Gilens.

Introduction

Based on recent research, there is probably a negative feedback loop between falling social and political trust and rising political polarization, which this book calls the distrust-divergence hypothesis. The goal of the book, as outlined in the introduction, is to show how liberal institutions can interrupt the feedback loop through policies that increase trust, and that do so in the right way. They do so by recognizing and protecting a range of basic rights that give rise to trust-generating institutions and practices, such as freedom of association, markets, social welfare programs, and democratic governance. Liberal institutions can thereby increase trust, and reduce the destructive aspects of political polarization as a result.

Civil Society and Freedom of Association

A right to freedom of association can both be justified to a diverse public, and exercises of that right help create and sustain social and political trust in the real world. Freedom of association can be justified to multiple points of view, both liberal and illiberal, to protect the pursuit of diverse forms of life. It creates real trust by putting people in contact with other members and with nonmembers. It creates trust for the right reasons because the recognition, protection, and exercise of the right of association serve as public evidence of the trustworthiness of association members and governments that recognize and respect and protect the rights of associations members. Since freedom of association creates trust for the right reasons, it can help arrest falling trust and increasing polarization.

Elections and Process Democracy

This chapter attempts to show that electoral rights, rights to participate in the selection of political officials, create trust for the right reasons. Electoral rights and the resultant democratic practices help to sustain social and political trust in the real world. They are also publicly justified to a diverse public. The arguments herein also support a new kind of democratic theory: process democracy, which seeks to structure different stages of the democratic process in accord with different democratic values. This chapter addresses important work on democratic theory, such as the recent work of Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels and recent developments in designing deliberative institutions.

The Welfare State

The market economy plays a central role in establishing trust for the right reasons. However, a completely free-market economy cannot be justified to nonlibertarians. Most people will endorse some regulations on market activity, and redistributive policies are necessary to improve well-being and deliver economic justice for all. For this reason, some institutions of the welfare state can be publicly justified. We will also see that welfare state measures meant to guarantee economic security have trust-generating properties in the real world, in part because they help spread economic prosperity and economic security to all. So certain aspects of the welfare state should promote trust for the right reasons.

Must Politics Be War Here and Now?

As argued in Must Politics Be War?, it is feasible for some societies to avoid a warlike politics through the appropriate cultivation of social and political trust. This involves establishing societal rules that are mutually acceptable, that is, publicly justified, for each group. These rules prod diverse people to act in ways that signal their fundamental trustworthiness to one another, creating trust between different persons otherwise inclined to tribalism and conflict. These rules, however, must also create trust in the real world with real people, increasing trust for the right reasons. In this way, the aim of this book is to show that some liberal institutions create trust for the right reasons between diverse persons. It is, in this way, also a defense of a form of public reason liberalism.

Epilogue

The epilogue reviews the argument of the book and explores how to restore trust and contain polarization. We can interrupt the negative feedback loop between distrust and partisan divergence through policies firmly within the liberal democratic toolkit. Freedom of association, markets, the welfare state, democratic governance, and elections have all been shown to promote trust for the right reasons. The epilogue also argues against right-wing and left-wing populism on the grounds that departures from liberalism are likely to make matters worse; the trust-generating properties of liberal institutions may be lost in a transition to a more populist regime, be it left-wing or right-wing.

Democratic Constitutionalism

To create trust for the right reasons, states should organize their lawmaking process to conform to democratic constitutionalism. Democratic constitutionalism holds both that the legislative process should appeal to extensive citizen input, and that government officials should convert citizen input into policy via processes that are predictable, effective, and neutral between citizens. It turns out that many elements of democratic constitutionalism create real trust, and that democratic constitutionalism can be publicly justified. We will also see that democratic constitutionalism is the most important factor in disrupting distrust and divergence, in no small part because it is the prime factor determining levels of trust in government.

The Market Economy

The market economy can create trust for the right reasons. Markets and property rights promote social and political trust in the real world by creating social cohesion through exchange and generating economic growth. Markets also arise from private property rights, which are publicly justified based on the essential role private property rights play in protecting individual rights and the rights of associations. This includes private property rights in capital, that is, productive property, which means that a broadly market-based economy will be a central feature in any society that maintains high levels of social and political trust in the right ways.

Social and Political Trust

This chapter draws on the extensive empirical literatures on trust in the social sciences in order to explore how to create and maintain social and political trust in the real world. The overall conclusion of this chapter is twofold. First, social and political trust are critical social achievements for sustaining a diverse social order, but social trust is more important than political trust. Second, liberal-democratic market institutions play a modest role in sustaining social trust, and a large role in sustaining political trust. We can conclude, then, that liberal democratic market societies are part of a positive causal feedback loop that sustains trusting social orders with diverse persons who disagree. That is how we get trust for the right reasons.