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« New England bleeds blue | Main | Purcell redux » Wednesday, November 8, 2006Capitalism and trustA contributor to the Guardian blog working in the field of "neuroeconomics" (?), Paul J. Zak, has an interesting post about the moral dimensions of capitalism. Not a contradiction in terms, he argues. Zak points out that a market economy relies on a certain web of trust: [The] decentralized delivery of goods relies on employees working for two weeks before receiving a pay cheque, companies offering each other lines of credit, and banks offering bridge loans. Furthermore, Zak says, there are biochemical reasons, or at least incentives, that kick in an a capitalist transaction: "We have found that trust causes a spike in oxytocin and begets reciprocation -- the sharing of money. We are 'wired' to cooperate, and we find it rewarding in the same way that our brains identify eating a good meal or sex as rewarding." Occasionally, about 2% of the time, you run across someone who doesn't provide trust in return for trust, a freeloader. "The technical term in my lab for these people is 'bastards.'"
Posted by Evan Hughes at 04:59 PM
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