A datapoint that points to the contrary:

- Singapore pre-1965 was a low trust, racist society. The tensions were so bad that in 1964 there were racial riots.

- Today, after a lot of immigration, within 1-2 generations, Singapore became a high-trust society.

Similar stories in South Korea and Taiwan. In all 3 cases, the trust came recently, within 1-2 generations, and from different approaches of the state. They combine high institutional trust and the economic prosperity with medium-low interpersonal trust.

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Mountain_Skies 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Singapore isn't high trust. It's brutal authoritarianism that squashes anything that looks remotely disharmonious between groups. High trust doesn't need a government boot stomping in the face of anyone who steps out of line.

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thin_carapace 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

singapore is an authoritarian state (ie. trust is forced) that presents a homogenous population, where after 2 generations of immigration, over three quarters of singapores populace are still ethnic chinese. let us now examine london's population and how it changed within 1 generation. london consisted of 90% ethnic english in the 1990s, nowadays this figure sits around 50%. concurrently, london's trust level and prosperity have become a shadow of their former selves. perhaps this occurred because england was not authoritarian enough?

	▲	317070 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"Ethnic Chinese" is a term covering 1.45 billion people. I don't even know where one would find a definition for "ethnic English", but if you take the NHS' "ethnic British" which ridiculously excludes even Irish heritage, I can see how you'd come to 50%. A reasonable comparison would be to look at "Ethnic European", covering roughly 1.2 billion people. > london's trust level and prosperity have become a shadow of their former selves As someone who traveled the world a bit and lived for a decade in London, I'd beg to differ without further elaboration.