The Importance of High Trust Society

Canadians have always had the worldwide reputation of being nice. Are we too nice? Too tolerant?

In retrospect, I grew up in a very safe neighbourhood. I remember — on more than one occasion — getting my Xbox 360 taken away for accidentally leaving the garage door open over night.

But, nothing ever happened. Nothing was ever stolen from that wide open garage.

I can’t say the same for what might happen now.

Speaking for Canadians here, both reported crime per capita and criminal severity have been increasing for approximately the last decade.

But we’re not alone. The USA and Western Europe have also seen increasing levels of civil disobedience.

Here’s a couple of high profile incidences:

• Venezuelan gangs have taken over apartment complexes in Colorado.

• The UK doesn’t have enough room in its prisons for violent offenders.

  • As a side note, it’s Orwellian that despite the overcrowding they’re throwing people in jail for social media posts.

• Amsterdam is dealing with some wild antisemitic violence.

• Idiots shut down the busiest highway in Canada to drag race and launch fireworks.

• Police departments all over North America are now telling residents to leave keys near the front doors of your home to avoid home invasion.

• Is anyone else getting tired of the Just Stop Oil people gluing themselves to roads and disrupting polite society?

It seems like every week there is a high profile crime ranging from criminal mischief to violent riots.

Availability bias — thanks to social media and speed that information spreads — likely plays a role in how we view the level of crime today.

Despite that bias, there are objective ways your life has gotten worse thanks to the increased prevalence or visibility of crime. Some subtle, others not so subtle.

The burden of eroding high trust society falls on those who uphold rules, not those who break them.

Stop me if any of these sound familiar.

• Increased costs: Business don’t simply allow their margins to worsen due to theft. They increase prices to account for it. Walmart ‘loses’ $1.4B per year due to what’s called shrink (theft, damage, etc.). They don’t pay for it, you do.

• Restricted access: Store closures, locked cabinets, paid shopping carts, pre-payment for gasoline. All symptoms of low trust society.

• Social discord: Public spaces — especially in urban cores — feel less safe, leading to greater isolation. Also, cooperation decreases in communities with lower trust.

• Institutional strain & impunity: Public services and justice systems fail to keep up with case loads. As a result there is either perceived impunity or actual impunity from light-on-crime prosecutors. Even California decided they’ve had enough with the light-on-crime progressive prosecution structure. 70% of Californians voted to be tougher on crime last month with Prop 36.

• Microstress: When’s the last time you street-parked your car and there wasn’t a small thought in the back of your head saying, “I hope no one tries to break into my car while I’m gone.” Or, “I wonder if I should be walking in this part of the city?”

• Cultural value decline: This normalization of unethical behaviour is so common now that I no longer expect anything to be done about it. The guys that shut down the 401 in October? “The OPP is investigating.” How, with multiple social media videos of clear license plate visuals, have there not been any arrests in 2 months?

• Societal Resentment: You probably feel a little pissed off that you’re paying (with higher costs or inconvenience) for other people who are allowed to steal thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, handbags or Apple products from stores with no consequences.

By tolerating the crimes and values that are present in low trust society, we are signalling to impressionable others that this will be permitted now and into the future. Compassion and tolerance for the lowest common denominators — at the expense of societal decline and the 90% of law-abiding citizens — is driving culture off a cliff in a stolen Ferrari.

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