When trust falls in the forest, can anybody hear?
National Post, 17 August 2025
Trusting strangers is essential for economics and for politics — really for any civilized order
If trust falls in the forest, but there is nobody there to witness it, does anybody notice?
For a long while now, public opinion data have documented declining levels of trust in government by citizens. That is part of a pattern of eroding trust in all institutions — commercial, cultural, ecclesial.
What happens when governments lose trust in their own people? That seems to be the case in Nova Scotia, where sweeping measures aimed at preventing forest fires have essentially banned freedom of movement in the woods.
Colby Cosh had a bit of sport here with the total ban on arboreal perambulation, fretting about a metal walking pole hitting a rock, creating a spark, igniting the forest and burning down Halifax.
Extreme measures to prioritize safety have been a political and cultural norm for decades. Pandemic restrictions were the most high-profile example, but for decades now, expectant and nursing mothers, universally and scrupulously, avoid even a few molecules of the demon booze, even for years at a time, lest the mere bouquet of a Bordeaux inflict rampaging fetal alcohol syndrome upon their babies.
That’s not a law, but standard medical advice rooted in the premise that mothers cannot exercise good sense and moderation about such things. Don’t blame the doctors entirely either; the cultural enforcement of that norm is fiercely enforced.
The priority of safety over liberty has enjoyed wide popular support for some time — mandatory seat belts, helmets for hockey and cycling, permission slips to pick up children’s friends from school and burdensome measures at the airport. There is little controversy about any of that.
Maritime Canadians appear to enjoy the smack of firm government, delighting as they did with the most severe pandemic restrictions in the country. They were not wholly singular though; it is forgotten now how popular the pandemic restrictions were across the country, with only less enthusiasm in Alberta.
That the Nova Scotia fire restrictions are overkill is really the point. In times of danger, severe measures are required for untrustworthy people. Hence, lockdowns in prisons where there is trouble in the air.
The Nova Scotia government reports that nearly all wildfires are caused by human activity, accidental, not arson. A campfire not properly extinguished, a cigarette butt carelessly thrown away, the hot exhaust of an all-terrain vehicle in the tall, dry grass. It would be possible to ban those things in times of imminent danger, not merely walking in the woods. But the Nova Scotia government does not trust Nova Scotians to refrain from mischief when hiking, so therefore no hiking.
It’s been more than thirty years since Francis Fukuyama published his eponymous book on trust, with a focus on economics. Trust was essential to lowering the transaction costs of trade, Fukuyama observed. The more steps required to verify the trustworthiness of a potential customer or supplier, the more expensive trade becomes, and the less economic activity results. High trust societies can have highly efficient wealth-creating markets. Low trust societies cannot.
At the micro level, online shopping only functions because there is a high level of trust on the part of consumers that they are not going to be swindled by whomever they just authorized to bill their credit card. At the macro level, money itself depends upon widespread trust that the national government and bank will honour the value of currency.
Continue reading at the National Post.