I am on holiday in Bavaria, where, in between the beer and schnitzels, I have been contemplating the nature of trust. A rather old-fashioned guest house happily took our reservation and let us run up a bill of nearly Euro1,000 without ever demanding more than a signature. Not for the Bavarians the pre-authorised credit card. Our room keys were stored in an unlocked cabinet in a quiet corridor, along with the keys of every other guest in the place. It made me wonder why anyone was bothering with keys in the first place. Nevertheless, our belongings were not stolen and we paid our bill when we left. The trust had been justified.

我正在德国巴伐利亚州度假，在享用啤酒和炸肉排的间隙，我思考起信任的本质。一家相当老式的旅馆欣然接受了我们的预定，只让我们签了个名，就允许我们欠下快1000欧元的房费，看来预授权信用卡在巴伐利亚州毫无用武之地。我们的房间钥匙与其他所有客人的钥匙都放在一个柜子里，柜子没上锁，置于一条僻静的走廊里。我不禁好奇：大家还需要钥匙干嘛？尽管如此，我们的随身物品没有被盗，我们离开时也付清了房款。这份信任没有被辜负。

Since Germany is one of the most successful economies in the world and Bavaria is one of the most successful economies in Germany, the thought did cross my mind that trust might be one of the secrets of economic success. Steve Knack, an economist at the World Bank with a long-standing interest in trust, once told me that if one takes a broad enough view of trust, “it would explain basically all the difference between the per capita income of the United States and Somalia”. In other words, without trust — and its vital complement, trustworthiness — there is no prospect of economic development.

鉴于德国是全球最成功的经济体之一，而巴伐利亚州又是德国经济最成功的行政区之一，我脑子里确实冒出了这样一个想法：信任或许是经济成功的秘诀之一。世界银行(World Bank)经济学家史蒂夫•克纳克(Steve Knack)长期思考信任这件事，他曾告诉我如果以足够广的角度看待信任，“信任基本能解释美国与索马里人均收入的全部差距。”换句话说，没有信任——以及它的关键补充，守信——经济就不可能发展。

Simple activities become arduous in a low-trust society. How can you be sure you won’t be robbed on the way to the corner store? Hire a bodyguard? (Can you trust him?) The watered-down milk is in a locked fridge. As for something more complex like arranging a mortgage, forget about it.

在一个低信任度的社会里，简单的活动都会变得很费力。你怎么能确定去街角商店的途中不会被抢劫？雇保镖吗？（这个保镖可信吗？）这就像把兑了水的牛奶放在上锁的冰箱里，再怎么谨防都无济于事。至于安排抵押贷款这种更复杂的事，干脆就别想了吧。

Prosperity not only requires trust, it also encourages it. Why bother to steal when you are already comfortable? An example of poverty breeding mistrust comes from Colin Turnbull’s ethnographic study The Mountain People (1972), about the Ik, a displaced tribe ravaged by Ugandan drought in the 1960s. If Turnbull’s account is itself trustworthy (it may not be), in the face of extreme hunger, the Ik had abandoned any pretence at ethical behaviour and would lie, cheat and steal whenever possible. Parents would abandon their own children, and children betray their own parents. Turnbull’s story had a horrific logic. The Ik had no hope of a future, so they saw no need to protect their reputation for fair dealing.

经济繁荣不仅需要信任，也促进信任。一个人要是生活优渥，干嘛费那个劲去偷？科林•特恩布尔(Colin Turnbull)在1972年出版了一本关于Ik部落的人种志研究著作——《山民》(The Mountain People)。这本书提供了一个“贫穷滋生怀疑”的例子。20世纪60年代，乌干达旱灾重创这个流离失所的部落。如果特恩布尔的描述本身可信（可能并不），面对极端饥饿，Ik人抛弃了一切道德伪装，只要有机会就撒谎、蒙骗和偷窃。父母会抛弃子女，孩子会背叛双亲。特恩布尔的故事有个可怕的逻辑：Ik人对未来不抱希望，因此他们认为没必要维护自己公平处事的名声。

One of the underrated achievements of the modern world has been to develop ways to extend the circle of trust by depersonalising it. Trust used to be a very personal thing: you would trust your friends or friends of friends. But when I withdrew Euro400 from a cash machine, it was not because the bank trusted me but because it could verify that my bank would repay the money. This is a cold corporate miracle.

现代社会一项一直被低估的成就是，想出各种方法，通过去除信任的私人属性，来扩大信任圈。信任曾是件非常私人的事，人们只会信任自己的朋友或朋友的朋友。但当我从一台取款机提取400欧元时，并不是因为这家银行信任我，而是因为它可以证实我的银行会偿还这笔钱。这是个冰冷的企业奇迹。

Over the past few years, people have been falling in love with a hybrid model that allows a personal reputation to work even between strangers. One example is Airbnb, which lets people stay in the homes of complete strangers, a considerable exercise of trust on both sides. We successfully used it on another stop in our Bavarian holiday. Airbnb makes personal connections but uses online reviews to keep people honest: after our stay, we reviewed our host and he reviewed us.

过去几年，人们喜爱上了一种混合模式，它让个人信誉在陌生人之间也能够发挥作用。一个例子就是Airbnb，它让人们住进陌生人家中，这需要房东和房客双方都付出极大的信任。我们在巴伐利亚度假时，顺利地用Airbnb在另一处落脚点订到了房间。Airbnb上的联系是私人之间的，但它用在线点评来让人守信——退房后我们点评了房东，他也点评了我们。

To enthusiasts for “collaborative consumption”, the next step is to develop systems that allow users to take the reputation they have built up as a generous and conscientious Airbnb host, and to use it to convey that they are also a prompt and careful Lyft driver or a reliable and honest eBay seller.

在“协同消费”的爱好者看来，下一步就是开发各种系统，让用户能用上他们在当Airbnb房东时建立起来的大方、负责等信誉，并用这些信誉来表明，他们同样是一位守时、细心的Lyft司机，或一位可靠、诚实的eBay卖家。

But designing such a system is problematic. Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow posited a purely reputational currency in his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003). Such currencies, he says, are easily manipulated by con artists and extortionists. We’re misunderstanding the reason that eBay and Airbnb work, says Doctorow. It’s not because of the brilliance of the online reputation system but “because most people aren’t crooks”, an idea any Bavarian hotelier would understand.

但设计这样一个系统会带来问题。科幻作家科里•多克托罗(Cory Doctorow)在2003年出版的小说《魔法王国受难记》(Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom)中，假设了一种纯粹的信誉货币。按照他的说法，这种货币很容易被骗子和敲诈者操纵。多克托罗说，我们误解了eBay和Airbnb的模式行得通的原因。它们之所以行得通，不是因为互联网信誉系统的伟大，而是“因为大多数人都不是骗子”——巴伐利亚所有旅馆老板都明白这点。

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Personalised trust has never been fairly distributed. When Harvard Business School researchers Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca and Dan Svirsky conducted field experiments on Airbnb, they found that both hosts and guests were discriminating against racial minorities. Other researchers have found evidence of discrimination in places from Craigslist to carpools. New online tools are giving us the ability to treat faraway strangers as though they were neighbours — and we do, in good ways and in bad.

私人属性的信任从来不是公平分配的。当哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)研究员本杰明•埃德尔曼( Benjamin Edelman)、迈克尔•卢卡(Michael Luca)和丹•斯维尔斯基(Dan Svirsky)在Airbnb上做田野实验时，他们发现房东和房客都歧视少数族群。其他研究人员已找到证据证明许多地方都存在歧视——从Craigslist到carpools。新的网络工具让我们能像招待自己的邻居那样招待远方的陌生人，而我们确实做到了——有好处也有坏处。

Trust is as unfairly granted in Bavaria as anywhere else. While browsing for shades in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I warned my young son not to play with the merchandise: a sign forbade children to touch the sunglasses.

在巴伐利亚，信任的分配像在其他任何地方一样不公平。在加尔米施-帕滕基兴(Garmisch-Partenkirchen)逛墨镜店时，我警告小儿子不要去玩货架上的商品，店里有个标志写着禁止儿童触碰太阳镜。

The shopkeeper bustled over and reassured me that the rule did not apply to my son. “It’s for the Arab kids,” she told me, beaming. “They just drop the sunglasses on the floor.”

店主匆匆过来告诉我不用担心，说这条规定并不适用于我儿子。她笑容满面地对我说：“这是针对阿拉伯小孩的。他们总是把太阳镜丢到地上。”

Ah. My son is adorably blond but he is as capable of snapping a pair of designer sunglasses as any other four-year-old. Trust is sometimes given to people who do not deserve it. And it is often withheld from people who do.

这样啊。我儿子是个可爱的金发小男孩，但他像所有四岁小孩一样有本事弄坏一副名牌太阳镜。人们有时会信任不值得信任的人，又往往不信任值得信任的人。