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OSMAN ELDEŞ
Fred Reece
Comm. 101- 18
01/12/2008
Effects of Spontaneous Sociability on Economic Prosperity
In today’s economy, human relations have really important position. These relations
are established by social values like honesty, reliability, cooperativeness and sense of duty
to others. These values, together, crate the high level of trust which forms spontaneous
sociability. Spontaneous sociability is the ability to quickly and easily form cooperative
relationships with other people, particularly strangers. In “Friction-Free Economies”,
Francis Fukuyama argues that modern institutions like contract and commercial law are
necessary but not sufficient for modern prosperity, so there has to be also spontaneous
sociability. Because spontaneous sociability is the ability to form cooperative relationship
with other people, it is automatically related to prosperity of economy. I agree that high
levels of spontaneous sociability are a necessary feature in a modern prosperous economy,
because it makes business relations better, decreases expenditures and prevents cheats.
One of the reasons why a high level of spontaneous sociability is a necessary feature
for modern prosperity is that it makes business relations better. People do business with
people they trust, because by doing so they don’t have to be afraid of being cheated and
they feel better able to work. Thus we can easily say that trust determines people with
whom we do business. Fukuyama says that people trust each other if they share a set of
moral values. In communities which have high standards for community membership,
people have strongest internal ties but they also have weakest external ties (27). However;
in communities with high level of spontaneous sociability, people have stronger external
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ties in addition to internal ties, so high level of spontaneous sociability provides two
important factors, having large business network and being more enterpriser, for modern
prosperous economy.
In business life, there are lots of expenditures and one of the most important points of
having better business is decreasing these expenditures. A contract, which makes people
spend money and time for preparations, takes really great part of business life because if
people believe in each other or not, they make contract to be protected from cheats. If
people do business with no trust, they are more afraid of being cheated, so they make long
and detailed contracts. The less people trust their business associate, the more they work on
contracts. As Fukuyama says “If we had to approach every contract with the assumption
that our partners would try to cheat us if they could, we would have to spend a considerable
amount of time bulletproofing the document to make sure that there were no legal
loopholes by which we could be taken advantage of.” (25) Working on contracts makes
people lose a large amount of money and time by such as hiring good lawyers. Conversely,
if associates believe in each other’s honesty which is one of the characteristics of
spontaneous sociability, then they don’t have to work on contract, so one of the business
outgoings will be decreased.
There are other outgoings such as traveling costs in business life besides contracts
costs. In today’s global economy, people usually have to travel a lot for business because
having large business networks, one of the most important points of better business,
requires lots of travels which sometimes can be really expensive. The reason for why better
business requires lots of travel is distrusting people. For example; if companies do business
with foreign companies, they want to check products if there is a problem about products or
not before they buy them, so they travel there for checking product by spending money.
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However; if companies believe in each other’s honesty, then they don’t have to travel as
much, and they can do business simply by talking by phone or internet, so traveling costs
will be decreased.
Another reason why high levels of spontaneous sociability are a necessary feature for
modern prosperity is its effects on free-rider problem. A free-rider is a person who gains
interests from organization without making any effort for organization well-being. The
cabs, which are called pirate cabs by society, are really good example for free riding,
because they don’t pay their commercial-vehicle tax but they earn money by driving on
road which is built by spending money people pay as tax. Fukuyama says that as the size of
organization increases, the tendency toward free riding increases, because it becomes more
difficult to identify individuals who are free-riders. (28) Detecting free-riders in larger
groups is difficult. If the free riding problem is to be solved, then people’s thoughts about
gaining interest from organizations have to be changed because the main reason why people
become free-rider is that people usually put their own interests ahead of organizations’. For
changing people’s thoughts, they have to have high level of spontaneous sociability as
Fukuyama says “The problem of free riding could be mitigated in another way, however, if
the group possessed a higher degree of social solidarity.”(29) Because people, who have
high level of spontaneous sociability, have some social virtues such as honesty and sense of
duty to others. If a person is honest, he or she knows that making benefits from other
people’s effort is a bad behavior. In the same way, if a person have sense of duty to others,
he or she thinks that the organization’s interest is not only economic, it is also necessary for
all people so he or she doesn’t put its own interest ahead of organization’s. Consequently,
the problem of free riding will be solved by having high level of spontaneous sociability.
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In conclusion, having high level of spontaneous sociability protects prosperity of
economy from bad factors by reducing them such as business outgoings or solving them
such as the problem of free riding and also it adds some good factor for economic
prosperity like creating larger business networks, so high levels of spontaneous sociability
are a necessary feature for economic prosperity.
“Friction-Free Economies”
Fukuyama, Francis. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Property. New
York: The Free Press, 1995. 43-48.