The concept of trust, in the sociological and economic sense, underlies exchange. In the 15th-17th centuries, the Dutch and English dominance of trade owed much to their early development of instruments of credit that allowed merchants to fund and later to insure commercial shipping without the exchange of hard currency, either silver or by physically transporting the currency of the realm. Credit worked because the English and Dutch economies trusted the issuers of credit.

Francis Fukuyama, a philosopher and political economist at Stanford, wrote a book in 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, on the impact of cultures of trust on entrepreneurial growth. Countries of ‘low trust’ have close family culture who limit trust to relations: France, China, S. Italy. Countries of ‘high trust’ have greater ‘spontaneous sociability’ that encourages the formation of intermediate institutions between the state and the family, that encourage greater entrepreneurial growth: Germany, England, the U.S. – I own the book and (shame on me!) haven’t yet read it.

I thought of this article in those contexts – of the general need for trusted institutions and the power they have in mediating an economy, and the fascinating questions raised when a new facilitator of trust is introduced.

How do we trust? Across human history, how have we extended the social role of trust to institutions? If a new modality of trust comes available, how does that change institutional structures and correspondingly the power of individuals, of institutions. How would it change the friction to growth and to decline?

Prior to reading this article, I had dismissed Bitcoin as a temporary aberration, mostly for criminal enterprises and malcontents. I still feel that way. But the underlying technology and it’s implications – now that’s interesting.

Though it may be taken for granted by actors in the sphere of learning in Canada, this factoid can have a large impact in terms of “Canadian Exceptionalism”.

This part I absolutely agree with. However, most of these people would, I suspect, vociferously deny being anarchists, but also claim to be patriots. Perhaps it's worth asking why, if governance itself is not an issue, why these people seem to believe that government cannot scale. It's hard to govern large areas effectively, and in the public interest, but it's not clear that it's impossible.

I have been worried for a little while now about the construction industry in Australia turning their apprentices (heavily subsidised by Govt) into "sub-contractors" once there is no more subsidy available when the apprenticeship is completed.

It means that (often) young people are turfed into the business world with little business acumen, still treating themselves as "employees" of the company/tradesman who indentured their skills learning. Unable to negotiate their own income and terms because of limited financial planning skills.

If apprentices are to be shoved into this world, they are doomed to fail unless they are provided with the adequate business governance learning and advice. Understanding their legal and fiscal obligations as a sub-contractor is vital and being able to say NO to companies who demand rights to monopoly over their contractual services is imperative.

However, we have to be extremely wary of importing too many things from the technology world into governments. "Move fast and break things" is great when you can just roll out a patch, but not so good when it costs a generation their education or health care.