The Anthropology of Institutions
The standard story of civilization — small bands, then chiefs, then states — is contradicted by the archaeological record. What actually preceded modern institutions is weirder, and more hopeful.
history-society
Synthesis: Building Trust at Scale
Most of what makes modern life possible is invisible: the trust that a contract will be honored, that money will hold value, that a stranger's credential means something. Building that institutional trust took centuries. Destroying it is much faster — and the damage compounds.
High-Trust vs Low-Trust Societies
You can't build a corporation on a handshake if no one trusts the handshake. Fukuyama's insight: the radius of trust in a society sets a hard limit on what it can build.
Social Capital: Bowling Alone
In 1950, Americans joined things: unions, bowling leagues, PTAs, civic clubs. By 2000, they didn't. Robert Putnam documented the collapse in social capital and showed it tracks with worse governance, worse health outcomes, and deeper political polarization.
Repeated Games: Why Cooperation Emerges
When two parties interact only once, defection pays. But add the possibility of future encounters and the calculus flips. Axelrod's famous tournaments showed that 'Tit for Tat' beats every clever strategy — and explained how cooperation evolves without altruism.
Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons
Garrett Hardin's 'tragedy of the commons' predicted shared resources would always be depleted. Elinor Ostrom's Nobel-winning fieldwork found the opposite: communities routinely develop rules to govern commons sustainably, without privatization or top-down control.
Transaction Costs: Why Firms Exist
Why hire employees instead of contracting every task on the open market? Ronald Coase asked this in 1937; Oliver Williamson spent a career answering it. Transaction costs — negotiation, enforcement, opportunism — explain the boundaries of nearly every organization on earth.