Trust in exchange relations as social capital: Exploratory study of informal freight transport

Abstract

As the philosopher Aristotle ascertained 2400 years past, human beings are by nature social creatures. Trust is a social norm that promotes the foundation of relationships among individuals, groups, and other components of a society. It is a by-product of religion, tradition, shared historical experience, and other types of cultural norms. Without trust, a country’s economy cannot perform well, because transaction costs would be too high. Through this study, we attempt to explore the reasons behind the dynamics of informal freight transport in Morocco under the paradox of the total absence of contracts and the increasing regulatory constraints of the sector. For this purpose, both individual interviews of the various informal transporters, and the interpretation methodology were used. The results reveal that the exchange relations of informal freight transport in Morocco, a priori non-contractual, are governed by a “social algorithm” based on interpersonal trust, in lieu of “blind” or “calculative” trust (Williamson, 1973), and which “the Daman” plays the role of a guarantor of the community order (Lkelma, Niya, etc.) rather than the judicial order (contracts, formality, etc.) (Fukuyama, 1995; Balambo & Livolsi, 2010).