Francis Fukuyama is now arguing that the US in now a substantiantively lower trust society than it was in 1995 when he published his second book "Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity."

>In it I argued that trust is among the most precious of social qualities, because it is the basis for human cooperation. In the economy, trust is like a lubricant that facilitates the workings of firms, transactions, and markets. In politics it is the basis for what is called “social capital”—the ability of citizens to cohere in groups and organizations to seek common ends and participate actively in democratic politics.

>Societies differ greatly in overall levels of trust. In the 1990s, Harvard’s Robert Putnam wrote a classic study of Italy which contrasted the country’s high-trust north with its distrustful south. Northern Italy was full of civic associations, sports clubs, newspapers, and other organizations that gave texture to public life. The south, by contrast, was characterized by what an earlier social scientist, Edward Banfield, labeled “amoral familism”: a society in which you trust primarily members of your immediate family and have a wary attitude towards outsiders who are, for the most part, out to get you.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-world-simply-does-not...

Most all of that old rail was done by private companies seeking to make a profit. Just like Japan. Look at nyc subway building rates after it was publicly owned. Almost zero expansion. Contractions even.