Car Rental and Social Capital: Help!

April 26, 2009 6:15 PM

Looking for source of an anecdote about social capital and trust. It involves renting a car: and apparently, in some developing countries (or possibly rural China?) where there are low levels of trust of outsiders, people at first found even the idea of renting a car implausible because they can't see why you would let a stranger drive away with your car or why you would return the car to a stranger you will never see again.

Google has provided no answer. The anecdote was used to illustrate the way modern market societies rely on trust between strangers in numerous ways (with obvious checks and balances, like a credit card!)... does anyone have any idea where this might have come from?

posted by Maias to society & culture (5 comments total)

There's a quote "In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car" that is attributed to several people. Article here.
posted by Frank Grimes at 6:20 PM on April 26

Ah thanks... that's interesting but it isn't exactly what I was looking for, as this anecdote is actually about rental car availability actually being a sign of trust-- not about them as an example of people not caring. The anecdote definitely had a Tom Friedman feel though...
posted by Maias at 6:25 PM on April 26

Years ago, Brad DeLong had a brief post referencing Tom Friedman's citation of Larry Summers' use of the phrase Frank Grimes mentions. Quite a lot of people offered (often amusing) contradictory evidence.
posted by DavidNYC at 6:32 PM on April 26

This Washington Post article about the Madoff scheme? It's about buying a car, not renting, but I think it's similar.
posted by fings at 7:59 PM on April 26

Thank you, thank you so much... it's gotta be from Fukayama, whom she cites in the piece as having made the case earlier, and he probably used the car rental instead of buying.
posted by Maias at 8:26 PM on April 26