ABSTRACT
Trust is a puzzling entity for social and political theory. It is puzzling because it challenges and yet thrives on individualistic views of the subject: half rational, half emotional, always singular and yet defined by its being amidst other individuals. It is puzzling because it draws attention to different aspects of the social bond, procedural and substantive, which may be conflicting. Finally it is also puzzling because it is experienced, conceived and modelled in different, sometimes irreconcilable, ways and yet it often derives its deeper value from a somewhat universalistic flair. What I propose to do in this paper is to start from Martin Hollis’ framing of the problem of trust in his last work Trust Within Reason (Hollis 1998) and show how his picture may be developed, enriched and, partly, challenged by shaping the agent of trust in the guise of a consumer.
