Abstract
This paper examines how “commensurate trust” operates in relation to community capital (community-level social capital). Building on extant literature on social capital and networks, we specifically look at the community networks that evolved among the natives of China’s Wenzhou, often referred to as the birthplace of spontaneous capitalism in China. A key is to empirically grasp in depth how community members interact in local contingencies, to form a coherent pattern that may facilitate or inhibit further collective action. To what extent, moreover, is such pattern generation a product of community norms, values and strategies shared by them? How does such pattern generation differ from other communities whose collective performance is less impressive? This study directly addresses these issues with original empirical evidence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, we investigate, at the community level, the emerging networking patterns of Chinese entrepreneurs from Wenzhou, whose striking economic success has been widely noted. In particular, we examine the extent to which Wenzhou entrepreneurs’ community-wide information search and sharing as well as mutual investments on the basis of their commensurate trust, which is reciprocated on an equal footing, is related to Wenzhou’s collective prosperity. We find the type and quality of commensurate trust shared and enjoyed by its exclusionary community members a key to decode the secrets of their success as well as to curb their evolvability.
