One thing the author gets exactly right: loyalty accrues to those who reliably delivers the goods. And the tendency to trust states, companies, unions, or even

One thing the author gets exactly right: loyalty accrues to those who reliably delivers the goods. And the tendency to trust states, companies, unions, or even families by default is busy eroding at a remarkable pace. Different people in different places will find equilibrium in very different ways. Or they won't. In either case, they're unlikely to share a common conception about where it 'should' come from. And once that widely shared framework of "what works for everyone" goes, then the world does look considerably more feudal and transitional than it did a generation ago. In that regard, the 12th Century is a useful source of patterns. So is the late 15th - early 17th. Maybe even more so, since this is when empirical science, truly global trading operations and commercial printers all came to the fore.