In Bonn, Germany, I noticed a bookcase full of books in the public park where I run, with a young woman removing one book and returning another. These are used books that make up essentially a free voluntary lending library.
Would this cabinet last undamaged in a U.S. city one day? I doubt it. Similar things exist elsewhere — such as outdoor vending machines for DVD’s in Kyoto, Japan. Both of these indicate a certain level of mutual trust in the population and a certain level of civility; both reduce the transactions costs of daily living: easier access to books in one case, 24-hour DVD availability in the other.
Mutual trust is important in reducing transactions costs, and this aspect of culture has been viewed by economists as helping to determine some economic outcomes. (Although how different levels of trust arise has not been considered by the mostly macroeconomists who worry about this; it’s creating trust that seems to me to be the central issue.)
How many other examples like the books and the DVD’s are there in foreign countries that we don’t see at home?
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Redbox approximates the Kyoto DVD machine here in the U.S.
Bryant Park in NYC has books for the public to use…
In the old East Germany, a baby carriage with an infant in it would be left unattended outside of a store while the parent shopped.
We have outdoor dvd rental boxes here in the US, such as Red Box. (I live in Utah: perhaps they are only located indoors back east?)
I live in Shepherds Bush in London, and used to run a shop that sold cheap books from a stand on the sidewalk outside. One day I forgot to bring the stand in overnight, and to my astonishment (in an area where if it isn’t nailed down they’ll nick it) the following morning everything was still there! I believe this has less to do with mutual trust and civility than the fact that there aren’t a lot of readers in these here parts.
Bookshelves like this are common inside of coffee shops in the US. Although enough trust probably doesn’t exist here to have a take-a-book-leave-a-book shelf in a public park, the patrons of small businesses in the US seem to be trusted. The coffee shop patrons are a different sample than those in a public park, and they’re probably more likely to have their actions observed by others.
We do have outdoor DVD vending machines in the US – I have seen them near the entrances of drug stores in Arizona.
DVD vending machines are popping up in the states, it actually seems like they’re more popular in poorer areas.