Protestants practice the Absolute Nuclear Family and the High Trust Society. In the Protestant (northern european) social model, high trust is extended to non-family members. In the catholic countries, they practice the extended family model, and high trust is retained for use only by family members, and not extended to ‘everyone you meet’. This explains the size of statism, and the authoritarianism in France, versus the libertarianism and rate of entrepreneurship in Anglo countries. The lower the trust in your polity, the more demand there is for authority to organize society, organize production and prevent conflicts. The more trust in your society, the less need demand (or need) there is for the authoritarian organization of society and production. This explains the difference between anglo high trust absolute nuclear, and french lower-trust extended families.
Furthermore, as the original question positions, the high trust polity means that it is easier to take advantage of that trust and abuse it. So anglos demonstrate higher Altruistic Punishment of offenders, whereas the French do not.
To French, Anglos appear to be ‘stupid’ and ‘dishonestly friendly’. And treat family members badly To anglos, the French appear to be ill mannered, if not outright rude, coddle laziness in the family; and the government appears to be predatory and corrupt. (In Quebec, it is possibly true.)
SOME INTERESTING DATA
-
In negotiations, who are the least hostile people in the world? Americans, Anglo-Canadians, and Germans. Who are the most hostile people in the world: the French. (The study counts the use of certain categories of words).
-
In Canada, the Anglo immigrants came largely from the lower middle and middle classes. The French citizens of Quebec came disproportionately from the lower classes. This difference in classes provides greater insight into the different cultures than background alone.
Curt Doolittle