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In Trust, Francis Fukuyama explains how within a country?s social structures, mutual trust between individuals, social capital, and capitalist economic success go hand in hand, and how crucial they are in the emergence of democracy and collective happiness. This trust, which is closely connected with religious and cultural traditions, would explain why certain countries are more "developed" than others. Fukuyama thus pursues his studies, which are briefly described in The End of History and The Last Man, positing that for the past thirty years, America, which is historically a trusting society, seems to have been threatened from the inside by excessive liberalism, which appears to have exacerbated individualism at the expense of solidarity.