Loyalty is economic capital: The new economy of broken promises – when everyone only looks out for their own advantage

More control, less trust: What the loss of loyalty costs the economy

Why loyalty is becoming an underestimated asset for companies and states

Loyalty sounds to many like a value from another era. In an economy that rewards flexibility, competition, and quick decisions, long-term commitment often seems dispensable. But trust and reliability are more than moral ideals: they reduce costs, facilitate investment, and enable cooperation over extended periods. When they are lost, controls, safeguards, and short-term thinking increase—with consequences for companies, employees, governments, and entire supply chains.

This is precisely the paradoxical crisis of our time: Almost all actors have good reasons to protect themselves first. Companies demand commitment, but often treat their employees as variable costs. States demand solidarity from partners, but keep their own options open. And citizens expect efficient institutions, while their trust in their fairness and reliability is waning. What seems reasonable for the individual can collectively create a costly system of mistrust.

Loyalty in this context means neither blind obedience nor the abandonment of one's own interests. It refers to the willingness to stand by a relationship, even if a short-term advantage might tempt one to break a promise – while simultaneously ensuring fair rules, participation, and the possibility of dissent. This article explores why this invisible capital is so important for the economy, how its loss changes companies and international relations, and what conditions can restore trust.

If everyone only saves themselves, the system will ultimately collapse

Loyalty is often seen as a soft value from a supposedly more manageable past. In a present that celebrates efficiency, flexibility, and individual choice, it quickly appears sentimental, conservative, or even suspicious. But this view underestimates its economic function. Mutual loyalty is not a moral luxury, but a productive infrastructure. It reduces control costs, facilitates investment, stabilizes expectations, and enables cooperation over long periods. Where it is lacking, contracts must become more detailed, controls tighter, reserves larger, and relationships shorter-term. This not only increases direct costs but also changes the behavior of all involved.

The current crisis, therefore, is not simply that people, companies, or states have become more selfish. Self-interest has always been a part of economic activity. What is new is the consolidation of a system in which almost all actors see reasonable grounds for securing their own advantage first, while at the same time hardly anyone is willing to bear the costs of maintaining the stability of the overall system. States expect reliability from their partners but keep their own options open. Companies demand commitment but increasingly treat employees as a variable cost item. Employees desire security but are unwilling to make long-term commitments. Societies expect efficient institutions but withdraw trust, resources, and room for maneuver from them. Thus, many individually understandable decisions result in a collectively damaging outcome.

The problem can be described as a crisis of mutual loyalty. This doesn't mean unconditional obedience or an obligation to cover up bad decisions. It means the reliable expectation that partners, institutions, and groups will remain committed to a relationship even when another path seems more advantageous in the short term. This expectation is the foundation of any long-term cooperation. When it erodes, dependence is no longer understood as a mutual division of labor, but as a threat. Trust turns into caution, caution into security, and security into isolation. This is precisely where the economic and political explosiveness of this development lies.

Loyalty is economic capital

In economics, trust is often treated as a component of social capital. This term refers to the relationships, norms, and expectations that enable cooperation. This capital isn't reflected on any balance sheet, but it influences virtually every balance sheet item. Where business partners keep their promises, employees take responsibility, and government institutions act predictably, the costs of negotiation, contract drafting, monitoring, and enforcement decrease. Decisions can be made more quickly, knowledge shared more openly, and investments with longer payback periods can be undertaken.

Low trust produces the opposite effect. Companies demand higher risk premiums, implement additional control mechanisms, diversify suppliers even if it is more expensive, and maintain larger cash or inventory reserves. Employees document every agreement, protect themselves legally, and invest less voluntary energy in an organization whose return on investment seems uncertain. Governments create investment screening, export controls, subsidy programs, and strategic reserves because they no longer trust international dependencies. Each individual measure may be rational. However, in total, a costly apparatus of distrust grows.

Empirical studies link higher trust with lower transaction and monitoring costs, as well as a more efficient allocation of labor, capital, and resources. Positive correlations also exist between trust and productivity, although the causality is not entirely clear. Prosperity can foster trust, while trust simultaneously promotes prosperity. This feedback effect is crucial: high-performing institutions create trust, trust facilitates effective action, and both reinforce each other. Conversely, a negative cycle can develop in which bad experiences lead to defensive behavior, which in turn further weakens the system's performance.

Loyalty is the temporal dimension of trust. Trust answers the question of whether an actor will act reliably today. Loyalty answers the more difficult question of whether they will remain committed to the relationship tomorrow, when prices, power dynamics, or alternatives change. Investments in education, research, infrastructure, supply chains, or international security architectures, in particular, require this temporal reliability. Without it, economic relationships become shallower, more interchangeable, and more short-term. The market will continue to function, but it will generate more friction and less shared learning.

Reasonable self-interest becomes a collective trap

The crisis arises not because everyone involved acts irrationally, but because individual and collective interests diverge. A company improves its key performance indicators in the short term by cutting staff, postponing investments, or putting more pressure on suppliers on price. An employee improves their negotiating position by regularly testing the market and not completely tying their knowledge to their employer. A state increases its freedom of action by interpreting rules flexibly, shifting costs to partners, or using strategic dependencies as leverage. But if everyone acts this way, the willingness to invest, share, and bear risks collectively decreases.

Game theory describes such situations as cooperation problems. The best joint solution requires that actors encounter each other repeatedly, receive information about their behavior, and that credible consequences exist for breaking promises. Without these conditions, opportunism becomes attractive. While repeated relationships are ubiquitous in modern economies, digitalization, global mobility, rapid capital flows, and political polarization seem to shorten the duration of many partnerships. Those who believe they can replace a partner at any time tend to undervalue that partner's long-term trust.

Furthermore, there is an asymmetrical perception. One's own opportunistic behavior is interpreted as a necessary reaction to uncertainty, while the same behavior in others is seen as proof of a lack of loyalty. A company might call layoffs adaptability, but interpret a high performer's job change as a lack of commitment. Governments describe their own subsidies as resilience policies, while viewing other countries' programs as unfair competition. Employees expect transparent career paths, yet they are reluctant to change jobs. This not only fosters mistrust but also moral outrage.

The real danger lies in the transition from situational mistrust to a general expectation. As soon as actors assume that, in times of doubt, everyone is only looking out for their own advantage, defensive behavior becomes the norm. Contracts replace relationships, control replaces responsibility, and communication strategies replace credibility. The system may appear efficient for a while because reserves and commitment costs are reduced. However, in a crisis, it becomes clear that the supposedly lean structure no longer possesses any reserves of loyalty.

States turn dependency into a weapon

For decades, the international division of labor was based on the assumption that economic interdependence makes conflicts more expensive and thus has a moderating effect. This assumption was not wrong, but it was incomplete. Dependencies can promote peace as long as they are considered reciprocal, rule-based, and fundamentally predictable. If they become highly asymmetrical, they can be used as leverage. Energy, raw materials, semiconductors, data infrastructures, payment systems, cloud services, and sales markets are therefore no longer just economic factors, but instruments of geopolitical power.

This changes the logic of state loyalty. Alliances and partnerships are increasingly evaluated based on the immediate value they provide. Security guarantees, trade access, and technological cooperation appear less as long-term public goods and more as negotiable services. The hegemon asks why it is paying disproportionately for stability. The smaller partner asks whether promises of protection will hold up in a crisis. Both sides are hedging their bets, thereby weakening the very order from which they both benefit.

The costs of widespread geoeconomic fragmentation are substantial. Depending on the assumptions, model calculations range from limited losses to around seven percent of global economic output. If technological decoupling, reduced capital flows, and restricted knowledge transfer are also taken into account, individual countries could be affected even more severely. Small, open economies and low-income states that lack both large domestic markets and the financial resources to develop parallel supply chains and their own technologies are particularly vulnerable.

At the same time, it would be naive to conclude from these costs that a return to the old globalization is warranted. Certain dependencies are indeed dangerous. If a single country or a small group of suppliers controls critical intermediate products, a disruption can affect entire industries. The Eurozone recently sourced about three-quarters of its cobalt imports from Asia; similar concentrations exist for rare earth elements, pharmaceutical ingredients, and semiconductors. An economically sound response is therefore not autarky, but targeted diversification. Resilience arises from multiple sources of supply, storability, recycling, substitution options, and robust partnerships. Total decoupling, on the other hand, would increase costs, stifle innovation, and create new dependencies.

The hegemon is also dependent

In debates about dependency, power is often viewed one-dimensionally. The larger state, the market-dominating corporation, or the dominant platform operator appears as an autonomous actor, while the weaker side is seen as dependent. In reality, even the hegemon relies on cooperation. It needs customers, suppliers, political legitimacy, technical standards, skilled workers, and the voluntary participation of its partners. Power can dictate conditions, but it cannot permanently enforce trust.

This insight is central to the current order. A dominant actor can secure short-term advantages by linking access to markets, technology, or security to political demands. However, the more frequently it does this, the greater the incentive becomes for others to develop alternatives. Using dependency as a weapon thus consumes the dependency itself. States diversify reserves and trading partners, companies develop alternative technologies, and allies seek additional safeguards. The immediate demonstration of power can, in the long run, diminish one's own influence.

Even smaller or dependent actors possess leverage. They can control niches, delay political decisions, block standards, or shift between centers of power. This creates a complex web of mutual vulnerability. Those who interpret this web solely in terms of strength and weakness overlook the value of voluntary compliance. Stable orders are based not only on the ability to sanction rule violations, but also on the fact that those involved perceive the order as beneficial overall.

Therefore, loyalty in international relations is neither romanticism nor subservience. It is the willingness to respect agreed-upon rules even when a short-term deviation would be possible. In return, the order must offer concessions: participation, reliability, a fair sharing of burdens, and the prospect that not every crisis leads to a renegotiation of all fundamental principles. Hegemony without self-commitment breeds resistance. Dependence without participation breeds resentment. Lasting cooperation requires that power be voluntarily limited and dependence politically secured.

Europe's risky path between openness and protection

Europe exemplifies the conflict between economic efficiency and strategic security. The continent benefits greatly from open markets, international value chains, and rules-based trade. At the same time, it is heavily dependent on external partners for energy, raw materials, digital technologies, and military capabilities. This situation is not solely the result of political naiveté. It also arose from an economic division of labor that, for decades, reduced costs and enabled prosperity.

The European response is now shifting from maximum efficiency to a combination of openness, protection, and partnership. The conceptual distinction between risk reduction and decoupling is crucial here. Risk reduction focuses on a few critical areas where supply disruptions or political blackmail could trigger systemic damage. Decoupling, on the other hand, would sever broad economic relationships along geopolitical boundaries. The former can be justified on economic grounds; the latter threatens to undermine the benefits of the single market and the global division of labor.

The investment needs are nonetheless enormous. Additional annual investments of at least €750 to €800 billion are being discussed in Europe for innovation, decarbonization, digitalization, defense, and more resilient supply chains. This scale illustrates that strategic autonomy cannot be achieved through political declarations alone. It requires capital, faster permitting processes, joint procurement, high-performance energy and data networks, and a more integrated European capital market. Above all, it demands internal loyalty: member states must be prepared to limit national advantages in favor of shared economies of scale.

This is precisely where the crisis lies. Governments demand European sovereignty, yet protect national champions. They call for solidarity on security and energy issues, but insist on exceptions when it comes to financing and regulation. Companies desire a large, unified market, while simultaneously pursuing national location policies. The European Union therefore suffers less from a lack of strategic goals than from the gap between common rhetoric and national implementation. Without credible reciprocity, European autonomy becomes a mere collection of expensive individual programs.

Companies demand loyalty and organize interchangeability

Mutual loyalty has also become fragile within the business world. Many companies talk about purpose, culture, and a shared mission, but organize work according to short-term key performance indicators. Employees are expected to think entrepreneurially, take responsibility, and develop an emotional connection. At the same time, they experience restructuring, relocations, fixed-term contracts, standardized performance reviews, and layoffs as normal management tools. The message is contradictory: Be loyal, but don't expect loyalty in return.

The consequences are measurable. Worldwide, the proportion of engaged employees fell from 23 percent in 2023 to 21 percent in 2024 and to 20 percent in 2025. The decline in 2024 alone was associated with an estimated productivity loss of US$438 billion. In Germany, only ten percent of employees were highly emotionally attached to their employer in 2025. Seventy-seven percent showed a low level of engagement. While 56 percent intended to stay with their current employer for at least another year, this figure was 78 percent in 2018. For a three-year period, the intention to remain with the company was 40 percent in 2025, compared to 65 percent in 2018.

These figures should not be hastily interpreted as evidence of a lack of work ethic. Commitment is a relationship, not a one-sided character trait. Employees respond to leadership, development opportunities, fairness, workload, and the perceived future viability of their company. In Germany, in 2025, only 37 percent trusted their employer's financial future. Only 23 percent believed that management would master future challenges, and 18 percent felt inspired by them for the future. Those who have limited trust in such organizations are acting rationally when they consider alternatives.

For companies, this isn't just a personnel issue. High employee engagement reduces absenteeism, turnover, and knowledge loss. In the German survey, absenteeism among highly engaged employees was 41 percent lower than among those without such engagement. Only three percent of highly engaged employees were actively job hunting, compared to 39 percent of those without engagement. Loyalty can therefore be understood as a valuable business asset. However, it doesn't arise from benefits, mission statements, or internal campaigns, but from consistent behavior in challenging situations.

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The psychological contract decides

In addition to the legal employment contract, there is a psychological contract. It encompasses unspoken expectations about what employers and employees owe each other. This includes fair treatment, development, security, recognition, commitment, and the expectation that exceptional performance will not be taken for granted and exploited. This contract is necessarily incomplete. Precisely for this reason, its effectiveness depends on trust and repeated experience.

When the psychological contract is violated, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and trust decline. Simultaneously, intentions to quit, withdrawal, and the tendency to perform only the formally required duties increase. A recent comprehensive meta-analysis of 517 studies shows a clear correlation between perceived breach of contract and feelings of personal hurt. Intentions to change jobs and actual turnover also increase, with the effect on intentions being significantly stronger than on actual departures. This explains why companies can maintain seemingly stable workforces for extended periods, even though the internal cohesion has already eroded.

The loss of voluntary cooperation is particularly problematic from an economic perspective. No contract can fully dictate what knowledge an employee shares, how early they point out a risk, or whether they help a colleague in a critical situation. Innovation, quality, and crisis management rely on behaviors that cannot be completely mandated. If employees are repeatedly disappointed, they don't necessarily withdraw openly. Rather, they reduce the additional contributions that modern organizations depend on.

Leaders often find themselves caught in a loyalty conflict. They are expected to build trust but must also implement short-term targets over which they have no control. Middle management, in particular, bears the brunt of these conflicting strategies. The global decline in employee engagement in 2024 was largely driven by a drop in engagement among leaders; for managers, the figure fell from 30 to 27 percent. When those who are meant to foster loyalty themselves lack faith in the organization's reliability, internal communication loses its credibility.

Short-term thinking erodes previous trust

Modern corporate management favors measurable metrics. Quarterly results, returns, capacity utilization, and short-term savings are easier to assess than trust, learning capacity, or strategic options. This creates a systematic distortion. Reducing staff, inventory, or supplier capacity improves immediately visible key performance indicators. In contrast, the loss of experiential knowledge, resilience, and willingness to cooperate often only becomes apparent years later or during a crisis.

This pattern is criticized as short-term thinking, but the empirical evidence is more nuanced. Weak corporate investment can stem from short-term incentive systems, but also from regulatory uncertainty, low demand, technological disruptions, or a lack of profitable projects. At the same time, research and development spending has increased in many sectors. Not every company that cuts costs is acting short-sightedly, and not every long-term investment is economically sound.

What is crucial is whether organizations consider the full value of their relationships. If an experienced supplier is evaluated solely based on the current unit price, their expertise in quality, flexibility, and crisis support remain invisible. If a workforce is viewed only as a cost center, training and job security appear as a burden. If research is measured solely by short-term revenues, radical innovations lose out to incremental improvements. Short-term thinking is therefore less a question of time horizon than a question of incomplete evaluation.

What's particularly dangerous is that companies can draw on loyalty capital without immediately realizing it. Employees initially persevere despite disappointment, suppliers accept burdens, and customers remain out of habit. Management interprets this stability as confirmation of its policies. In reality, a reserve of trust built up in previous years is being depleted. Once this reserve is exhausted, the system seemingly collapses suddenly: high performers leave, quality declines, suppliers prioritize other customers, and reputation crumbles.

Social cohesion becomes a question of distribution

The crisis extends beyond companies and states. Trust in institutions is closely linked to the perception of economic fairness. In an international survey, 61 percent of people expressed a moderate or strong feeling of being disadvantaged. They believed that government and business made their lives more difficult, served narrow interests, and that the wealthy benefited disproportionately from the system. In Germany, this figure was 69 percent, while average trust in social institutions reached only 41 percent.

This sentiment is not solely a consequence of objective income data. Perceived insecurity often influences trust more strongly than actual income levels. In an OECD survey, on average only 35 percent of people worried about their economic future had a high or moderate level of trust in their national government. Among those less concerned about their economic future, this figure was 52 percent. This illustrates why even countries with moderate growth can experience crises of political confidence: What matters is not just the level of prosperity, but also the expectation of whether security, upward mobility, and fair participation will still be attainable in the future.

On average across 30 OECD countries, 44 percent had little or no trust in their national government, while 39 percent expressed high or moderate trust. Only 30 percent believed that the political system allowed people like themselves to have a say. Similarly, only 30 percent considered it likely that a government would reject a company's request if it contradicted the public interest. Such figures reveal a legitimacy gap: many citizens do not see institutions as neutral intermediaries, but rather as part of a system of asymmetric influence.

The economic consequences are significant. Low trust increases the tendency to circumvent rules, block reforms, and interpret political decisions as attacks by an outside group. Necessary changes in energy, pensions, infrastructure, or digitalization become more difficult because those who lose out lack confidence in being fairly compensated. At the same time, the demand for simple promises of protection grows. This creates a vicious cycle for politics: the lower the trust, the more it must control and compensate; the more complex and expensive the programs become, the less effective the state appears.

Opinions become tactical positions

In a society lacking loyalty, opinions shift. Positions are judged less on their long-term benefit to the community and more on their short-term advantages for one's own group. This applies to political parties as well as associations, businesses, media outlets, and citizens. Arguments are used situationally. Those who criticize subsidies today may demand them for their own industry tomorrow. Those who insist on fiscal discipline from others declare their own spending a strategic necessity. Those who demand transparency in their own case invoke confidentiality.

This opportunistic thinking is not always conscious deception. People process information according to their affiliations and interests. In polarized environments, consistency within the group becomes more important than consistency over time. As a result, public discourse loses its corrective function. Facts are no longer examined collectively but used as ammunition. A willingness to compromise is seen as a weakness, even though complex systems cannot be managed without compromise.

The information landscape exacerbates the problem. Worldwide, roughly two-thirds of respondents worry that government officials, business leaders, and journalists might be deliberately misleading them. Sixty-three percent say it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether news originates from a reputable source or from a deceptive attempt. Where the credibility of intermediaries declines, the value of internal group confirmation increases. This creates markets for outrage, oversimplification, and a perceived certainty.

Economically, this leads to greater uncertainty. Companies are less able to predict political shifts, investors demand higher premiums, and governments must devote more resources to communication and enforcement. The shortening of the time horizon is particularly problematic. If every political majority fundamentally questions previous commitments, infrastructure, energy, and industrial projects lose their planning certainty. The crisis of loyalty thus becomes a crisis of credible promises for the future.

Supply chains reveal the limits of mistrust

Global supply chains make interdependence particularly visible. Intermediate products cross borders multiple times before a final product is created. Trade in intermediate goods connects economic cycles, prices, and production decisions in different countries. This transmits shocks but also enables specialization, economies of scale, and more affordable products. In this context, dependence is neither inherently good nor bad. What matters are concentration, substitutability, and the quality of the relationships.

The pandemic, energy crises, and geopolitical conflicts have demonstrated that maximum efficiency without buffers is vulnerable. Many companies are responding by relying on additional suppliers, more regional networks, and larger inventories. While these measures increase costs in the short term, they can prevent costly production outages. The situation becomes problematic when resilience is equated across the board with reshoring or politically defined friendship. Even friendly nations can be affected by natural disasters, internal conflicts, or their own export restrictions.

Trade data so far indicate a geopolitical reorientation rather than a comprehensive regionalization. Since the start of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, trade between hypothetical geopolitical blocs has grown about four percent slower than trade within these groups. At the same time, there was initially no clear evidence of a widespread wave of nearshoring. Companies are adapting their networks, but they are not completely replacing the global division of labor. This is economically understandable, because new locations require time, capital, infrastructure, and skilled labor.

A robust supply chain therefore needs more than just additional contracts. It requires loyal relationships in which information about capacities, risks, and costs is shared early on. Those who push suppliers to their limits in good times cannot expect preferential treatment during a crisis. Those who exploit customers with artificial bottlenecks will lose market share once things return to normal. Resilience is thus based not only on redundancy but also on reciprocity. The best safeguard is often a partner who recognizes shared long-term value.

Resilience must not become expensive self-sufficiency

The political debate tends toward extremes. On the one hand, there's the notion that markets will solve every supply problem. On the other, there's the demand to produce as many strategic goods as possible domestically. Both positions overlook conflicting objectives. Purely market-driven efficiency can create concentrations whose social costs a company fails to consider. Conversely, national self-sufficiency can tie up enormous resources and weaken the capacity for innovation.

An economically viable resilience strategy must prioritize risks. Critical goods and services are those whose failure would cause significant systemic damage, whose providers are highly concentrated, and which are difficult to replace in the short term. These include certain raw materials, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, energy infrastructure, cloud and communication services, and selected defense technologies. For non-critical consumer goods, the same logic does not justify costly isolation.

Diversification is generally more efficient than autarky. It spreads risks across multiple countries, technologies, and suppliers. Strategic warehouses can bridge temporary disruptions. Recycling and material substitution reduce structural dependencies. Common standards and long-term supply contracts create investment security for new suppliers. In particularly critical sectors, a minimum domestic capacity can be beneficial, but it should be viewed as insurance, not as a general industrial policy principle.

Loyalty remains crucial. Trustworthy partnerships don't arise solely from similar political systems. They require clear rules, a fair sharing of burdens, and the recognition of mutual interests. A state that treats its partners merely as extendable production facilities or sales markets cannot create a resilient alliance. A company that forces suppliers to diversify without sharing the additional costs simply shifts the risk. Resilience is only sustainable if the costs of its development are also shared.

Loyalty needs limits and contradiction

An analysis of the loyalty crisis must not idealize loyalty. Blind loyalty can protect against inefficiency, corruption, and abuse of power. Companies with strong cohesion can suppress criticism. States can demand loyalty to alliances to safeguard decisions that are questionable under international law or economically. Employees, out of a misguided sense of belonging, may accept health risks or unfair treatment. Social groups may combine loyalty to their members with isolation from outsiders.

Therefore, what is economically valuable is not unconditional loyalty, but rather loyalty bound by rules. It ends where fundamental rights, agreed-upon procedures, or the long-term viability of the relationship are violated. Dissent is not the opposite of loyalty. In functioning organizations, it serves as an early warning system. Employees, partners, and citizens who point out errors often protect the institution more effectively than those who remain silent out of opportunism.

The possibility of switching partners remains important. Markets function because customers, employees, and companies have alternatives. A relationship is only truly voluntary and loyal if leaving is fundamentally possible. Without this option, it's more a matter of dependency or coercion. The challenge, therefore, is not to prevent mobility, but to shape the advantages of long-term cooperation in such a way that staying becomes attractive.

A healthy order combines commitment with accountability. It rewards reliability without punishing criticism. It creates opportunities for termination and withdrawal without treating relationships as arbitrary from the outset. It protects investments on both sides and distributes adjustment costs transparently. Loyalty is thus not morally enforced, but institutionally enabled.

Credibility arises in times of crisis

Trust can be built slowly and destroyed quickly. Situations where keeping a promise becomes costly are particularly formative. As long as loyalty costs nothing, it remains just a claim. Only in a crisis does it become clear whether a state stands by a partner, a company by its employees, or an employee by their company. Such decisions shape expectations far beyond the individual case.

For companies, this means not avoiding adjustments, but rather making them fair and transparent. Job guarantees cannot be indefinite when a business model collapses. However, credibility is built when leadership provides early information, seriously considers alternatives, shares the burden at the top, and doesn't fob off those affected with euphemistic communication. Those who demand loyalty in good times must at least demonstrate in bad times that people are not the primary and only variable to be adjusted.

Similar principles apply to states. Reforms can create losers, and not every group can be fully compensated. However, trust increases when decisions are evidence-based, processes are transparent, and burdens are demonstrably balanced. In the OECD survey, only 41 percent believed that governments used the best available data and statistics when making decisions. Only 37 percent trusted them to balance the interests of different generations. These shortcomings cannot be remedied simply by increasing public awareness. What is needed are comprehensible priorities and verifiable results.

At the international level, the reliability of rules is paramount. Sanctions, export controls, and subsidies may be necessary, but their criteria must remain transparent and as predictable as possible. If every economic relationship becomes a tool for political pressure, all actors will take countermeasures. Paradoxically, security then arises not from ever-increasing pressure, but from credible self-restraint.

A new architecture of reciprocity

The crisis of mutual loyalty does not call for a return to rigid, lifelong employment contracts, closed economies, or unchanging alliances. It calls for a modern architecture of reciprocity. This architecture must combine flexibility with reliability. Relationships may change, but the processes of change must be predictable. The costs of adaptation must not be permanently shifted onto the weakest party.

In companies, this begins with realistic promises. Those who cannot guarantee job security shouldn't use a family metaphor. Clear statements about development, fair processes, participation, and support during transitions are more credible. Variable compensation should consider long-term quality, employee development, and resilience, not just short-term financial metrics. Supplier relationships should evaluate not only price and quality but also contributions to innovation, security of supply, and joint risk management.

States need institutions that safeguard long-term commitments across changes of government. Independent courts, robust budget rules, transparent impact assessments, and reliable approval processes are not just good governance; they are the infrastructure for loyalty. Citizens and businesses must be able to trust that rules will not change arbitrarily and that objections will actually be considered. Participation must not be organized as a symbolic hearing, but must demonstrably influence decisions.

Internationally, what's needed is selective, not unlimited, reciprocity. Critical dependencies should be diversified without forcing all trade into political blocs. Alliances require fair burden-sharing and joint investments. Larger powers must recognize that sustainable influence demands self-commitment. Smaller partners, in turn, must assume responsibility and not treat solidarity as a free insurance policy.

The big picture is not an abstract ideal

The demand to keep the big picture in mind can quickly sound moralistic and imprecise. However, it can be made more concrete in economic terms. The big picture consists of the conditions under which individual advantages can be generated sustainably: functioning institutions, reliable infrastructure, qualified people, open knowledge flows, stable supply chains, and a minimum level of societal support. Those who deplete these foundations are not optimizing, but rather dismantling their own environment.

The central task, therefore, is to make the external effects of opportunism visible. If a company avoids investing in training and only poaches skilled workers, it saves costs but weakens the common labor market. If states unilaterally use subsidies, they win projects but fuel costly competition. If citizens demand public services while simultaneously rejecting any funding, the state becomes structurally overburdened. The big picture means incorporating such interdependencies into decision-making.

This requires data, but data alone is not enough. Many conflicts are not problems of knowledge, but of distribution. Those involved understand that cooperation would be beneficial overall, but fear bearing an unfair share of the costs. Trust, therefore, is not built through appeals, but through credible mechanisms of burden-sharing. Anyone demanding sacrifices must explain how the benefits and risks are distributed and what the limits are.

This perspective is therefore neither pessimistic nor nostalgic. Loyalty can be rebuilt when institutions reward repeated cooperation and broken promises have tangible consequences. Companies with good leadership exhibit significantly higher levels of commitment. States with transparent procedures are more likely to gain support for difficult reforms. Supply chains with long-term partnerships react more flexibly to disruptions. These differences demonstrate that mistrust is not an immutable characteristic of modern societies.

Those who only hand out advantages are jeopardizing the future

The crisis of mutual loyalty is at its core a crisis of credible reciprocity. Too many actors demand commitment without wanting to commit themselves. They expect solidarity but keep their own contribution negotiable. They profit from open systems while simultaneously treating their prerequisites as a free given. This behavior may be successful in the short term, but it is not scalable in the long run.

A functioning market economy needs competition, opportunities for exchange, and self-interest. However, it also needs rules, trust, and relationships that aren't reassessed with every price fluctuation. The dichotomy between market and loyalty is therefore artificial. Markets require loyalty wherever contracts are incomplete, investments are long-term, and services can only be produced collectively. The more complex and knowledge-intensive an economy becomes, the more important this invisible foundation becomes.

The right answer is neither moral coercion nor romantic communion. What is needed is a sober economy of reciprocity. Those who expect reliability must themselves act reliably. Those who demand conformity must share risks. Those who claim leadership must set limits. Those who receive protection must make a fair contribution. And those who benefit from the system must invest in its preservation.

This makes loyalty a strategic resource. It doesn't improve every decision or prevent every conflict. But it makes cooperation possible when interests diverge and short-term advantages beckon. It is precisely then that the question arises whether states, companies, and societies merely coexist or remain capable of acting together. An order in which everyone seeks only their own advantage doesn't fail due to a lack of morality. It fails due to excessive costs, insufficient investment, and the inability to shape the future together.

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