Social trust is a barometer for the health of society. A trusting society is more energetic, more collaborative, and more hopeful. America, unfortunately, is going in the wrong direction.

Social distrust is a kind of cancer, causing gears to grind ever more slowly. David Brooks, in his farewell New York Times column, connects Americans’ “loss of faith” in each other with their loss of hope for the future—over two-thirds of Americans say they no longer believe in the American dream.

How does America pull out of this downward spiral of distrust? Accepted wisdom is that America is just too diverse. But America has thrived with diversity since the latter half of the nineteenth century, and surveys suggest that Americans of diverse backgrounds still share basic values such as truthfulness, reciprocity (“Do unto others …”), and respect for the common good. 

Philip K. Howard, a graduate of Taft prep school, Yale and the University of Virginia School of Law, says he never wore “white bucks.” This 1950s campus fashion waned before he matriculated. Those buckskin shoes were popular among young blades destined to become “white-shoe lawyers” at prestigious “white-shoe law firms,” such as Covington & Burling, where Howard, 76, is senior counsel.

He also is a genteel inveigher against the coagulation of American society, which is saturated with law. In his new book “Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America,” he argues that law’s proper role is preventing transgressions by authorities, not micromanaging choices so minutely that red tape extinguishes individual responsibility and the social trust that individualism engenders.