It seems, for example, to bring to mind the situation of the person who does not check what others have worked out, or the kind of person who measures the political system according to his own individual expectations about decisions, or the situation of the person who can satisfy an individual set of needs with the help of money. On the other hand, trust in the large reduction mechanisms is so inevitable that it does not need to be consciously perceived as a subjective activity which one can continue or drop, as in the case of personal trust. Thus system trust hardly becomes an open matter for public discussion, and, again, the fact that it is something latent helps maintain its integrity.

DEFINE: Contrasts system trust (trust in large reduction mechanisms) with personal trust, explaining why system trust is rarely consciously perceived or publicly debated.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 231