The economic crisis that has engulfed the world is largely due to the erosion of people’s trust in interpersonal relations, business and public space, claims a well-known British historian. For many decades, governments of market economies relied on the ‘invisible hand of the market’ as a universal regulator of economic and social processes. As a result, profit and material consumption have become the main motivation of business and the meaning of life, replacing moral and ethical guidelines. The author is convinced that without realising the role of trust and its return to the socio-economic sphere of human interaction, the world is deprived of a real instrument of financial stability and economic prosperity.