During a trip from Budapest to Berlin in 1990, Joakim made observations about a grey market trade between Rumanian Roma and Vietnamese guest students in Berlin. It was seemingly inexplicable how the two groups could enter into business relationships without a common language.

This paper interprets the observed events and raises fundamental questions about society, market economy, and democracy. It discusses the role of trust and reputation as the prerequisite of conditional trust and suggest that there are now validation for classical economic value theory and for relationship management. This has important consequences for sociology, business administration, and economics.