Very insightful comment (and the same for your follow-up). I don't have much to add except shamelessly link a comment I found on Slashdot that it reminded me of. (I had also posted it here.) For those who don't want to click the link, here goes:

I also disagree that our society is based on mutual trust. Volumes and volumes of laws backed up by lawyers, police, and jails show otherwise.

That's called selection/observation bias. You're looking at only one side of the coin.

I've lived in countries where there's a lot less trust than here. The notion of returning an opened product to a store and getting a full refund is based on trust (yes, there's a profit incentive, and some people do screw the retailers [and the retailers their customers -- SB], but the system works overall). In some countries I've been to, this would be unfeasible: Almost everyone will try to exploit such a retailer.

When a storm knocks out the electricity and the traffic lights stop working, I've always seen everyone obeying the rules. I doubt it's because they're worried about cops. It's about trust that the other drivers will do likewise. Simply unworkable in other places I've lived in.

I've had neighbors whom I don't know receive UPS/FedEx packages for me. Again, trust. I don't think they're afraid of me beating them up.

There are loads of examples. Society, at least in the US, is fairly nice and a lot of that has to do with a common trust.

Which is why someone exploiting that trust is a despised person.

What's interesting is that if you follow the Slashdot link, the parent of the comment replies and says (to paraphrase) that his neighborhood is of the broken window kind, where people don't act like that. The person I quoted above then says,

And because of it, your neighborhood sucks, and mine doesn't. ... Suggesting people become mistrustful will likely turn my neighborhood into one like yours.

Which ties in with what you said about the cascading effect of behavior as others notice it.

Please continue to post here!