It is not decisive, in this regard, whether or not the partner will in the end actually make a complete calculation with reference to law and sanctions to suit himself. The argument does not directly rest upon this calculation, but upon the truster's ability to anticipate it. In this context it operates tacitly, without poisoning the relationship with the threat of sanctions and thus putting paid to emergent trust. … The structure of the trust relationship requires that such calculation should remain latent, evolving in its generalizing fashion covertly, purely as a reassuring consideration. In his overt behaviour the truster must show himself 'utterly trustworthy', lest he himself sow the seed from which later reciprocal distrust may grow, thereby producing exactly the result which he is trying to avoid.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 178