In a relatively benign society, we can afford to take chances with people in general until we discover any of them not to be worthy of cooperation. If, in contrast, we had come to be distrusting in general, the result in a benign society would surely be far worse than what would follow from taking risks on people.

XREF: Connects to social capital research (Putnam, Fukuyama) on how trust functions as a societal resource, and to Trivers' work on reciprocal altruism.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 605