Government generally protects us against the worst that might happen so that we may take risks on modest cooperative ventures. Even while we are often wary of government and its agents, we rely on them to reduce the need for trustworthiness in many realms that government regulates or otherwise oversees. We rely on contract law and court enforcement to achieve successful cooperation in contexts in which, without such protective institutions, we would not risk cooperating with others.

XREF: Connects to trust literature and institutional economics — how formal institutions lower the need for interpersonal trust (e.g., Fukuyama, North). QUESTION: What are the downsides when protective institutions erode interpersonal trust rather than merely substituting for it?

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 513