Economic institutions prove trustworthy toward customers but often not toward society

Evidence

In deciding whether to take a risk on someone, we can often avail ourselves of extant institutions. Hence we can make more credible commitments on some matters than on others, depending on what institutions are available. Given our institutions, who or what can we expect to be trustworthy? Remarkably, economic institutions, such as manufacturers and dealers, are often trustworthy at least in their dealings with their customers. (They might not be trustworthy to the larger society insofar as they might readily pollute or discriminate by neighborhood.) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 256

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why exactly do economic institutions maintain customer trust while externalizing harm? The asymmetry between customer-facing and society-facing trustworthiness is worth probing.