Trust and cooperation form a reciprocal, asymmetric loop rather than a one-directional act

Evidence

If A trusts B to take some future action C, then at one simple level it is A who is trusting B, in that the satisfaction of A’s goal requires B to do C, and not something else which would be detrimental to A’s interests. As such, it is not A who is being cooperative, but B in performing the action C, and by the same token B is not displaying trust in A. However, at another level this asymmetry is reversed. B displays trust in A’s representation of the conditions of the request to do C, and similarly A cooperates in the production of that representation. Furthermore, the behaviour of A and B in a single episode can form the basis for future instances of trust and cooperation. Rarely is it the case that exchanges requiring trust are ahistorical single instances. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 532

Categorization

• XREF: The asymmetry of trust/cooperation maps onto Hardin’s ‘encapsulated interest’ conception and Luhmann’s expectation-structure account.
• QUESTION: If trust is only rarely ahistorical single-instance, how does one collapse of observable monitoring — as in Saramago’s blind epidemic — degrade this reciprocal loop? Worth chasing.