When you come from the developing world and visit places like the US and Europe, you can't help but be surprised at the number of little things in daily life that work based on the honor system. People basically agree collectively to not exploit and break the system, and basic things like public transit without turnstiles, etc, work.
We're seeing now that this honor system actually extended all the way up. There were never real checks and balances, everything was always ripe for "disruption".