It's a tidy idea, put in a concise and catchy way. It even sounds bold and empowering.

One problem with applying it is that could violate social contracts. When most people are playing by the rules, but one person gains advantage by cheating. Suddenly, it's more a freeloader/jerk move, than anything else.

Admittedly, things get more complicated when many people believe that the social contracts have already been violated, so there's no longer a contract (or "less" of a contract), so they might as well get the advantage, too. Before it got to that point, it started with early cheaters.

I don't think it sounds bold or empowering. I think it describes reality accurately, without bullshit. I wish someone had explained it to me as a young man. In my father's home, any rule was absolute law, and the consequence was always outsized.

The real world isn't like that.

I'm reminded of some popular news reporting of a psychological study (who knows whether it's reproducible), something like... People who behaved in some specific dishonest way also thought other people tended to have a similar level of honesty to themselves. Compared to people who didn't behave in that dishonest way, and who thought others tended to have a similar level of honesty to themselves.

How the causality works there, I don't have good guesses.

But the supposed phenomenon could reduce to simply differing conceptions of what the real world is.

Violating social contracts has consequences.

The point is that rules don't matter without consequences for breaking them, and a rule is only as effective as the severity of the consequences.

When you're rewarded for breaking them, you can't even really consider it a rule anymore.

The version I grew up with was "it ain't illegal if you don't get caught"