>Perhaps culturally and historically, the US has been a prosperous high-trust society that did not have to worry too much about people skimming a percentage off the top for providing a service.

When was the US ever a high-trust society? I don't think it ever was in my lifetime (and I'm not young). I feel like the US sees itself as a high-trust society (or a former one, not so long ago), but the reality is quite different. I'd say, at best, the US was a medium-trust society, with highly variable levels of corruption by locality, and is getting steadily worse.