Actually, there's a fairly sensible way to view the statement "trust, but verify" -- think of it as a policy of entering agreements without doing the necessary vetting / clearing / what have you in advance. You still do that, but afterwards. As long as the people you're working with are trustworthy, things will run much more smoothly, but if they're not, you'll still find out. That "verify" step is important to maintaining trustworthiness all around.