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Notes -
We've never had a society without an imprimatur of the divine that would guard the concept of promises, so I don't think it has always been this way. Our purely materialist Capitalist worldview puts no value on honesty beyond a market value, which can always be ignored for the right price.
In my mind the modern failure of the concepts of honor and honesty relates back to Marx's idea that Capitalism subsists on the free gifts of human nature. Our society is falling apart because Capitalism is parasitic upon values that existed before and outside of Capitalism. Once people fully adopt Capitalism as a value system, Capitalism can no longer function. Eg: Capitalism requires people to have children to become workers/consumers/etc.; but on a rational Capitalist profit/loss basis it makes little sense to have children.
In the same way, Capitalism requires that we have a way to break promises, Bankruptcy is an important Capitalist innovation allowing for people to break their promises and move on with their lives and continue as producers and consumers after finding themselves unable to keep their promises. But, it only works where people wanted to keep their promises for other reasons extraneous to Capitalism. Once Bankruptcy becomes sufficiently not-shameful that a former bankrupt can become President of the United States after fleecing his creditors, the laws function differently.
Without any reference to the divine, a promise is only to be kept inasmuch as it is beneficial to keep it, and the moment it isn't beneficial there is no reason to keep it. People used to swear by their hope of heaven and fear of hell, implying that breaking the promise would lead to divine punishment; if someone did that today I'd think they were having a laugh.
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