My engineering background definitely qualified me to speak on politics. Social relationships are indeed more flexible than rigid physical structures, but that does not mean social relationships are anarchic in state. Do you go after your friend's wife/GF ? If you feel that such predatory behavior is immoral and detrimental to your friendships with that couple, you have just obeyed a rule and your behaviors around that couple
WILL BE predictable. Yes, you may change your mind tomorrow, or the next week, or after the woman enhanced herself with cosmetic surgery, and that change would be unpredictable and unanticipated, but that would be no different in principle than an unexpected failure of mechanics inside an engine.
Behaviors among neighbors are also governed by laws and tacit understandings. The law says you will not trespass the fence. The tacit understanding compels you to accept certain moral principles that overrides the law, simply put, the immorality of violating the fence is so overwhelming that you would not need any law to keep you on your side of the fence.
Here is an example of corruption where rules are ignored and tacit understanding replaced those rules...
Chinese military cracks down on license plates and corruption| Reuters
The military abuses the people by ignoring the traffic laws for decades.
Politics and governments are no different. If what you are saying is true, then just about every intelligence agencies that ever existed for thousands of yrs have been worthless, right?