Validity of the Social Contract
More than ever in these days of special interests, graft and corruption and the one-percent I find myself asking "What right does the current government have to govern?"
I read a book called "The Social Construction of Reality" and it made the very obvious observation that, when any institution is founded (like a system of government) it is created out of a certain set of current circumstances, and all the principals involved in that foundation share a set of common understandings which derive from being actual participants in that lived context. Eventually, however, circumstances alter so much that the foundational assumptions of the existing system of government are no longer valid or relevant. Then it becomes necessary to start fresh.
It seems to me that point has been reached. Our current system of government no longer works. Particularly in North America, our society used to be much more homogeneous. Perhaps a reformation taking into account the heterogeneity of the modern world is what is wanted.
I read a book called "The Social Construction of Reality" and it made the very obvious observation that, when any institution is founded (like a system of government) it is created out of a certain set of current circumstances, and all the principals involved in that foundation share a set of common understandings which derive from being actual participants in that lived context. Eventually, however, circumstances alter so much that the foundational assumptions of the existing system of government are no longer valid or relevant. Then it becomes necessary to start fresh.
It seems to me that point has been reached. Our current system of government no longer works. Particularly in North America, our society used to be much more homogeneous. Perhaps a reformation taking into account the heterogeneity of the modern world is what is wanted.
Comments (56)
We could easily structure things differently. We just need to decide to do it.
I haven't actually read Rousseau, but see the Social Contract as more of a state of affairs than a creative Ethical proclamation. It is the case that there is alway some sort of consent of the governed regarless as to how oppressive their regime is. There always exists a social relationship between who governs and the governed, and, so, there are always demands requested by the governed. A monarchy still needs to have the consent of its citizens in order not to be overthrown. There is no such thing as absolute power. There is only that it is possible to coerce a population into acquiescing to an unequal distribution of power.
As the population becomes more educated, that is to say, as they become more aware, they will continue to demand more just social relationships. The dissolution of the aristocracy was resultant of that the aristocracy could no longer be percieved as being a just social relationship. I honestly suspect that taking the Social Contract to its logical conclusion will eventually result in something like the end goals of Communism.
In principle, that sounds fine. I don't know if it is something we can just sit back and wait to happen though.... :)
I actually wonder if it isn't somehow delusionally Communist determinist. There's a way of interpreting utopian ideals as projecting a kind of political eschatology. I'm not opposed to being hopeful or idealistic, though. You can say that there is a project that is always already underway which seeks for something like the liberation of all of humanity without becoming subject to the pitfalls of ideology. It's all just a matter of approach.
In regards to the topic at hand, I think that the Social Contract is a valid theory, but that it may need to be radically reconceptualized. I suspect that it'd be worthwhile to read Rousseau and to put forth a political project that proceeds from his theory.
You are assuming that people need to exist in the first place. The first act of aggression is having people, which confines them to the "realities" of living itself. You can say it is "self-evident" that people "should" be born, but then you have already crossed the line of what other people should be doing. The problem with all first principles in political science, is it already assumes procreating new people is good. Thus, they discount that the first political act is forcing new people to deal with existence itself. Long story short- start with the problem of being born first in your political philosophy, THEN move on from there.
Of course our current system of government works -- it works as well now as it ever did. Just because the current system is not working for you, or for me, or for most people, doesn't mean it isn't working as designed.
As far as I can tell, the Founding Fathers NEVER intended an egalitarian distribution of wealth. Most people (like 94%) couldn't vote in the US in the 18th century. White men who didn't own property finally gained suffrage in all of the states around 1850. Black men didn't get voting rights till after the Civil War. Women didn't get the vote until 1920. The political and economic elite of the United States has neither liked nor trusted working class people. Most people (at least 80%) are working class. That there is a huge population of "middle class" people is a falsehood aimed at class division. There are some middle class people -- maybe 10% - 15%of the population.
It seems to me that a real, "informal" social contract covers much more than government. It involves how we interact with each other. The informal social contract seems to operate pretty well most of the time in most places. There are continual isolated breakdowns -- like drunk driving, public fighting, gun play (not talking about mass killers -- more the idiots who start shooting at each other and the wildly fired bullets go through houses and kill people), child neglect, etc. -- but by and large people stay within the "social contract of common behavior" because it works, it's safer, it's more effective.
Were universal rights something that the Founding Fathers and their Enlightenment brethren made up? If they made the idea of "rights" up, and they didn't live to their own ideals, it is probably because they were still trying to fit it into their world scheme. When you make up the very thing that others will use as a standard against you, it is very interesting... The idea of "progress" and "self-criticism" and "living up to ideals (made up by the very people who will be critiqued for not following them" all came from Enlightenment thinking. What was before this? Tribe against tribe. Religion against religion. Monarch against monarch, elite vs. peasant, dominant vs. the weak, etc. Give the Enlightenment people a break...they were making this shit up as they went. But the point is, they made this shit up. It is damn useful and it makes damn sense. But it is a cultural thing from a set of people, starting in the 1600s that we elaborated on.
I seriously object to the use of the term "contract" in this context. The act of merely being born somewhere does not amount to signing a contract. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, there simply is no "contract".
For example, it is not because you are born today in a country with trillions of dollars of unfunded social-security entitlements and other liabilities, that you necessarily agree to cough up any money for that.
As far as I am concerned, the millennials have no obligation whatsoever to pay for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. Even though the baby boomers may have signed up for a contract that promised exactly that, the millennials themselves were no party to the original contract.
We are clearly witnessing a generation, the baby boomers, who did not need any children of their own, to take care of them in their old age, because the government was going to take care of that. And where is the government supposed to find the funds to pay for that? Well, they will just take the money from other people's children.
So, no, there is no such "social contract" and there are no resulting social obligations.
As far as I am concerned, it is just too easy to sign a contract that will financially burden other people who are not even born yet. Therefore, the millennials are completely exempt from paying for any of that. Just don't pay!
Colonial North America was a very stratified society, nothing like an egalitarian community. Most Americans did not have suffrage, for instance -- only about 6% did, propertied white male citizens. Most Americans were counted as riff raft by the elite. Our elite inherited the attitudes of the British elite who considered the poor, the landless, the worker as little more than white trash.
Yes, they were making it up as they went along. That's pretty much what people do, everywhere. There aren't any manuals that tell us how to assemble a society from scratch.
The slave-holding FF probably recognized the contradiction between their ownership of slaves and "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". etc. but... Jefferson was chronically in debt and freeing his slaves would have had very negative economic consequences. When the push of ideals meets the pull of economic necessity, it's always a risky bet to assume that ideals will rule the day.
The elites were not happy about the riff raff taking off over the Appalachian Mountains into Kentucky Territory, western Virginia, the Northwest Territory (Ohio), and so on. The elite planned for them to do the heavy lifting, of course, but they didn't want the white trash rushing out ahead of them, settling, establishing communities, and so on -- without their express permission, and profit. And, of course, many of the riff raff often had difficulty once they arrived wherever they thought they were going. Successful settling unsettled land all by one's self was a really difficult thing to succeed at.
"Merely" being born somewhere is all that it takes to become subject to this unwritten, unsigned "contract". You are taking the libertarian approach here, of course. "I owe no one anything! I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an Island, and an Island never cries..."
Quoting alcontali
Of course you would think that, given your peculiar view of the world. [Not you, personally, but the entire cohort of all you ungrateful wretches.] Of course, in your scheme the baby boomers had no obligation to nurture, house, feed, and educate you either. They could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble by not conceiving you in the first place, or having the misfortune of giving birth to you, dashed your brains out on the nearest brick wall.
And since you resent the favors done for you, you can start paying for all the products and services which you received before becoming a libertarian.
Quoting alcontali
Stop with the whining and get back to work. Earn as much as you fucking can so the government can rob you of enough to keep me in the lap of SSA luxury.
It is not necessarily libertarian.
For example, the fifth Biblical commandment says: "Honor thy father and thy mother." So, you could accept that, and pay for your own parents, but it would still not require you to honour anybody else's father or mother. Hence, paying for other people's parents, is absolutely not a requirement there.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, but it is not ALL baby boomers who nurtured me. Only my own parents did.
Quoting Bitter Crank
There is obviously a deal with one's own parents, in which they nurture one first, and later on, one nurtures one's own parents back.
What the baby boomers are doing, is different from that. They are not claiming support from their own children. They are claiming support from other people's children. That is not included in the Biblical deal!
Quoting Bitter Crank
In the sense that I do not reject Biblical or Quranic obligations, I am not necessarily a libertarian. I just do not feel that further extending these obligations, actually makes sense. What the baby boomers are doing, is simply not supported by the Bible nor by the Quran.
Undoubtedly, but my point was that the concepts of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness being some sort of universal or fundamental right, originated from Enlightenment thinkers. So, you blame the people who started the very concept you can blame them on... I agree, based on the standards they created, and were further elaborated upon, what they did was against their own policies, but again, they made them up in the first place! You are using a standard they created for the rest of humanity to place on them, and deem them accused. Fine, I am okay with that. But realize, they gave you the rope to hang them with in the first place. The very notion of "universal rights" was nothing before this.. I don't care what revisionist history tries to say.. It wasn't until the 1600s that this idea came about.. It wasn't until the 1800s that it really came to fore with the idea that all people from all cultures fell under this purview..It was an unfolding in cultural, historical, political time..not an all at once thing that was there all along.
Before this was tribe vs. tribe, religion above "other" religion, ethnicity against ethnicity, elite vs. peasant, dominant vs. weak, and so on. If you want to say, there are tribes somewhere doing their hunting-gathering egalitarian thing, great.. Maybe there were/are.. but that is a small contingent. The others had agriculture, nomadic herding, and other styles which lead to the whole something vs. something in the first place. So yeah, it went full circle..egalitarian..all one, etc.
You almost bring up a good point. That is to say, everyone is in debt due to being born in the first place. Political science starts often with "state of nature". That is assuming that people should be born in the first place.. in the Enlightenment this was an abstract notion of "happiness", "progress", or simply, "life". None of it makes sense in the light of the fact that, being born is forcing another person to live out life in the first place. The starting place for all politics should be "state of being born", not "state of nature" which assumes some "other" agenda is what is necessary for all people to live out. That was the mistake of all these "enlightened" thinkers. Being forced into existence is the first political act. It is forcing another to live out life or die. I'll include @Bitter Crank on this one too.
Well, according to the Quran, one's unilateral financial obligation to society is limited to the size of the mandatory charity levy, which is 2.5% of net capital gains. In my opinion, that sounds much better than the unlimited liability that you depict. So, I just pay the 2.5% and be done with it. I do not want to pay more, because there is no justification for doing that.
Yeah those ancient authors and their economic jargon...
Ok, but to what do you limit it then? For example, I have got nothing to do with trillions of dollars of unfunded social-security entitlements.
Extensive egalitarianism works for relatively small communities. It does not scale, however. From some larger scale on, you need to switch to tit-for-tat trade. Otherwise, if you indiscriminately recognize everybody else's unilateral sharing rights on your assets, you will put yourself at risk of Gambler's Ruin.
That is the meaning of the following Quranic verse:
Quran: 2:275- 279 Allah has permitted trading and forbidden ‘Riba’ interest (usury)
So, you are allowed to switch to tit-for-tat trade and engage in commerce, as long as you refrain from engaging in otherwise forbidden activities (such as charging unconstrained, exponentially-growing interest fees).
This schema is complemented with a mandatory charity levy on net capital gains ("zakaat"), to somehow compensate for the fact that there will be people in the community who will not be equally successful at commerce. Of course, additional voluntary charity contributions are also welcomed ("sadaqah").
This approach is deemed to scale pretty much indefinitely.
Are you suggesting to let the less fortunate and elderly people suffer needlessly?
Are you suggesting that a nation can survive/thrive without some folk paying a larger percentage of their earnings than other?
We agree there right?
Less fortunate and elderly people ought be helped. That's one thing. Do you agree?
Helping less fortunate people has a cost. That's another. Do you agree?
Governing a nation of people has a cost. That's another. Do you agree?
Interesting. Didn't know that there were thoughts about unilateral sharing rights and assets in the Quran. Certainly none in the Pentateuch.
As a matter of principle, I do not take responsibility beyond what the scriptures mandate.
Quoting creativesoul
All unilateral personal financial obligations to the wider society will have to be shoehorned into the 2.5% capital gains tax of the mandatory charity levy.
Quoting creativesoul
You are talking about a "right". That is actually unimportant. What matters, is onto whom falls the obligation? Answer: certainly not on me.
Everybody can have all the rights that he wants, but I am not liable for any corresponding obligation. I will simply hand over the mandatory 2.5% charity levy, and be done with it. Anything else is not my problem.
Quoting creativesoul
If you want to be exempt from military service -- and only if this is allowed by the powers that be -- you will most likely need to pay compensation in lieu of military service.
So, it seems that you do not think/believe that you are in any way at all - outside of scripture - financially obligated to the society you belong to?
Any personal liability is always to be limited to an explicitly-stated maximum burden.
Unlimited liabilities must obviously be rejected. Otherwise, it will be again a case of Gambler's Ruin.
In other words, in my opinion, it is not possible to govern a state while expecting the population to accept unlimited liability. In that case, the regime will need to be deposed and replaced by one that more successfully manages to shoehorn its financial needs into the strictly limited contribution of its population.
No one is talking about unlimited liability except you.
So, then...
You're ok with accepting some financial obligation - to maintain the society you belong to - as long as it is a clearly demarcated amount?
A percentage of earnings?
As far as i am concerned, there is no social contract, because I am entirely self-concerned.
However, the facts are that humans are socially dependent, they are born helpless, and have to learn from society how to survive, and depend on the work of others to house and feed them to make the tools by which they live and so on. Even members of the most primitive tribes are well aware of their interdependence. It takes the arrogance of a Western modern to imagine he could last a week without the help of society. As far as he is concerned, he did it all himself. Nobody taught him to read or write, he made his own computer and suckled himself. Loving your neighbour is communism, and ought to be banned, except that would be a social contract - banning stuff.
Well, I do not "belong" to a society. I am the property of our beloved Master, the Almighty Lord, Creator of the heavens and the earth.
Furthermore, I currently do not live in my country of birth. I tend to travel around quite a bit, but mostly in SE Asia, like a lot of my friends and other digital-nomad colleagues.
I actually do pay a clearly demarcated amount to the governments of the various countries I habitually reside in, the cheapest of which, Vietnam, wants around 300+ USD/year in visa fees, and the most expensive in the area, the Philippines, which wants around 700+ USD/year.
In fact, there are quite a few countries that do not charge anything at all. For example, Mexico apparently gives you 180 days free of charge. Georgia (at the Black Sea) seems to give you 360 days free of charge. They are not even interested in charging extra.
As a country, you need to be competitive because otherwise business and money will tend to move elsewhere. There are good reasons why factories have almost all ended up in China. That is not because they were charging more taxes and other government fees than others.
Therefore, except for special niche situations, and given the competitive situation, I personally think that it may be hard for a country to charge more than 1000 USD/year for individuals merely residing there. Charging more to locals than to foreigners will also be considered unfair, even though many countries actually do that.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, I generally live off my savings. Nowadays, I do not earn anything until I finally sell the startup I am involved in, including any saved-up cash that it may contain. The principle is simple. If I do not draw money/profits out of it, I personally do not earn anything. I just accumulate capital gains. Those are almost never taxable unless I "realize" them by selling.
When I sell, it is often a taxable event, but in many countries it is not, and even when it is, it is taxable only if I do that in a country in which I have resided for more than 180 days of that particular year; something which is trivially easy to avoid.
It is not possible to avoid the religious capital gains tax, though (2.5%).
At the moment, I am not even involved in setting up a new startup. I just talk with potential partners about theoretical possibilities. I may not even activate anything any time soon, because I don't even need to. So, at the moment, there is certainly no need for me to pay any government-related levies beyond visa fees.
You only have savings by the grace of the social contract. Governments regulate promissory notes such that society can rely on them, and you can hold them and exchange them for goods and services. The concept of property is brought into being by the social contract, and without it you own nothing.
Not in my case. My savings are in bitcoin, which is not issued by any government. There is no need for any government to issue any currency. Furthermore, I do not wish to save in fiat currency, because that allows the issuing government to liberally debase it, by issuing some more. So, no, no.
Bitcoin still only works by social agreement. If no one accepts your money, you have no money, because money is the social acceptance.
Yes, but it does not require any government.
You see, I have no alternative for lowering violence and aggression within the perimeter of a state than having a government deal with that, while I certainly do not desire the presence of 2000+ Libyan-style militia each vying for power. Hence, unlike the anarchists, I am not advocating for having no government at all. I would not want to live in a place where there is no government at all.
Still, all these governments compete with each other in terms of offering the best deal. I do not see why I would pick a worse deal, when I can get a better one. The government here nicely manages to keep things quiet and only charges me a few hundred dollars per year in visa fees. So, I am perfectly happy with my choice.
Your happiness means a lot to me. But we are discussing the social contract. And the social contract is just the way social relations are conducted, and nation states with various forms of government are one form it can take, and Bitcoin is another. So the social contract is the social contract and exists with or without anyone's formal agreement, just as national borders exist and do not have to wait for everyone to sign up to them. And if someone wishes to deny or renege on the social contract, or exploit it or find ways around it, they in no way invalidate the existence of these mutual obligations and dependencies. It just makes them one of a number of such people society has to cope with as best it can.
Property does not cease to exist because there are thieves, money does not have no value because there are forgers, language does not cease to have meaning because there are liars; but if there are enough of them, then eventually society does collapse and usually nigh on everyone loses.
The first political act was that of being born in the first place. Suicide is not the reverse of never being born. Certainly some form of harm challenge, and struggle is part of the deal. "Flourishing" is the nice word people use for all this. That of course justifies force-recruiting people into a contract. People need to be born to follow this contract and flourish. Flourishing needs to take place. There was no right never to be a part of it. Someone else gets to decide for another that this structure is to be lived out by that other person. The first and most important political act is having been born in the first place. The agenda of "something" is now foisted on the individual who must be thankful for being put in this situation. Society somehow needs individual sacrifice for its perpetuity, and this is deemed as appropriate and right.
Absolutely. The contract is between individuals. The reason individuals enter into such a contract is that many people collectively are capable of much more than they would be as individuals, so it is in everyone's mutual benefit. That's the nature of a contract: there must be benefit on both sides.
Reason: I like milk, and while I can milk a cow or a goat well enough, I am not very good at making buckets. Most people could not survive a week alone as adults; no one could survive alone from birth. Individualism is a fantasy that justifies exploitation.
Why not?
Much worse!
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Exsurge Domine
Condemning the Errors of AL CONTALI
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Listen to our prayers, for foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard whose winepress you alone have trod. For we can scarcely express, from distress and grief of mind, what has reached our ears for some time by the report of reliable men and general rumor.
Alas, we have even seen with our eyes and read the many diverse errors, which are either heretical, false, scandalous, and highly destructive of the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline, namely obedience.
Al Contali's errors are pernicious, offensive to pious ears, seductive of simple minds, and originating with false exponents of the faith who in their proud curiosity yearn for the world’s glory.
With mature deliberation on each and every one of Al Contali's theses, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these errors.
We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication.
As far as Al Contali himself is concerned, O good God, what have we overlooked or not done? What fatherly charity have we omitted that we might call him back from such errors? But he always refused to listen and, despising the previous citation and each and every one of the above overtures, disdained to come. To the present day he has been contumacious. With a hardened spirit he has continued under censure over a year.
Therefore we can, without any further citation or delay, proceed against him to his condemnation and damnation as one whose faith is notoriously suspect and in fact a true heretic with the full severity of each and all of the above penalties and censures.
We enjoin on Al Contali that in the meantime he cease from all preaching or the office of preacher.
On behalf of the Holy See
Francis
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Or... maybe not. It depends on whether your act of contrition meets the hazy qualifications for being genuine, authentic, and true.
A morality based upon the God of Abraham. Treating others how God instructs. A collection of stories passed down through the generations through oral and written tradition.
Today we know that money is power.
Possessing large sums of cash is possessing large sums of what is available to the members of society. Society is much better off if it includes the most people with the most opportunity to reap the benefits of that society.
Accumulation of wealth cannot happen without society.
The money available is best dispersed in as many hands as possible. To hoard the money is to rob the other members of it's possible benefits when better dispersed. To hoard money harms the economy of it's potential to do the most good. It is to walk up to a table of 4 pizzas meant to feed 8 to 10 people and further proceed to a take a whole one with you on your out, but not eat it.
Magically it turns into two. You offer no one a piece of either.
God condones this?
The point of it is that we have to give up individual freedoms in order to live together in harmony. No matter what the ‘Social Contract’ may be it is only present if consistent. This is why governments/leaders/rulers exist. The balance is dictated by what we’re willing to do on a personal level against what others do to hinder/obstruct what we want. Anarchy results in a reasonable balance of social harmony or the destruction of society.
We pay taxes not because we expect governments to use the money to benefit us, but to use it to benefit everyone - including things we don’t agree with. We CANNOT (given a mediocre level of maturity) expect to have our cake and eat it.
In the land of plenty no one really notices any social contract. When times are hard and people suffer the negative - inevitable - effects of the social contract are felt. As individuals we feel this too, be it sacrificing our immediate dreams in order to feed our children’s/friend’s/families potentials. The irony is we only ever make use of our potential in an efficient/urgent manner when times of plenty are absent.
Note: I wouldn’t take Rousseau as the best exemplar of the political sciences. He was a spoilt brat who threw tantrums when no one listened to him. He was vicious, pompous and only ever rose to prominence by suckling from the teet of some rich dame - as her toyboy.
Have a problem with that ?
An indiscriminate approach of that nature would be a disaster, because it would soon put a halt to most sexual reproduction.
If we oversimplify the process a bit, we can say that in the man-woman relationship, the man wants to acquire a reliable supply of sex, while the woman wants to lock down a reliable supply of money.
If the State starts handing out money or other freebies for nothing to women, then the woman will no longer need the man. That will have an almost immediate effect on the birth rate, which will obviously collapse. Therefore, no, for reasons of keeping sexual reproduction afloat, it is absolutely not permissible whatsoever onto the government to hand out money or other freebies to women.
[i]Cura Annonae
("care for the grain supply")
Adult male citizens (over 14 years of age) of Rome were entitled to buy at a below-market price five modii, about 33 kilograms (73 lb), of grain monthly. Approximately 40,000 adult males were eligible for the grain. In 62 and 58 BC the number of Romans eligible for grain was expanded and grain became free to its recipients. The numbers of those receiving free or subsidized grain expanded to an estimated 320,000 before being reduced to 150,000 by Julius Caesar and then set at 200,000 by Augustus Caesar, a number that remained more or less stable until near the end of the Western Roman Empire.[/i]
As you can clearly see, the Romans were not that stupid ...
Actually, I think that this is where the misunderstanding lies, not in the conditions of "social contract", but in the misunderstanding of "individual freedom". In actuality, living together under a social contract produces freedom, through the process commonly represented as the division of labour. To act freely requires time not dedicated to providing for the necessities of living. There is no fundamental difference in individual freedoms between life with or without a social contract, but the social contract provides people with the capacity (time) to act freely.
I didn't equate leisure with freedom, that's another example of your misunderstanding. What I implied is that one must have leisure in order to act freely, if "leisure" is defined as "free time".
I think freedom is the capacity to carry out free acts. Since time is necessary for activity, free time is an essential aspect of freedom. What did you have in mind as a definition of "freedom"?
Bye.