Thoughts on the Social Contract in the Modern Day

March 16, 2010

Adam

Exploring the evolution and modern relevance of the philosophical concept of the Social Contract, and how it can address contemporary challenges.

Politics

The Social Contract is a philosophical concept that makes the case for the legitimacy of a political entity’s authority. But in modern times, how might one reconcile this abstract agreement with those who reject the type of governance it upholds? And what kind of society might better reaffirm the validity of a political entity’s Social Contract?

History of the Social Contract

At its simplest, the theoretical notion of the Social Contract sets out that an individual surrenders unbridled liberty in return for certain protections and duties from a governing political entity. The idea was first explicitly expressed as an intangible ‘contract’ by the Swiss philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, in the 18th century. However, the exchange of freedom for rights in this fashion was first conceptualized the previous century by two British political theorists.

At the end of the 1600s, John Locke asserted that citizens of any political entity implicitly gave up unfettered freedom in return for – as well as other benefits – the protection of property. Two decades before Lock’s formulations, Thomas Hobbes suggested that a kingdom’s population subjected themselves to the mercy of an absolute monarch for the more rudimentary protections of law and order.

These two titans of political philosophy viewed the voluntary surrender of liberty in its purest form as a rational choice made by rational people. To them, it made sense that someone would choose to escape the brutishness and anarchy of a hypothetical State of Nature, in return for a society governed by laws.

On the other hand, Rosseau thought that this ‘swap’ represented an Adam and Eve-type fall from grace.He postulated that, rather than consensually agreeing to exchange his liberty, man had unintentionally moved from a more harmonious environment better suited to human nature, to a societal living that was not so natural.

Like Adam and Eve before us, after man made this move it was no longer possible to return to the times before he took a bite out of that societal apple. With this in mind, Rousseau set out a new Social Contract that would be applicable to the attributes of the now socialized man.

Relevance of Social Contract in the Modern Day

Jumping ahead a couple of centuries to the present day, the modern state’s responsibilities have expanded beyond just law-based protections. In the western world, they now include offering equal opportunities within a merit-based system (think the American Dream) and offering aid to society’s vulnerable.

In light of these new responsibilities, why might some in the present day reject the Social Contract of the polity within which they reside? Perhaps one lives in an area where law and order has broken down and the authority of the state is almost absent. Being the only person obeying the laws may prove to be a huge disadvantage to one’s survival and, in this situation, rejecting the social contract may be the most rational course of action.

Or maybe the merit-based nature of that polity has stagnated, and a rigid hereditary hierarchy has taken its place. Consequently, no amount of labour, ingenuity and effort would allow that individual to rise above the disadvantageous position that they were born into.

And what about if resources were suddenly diverted from the needy to a less desperate part of society? When poverty and starvation are widespread, what point is there in adhering to the state’s taxing obligations when it has not kept its side of the bargain? Why, in this situation, should one not tear up the social contract, and revert back to a State of Nature?

In fact, the State of Nature isn’t just a thought experiment or abstract concept, and rejecting the Social Contract has parallels to real-world behaviour. Criminality, it can be argued, symbolizes the behaviour of one who defies the obligations that the state demands of him or her. Although, while he may disobey laws, that individual is still subject to the consequences of defying the state’s demands.

Rescuing the Social Contract

Considering the aforementioned possibilities that might, in the eyes of the individual, render a state’s Social Contract void, how can the political entities that they attempt to legitimize be reformed?

Organizing states into smaller polities with smaller populations seems like a good start. It is easier to tailor the terms of a state’s Social Contract to specific needs and situations when it covers fewer people. Contrastingly, it is harder to find generalized terms that suit a population of 100 million then it is for a population of 100 thousand. Furthermore, it is easier to more equitably invest the profits of natural resources or exporting industries.

But for the full effects of this reform, dividing states into more manageable units should accompany another major change - reforming a polity’s system of governance to make it more directly democratic. Doing this would certainly boost the legitimacy of any Social Contract, as all those under its jurisdiction would have had a say in the formulation of its terms and conditions. Devolving power from a centralized point to larger assemblies would allow the people to make their needs better heard, while also enabling them to make their case to the entire polity.

Such a directly democratic approach has two other key benefits to furthering the validity of any Social Contract. It would eradicate the danger of a government of a few people becoming corrupt and self-serving. The participation of all-willing individuals governed by said Social Contract would also prevent governance by a small clique that, while maybe well-meaning, is hampered by its collectively narrow experience of the world.

Admittedly fracturing a planet of over 200 countries into an even greater number of even smaller polities would not be an easy reform. For starters, on what basis would one draw the boundaries for each new mini-state? In a world still dominated by nationalistic ideology, what stops mini-states with shared ‘identities’ coming together for some nefarious purpose? Over time they may even evolve to become one enormous-sized state in all but name.

Similarly, no existing government around the word, nor their powerful industrial and economic patrons, would willingly pass this power to the people. This power would need to be seized, and to do so would demand huge global upheaval that comes at a tragic and unprecedented cost. No doubt all of us would say that this is too great a price simply to bolster the validity of an abstract, philosophical concept.

Despite these rather Olympian drawbacks, theoretically dividing the world up into smaller polities governed by directly democratic systems would undeniably solidify the legitimacy of any society or political entity. These changes - though enormous and perhaps unrealistic - would transform the Social Contract from an abstract idea used to justify existing systems of governance, to a more relevant concept that helped ensured that political entities worked in the interest of the people that they governed.