Social contract (or contractarianism) is a phrase used in Philosophy, Political science and Sociology to denote a real or hypothetical agreement within a State regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members, or between individuals. All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society or by not violating the contract.
The social contract, as a political theory, explains the origin and purpose of the state and of human rights. The essence of the theory (in its most common form, namely the one proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau) is as follows: In order to live in society, human beings agree to an implicit social contract, which gives them certain rights in return for giving up certain freedoms they would have in a State of nature. Thus, the rights (and responsibilities) of individuals are the terms of the social contract, and the state is the entity created for the purpose of enforcing that contract. Also, the people may change the terms of the contract if they so desire; rights and responsibilities are not fixed or "natural". However, more rights always entail more responsibilities, and fewer responsibilities always entail fewer rights.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), in his influential 1762 treatise The Social Contract, outlined a different version of contract theory. Rousseau's theory has many similarities with the individualist Lockean tradition, but also departs from it on many significant points. This theory has already been presented in the second introductory paragraph of this article, since Rousseau's version of the social contract is the one most often associated with the term "social contract" itself. It is also worth noting that in the century following Rousseau's death, his theories were an important influence in the formation of the socialist movement.
Individualist anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said that social contract is not between individuals and the state, but between individuals themselves to refrain from governing each other: "What really is the Social Contract? An agreement of the citizen with the government? No, that would mean but the continuation of [Rousseau’s] idea. The social contract is an agreement of man with man; an agreement from which must result what we call society. In this, the notion of commutative justice, first brought forward by the primitive fact of exchange, …is substituted for that of distributive justice…. Translating these words, contract, commutative justice, which are the language of the law, into the language of business, and you have commerce, that is to say, in its highest significance, the act by which man and man declare themselves essentially producers, and abdicate all pretension to govern each other" (General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century).
John Rawls (1921-2002) proposed a contractarian approach that has a decidedly Kantian flavour, whereby rational people in a hypothetical "original position," setting aside their individual preferences and capacities under a "veil of ignorance," would agree to certain, general principles of justice .
In his 1986 book Law's Empire, positivist Ronald Dworkin touches briefly on social contract theory, firstly distinguishing between the use of social contract theory in an ethical sense, to establish the character or content of justice (such as John Rawls' A Theory of Justice) and its use in a jurisprudential sense as a basis for legitimate government.
Dworkin argues that if every citizen were a party to an actual, historical agreement to accept and obey political decisions in the way his community's political decisions are in fact taken then the historical fact of agreement would provide at least a good prima facie case for coercion even in ordinary politics:
See: Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire, Fontana Press, 1986, p192-3
The modern nation state presumes the acceptance of the social contract from birth. Typically nation states make newborns automatic citizens. This is a Contract which serves the perpetuity of the nation state, because it is easy to do as newborns do not have the cognitive or linguistic capacity to consent to the contract; thus the contract should be rendered null and void.
When the person is of Legal age, and being a competent adult, there is no formal process where an express agreement is made between and individual and society denoting rights and responsibilities. However, a phenomenon called "law" has developed over centuries to set limits on behaviour. Mutual agreement could then be thought of as implied, simply by the competent adults' continuing participation in that community. However, this implication is limited by lack of choice, as there may not be anywhere else that is available to live. Also, it is limited by the fact that an attempt to make a new contract will be punished - i.e., a secession attempt will usually be interpreted by the state as the breaking of its law in some form or another. Consent cannot be coerced to be valid.
Originally, protection was generally offered by a specific person or few, typically the most powerful or strong, being the best equipped to handle conflict. This tradeoff allows greater production from all other members at the cost of the production of a few. However, this service was undertaken without clear guidelines as to what the trade might involve. Later, because of this powerful legitimised position and dubious guidelines, coercion can take place.
The social contract does not specify roles and obligations that individuals and states fulfill to each other. Laws may be contrived as collecting what we think are the obligations we think are important for citizens to follow. They have built up to such a complexity and volume that it is impossible for a "competent" adult to comprehend. Nor is any serious attempt made to educate people about laws specifically in schools. The knowledge is simply assumed, and ignorance is no defence - but of course it must be! Citizens rather act on moral principles than knowing individual laws in a majority of cases of actions. Thus, the mutual obligations are ultimately unadhereable.
Breach of laws by authority figures and those of the common citizen are arguably inequatibly enforced because of the vested intrests of the former in protecting themselves. Because of inequalities in the legal system, richer people can remedy better than poor people.
(The definitions for the above terms appear in the Wikipedia article Contract)
Over time, protection is generally offered by a specific person or few, typically the most powerful or strong, being the best equipped to handle conflict. This tradeoff allows greater production from all other members at the cost of the production of a few. This is a primal example of the gains of Trade through Comparative advantage.
However, the protector cannot be everywhere at once. As such, the malicious ones need to fear something greater than themselves to keep the congregation from dispersing. The threat of attack - fear - must thus be everpresent. If people attack one another then there will probably be no net benefit from congregation. Thus, human societies greater than one person will always need something to fear: the givers of force. In small groups this is the leader. In larger groups it is the military and/or police, which are themselves hierarchical in nature, having their own leaders whom ultimately report to one person. Thus, human societies must always be hierarchical.
In effect, the community trades fear of the malicious few, to a legitimised fear of a malicious few. This decision also means individual members of the community have a reduced right to decide their own future, as they can be coerced by the leader, to a limit which is decided by each member of the group.
Resistance to the leader is a threat to this control. People who refuse to consent will always be removed forcefully, whether by banishment, prison or death, or directed to change through whatever incentives or techniques are available.
If a person wanted to leave their community and form their own, in ancient times, this was a simple matter of moving to an uninhabted area. However, in the modern age, this is highly problematic, as all habitable areas are controlled by states. Not only does a secession damage the group through the loss of a member but it emboldens others to leave and damages the collective. Thus, as protector of the collective (and their own privileged position within that collective), the leader will always attack secession with force. Hence, any secession attempts must have the backing of the force equivalent to that of the leader. In the modern state, where citizens are born, there can be no choice but to accept the status quo, as for an individual citizen, force equivalent to that of the leader will be quite improbable to amass.
There has almost never been any backing to the statement that for some, the benefits of joining a nation state do not outweigh the benefits of remaining alone. There has never been a state which has freely offered the choice of remaining "alone".
However, it can also be argued that humans who do not join societies ultimately have a far lower chance of passing on their genetic material. and will eventually become victims of natural selection, whether it be lack of mates, or through attrition in the protection process. Thus societal living has provided a survival advantage, and through the pressure of evolution, society as an entity has become dominant over time.