Social contracts often come up in discussions about the power of the state over the individual. Social contracts are essentially the concept whereby a resident in a particular municipality, county, state or nation more or less is obligated to surrender some freedoms in exchange for an orderly society. For example, John Doe consents, explicitly or not, to a tax on his income because he requires the tax-funded infrastructure in order to work, have the police protect his property and so on. The consent is based on the presumption that John Doe chooses to live in that particular society and therefore, he accepts the terms of the social contract. The invocation of the social contract usually occurs in order to justify a tax or a particular regulation. An extreme example might be "If you don't like it (the social contract and the taxes it requires) go move to a cave/ the mountains/ Somalia!"
There are several flaws with this line of thinking.
Firstly, there are no defined limitations. One could just as easily say "the social contract compels all citizens to occasionally surrender a child for sacrifice" just as easily as one could say "the social contract compels all citizens to pay a 2 cent sales tax to fund a new baseball stadium." While the former example may seem extreme (though in some cultures, the Aztecs in particular, may have had something quite similar) one sees the point; a social contract with no moral constraints can be used to justify anything, no matter how murderous or immoral. The mere fact of living in a specific place does give the enforcers of the social contract the power to violate the rights of others. If rights are not respected by the social contract, anything goes.
Secondly, there is an assumption that the social contract predates, or at least has primacy, over the individual. To put it another way, imagine John Doe does indeed agree to the social contract when he moved to Town X in 1980. But in 2012, it was decided that Town X would start requiring Jews to be registered or wear armbands. (An irrelevant and inflammatory example in this day and age? Perhaps not.) John Doe did not agree to this sudden change, so why should he comply? Whenever two or more parties agree to the terms of a contract, one party cannot arbitrarily alter the terms at a later date and expect all other parties to go along with it.
Thirdly, there is the assumption that if a person wishes to leave, they are free or have the resources to do so. This is not necessarily the case. In history there are many examples of certain groups which were not allowed to migrate elsewhere. Suffice to say, they didn't build the Berlin Wall to keep people out. Other examples of states or organizations forbidding departure include the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and even various cults like the People's Temple. Sometimes, governments would impose departure taxes. The Wiemar Republic and later, Nazi Germany, did this in the form of the Reichsfluchtsteuer, which imposed a 25% tax on the assets of fleeing people. Even in the United States, one cannot leave the country without a government issued passport. While a passport is not expensive, a passport can be denied for a variety of reasons. Thus anyone wanting to "opt out" can only do so at the pleasure of the state.
Fourthly, If the social contract places obligations on the resident, does it not also place obligations on the state? Assuming a person pays taxes and obeys the law, they have upheld their end of the bargain, but what happens when the state doesn't uphold its end? This is not a hypothetical question, municipalities, counties, states and nations frequently abuse their power, shirk their responsibilities, misappropriate funds and incur absurd amounts of debt with little to no repercussions. We all know what happens to John Doe if he doesn't comply, but what happens to city hall? Very little. Even if a corrupt politician is put in jail, how long do you think it will be before another fills his vacant office?
With all this in mind is it prudent to dispose of the social contract altogether? My answer, which may surprise some, is no. The question is not whether or not a social contract should exist, it is to what extent should the social contract exist.
For me, this is fairly easy to answer; the 'reach' of the social contract ends where individual rights begin. In other words, a legitimate, morally sound social contract serves public interests and protects individual rights, but cannot tread on other people's rights to do so.
Now it could be said that "I never accepted the social contract" and with the flaws noted above, this is fair enough, however, a robber could also say "I never consented to respect your property rights, now hand over your wallet."
In a sense we are all 'forced' to tolerate and to some degree honor the rights of others. Those who do not are properly called murderers, rapists, thieves and brigands. How do we apply justice to these miscreants? Through the mechanisms provided by the social contract. The point is that a social contract and a set of rights are not necessarily in conflict. For this reason, I believe that a desirable and moral social contract can be whittled down to 3 rules, not unlike Asimov's three laws of robotics.
1. The social contract must serve to protect the rights of all individuals in the society.
2. The social contract must serve the public good unless such action violates the first rule.
3. The social contract must seek to perpetuate itself, unless doing so would violate the first or second rule.
Such a social contract could enable a government to exist, but a government that is greatly limited in scope. In effect, the only portion of the social contract one would be 'forced' in accepting is toleration of the rights of others. However the situation gets a little more complex when one introduces the concept of crime and punishment. Here, the non-initiation of force principle can be applied. That is to say, if one violates the rights of another, then the perpetrator's rights are forfeit in reasonable proportion to the crime. Just as there are obligations placed on the population to respect the rights of others, there are obligations on the part of the lawmakers to make laws which comply with the three rules. If a law does not protect individual rights, serve the public good (as opposed to a selective private good, like a bailout for a politically well-connected company) then it cannot stand, can rightfully be ignored and should be repealed.
Critics will argue that such a framework does not have enough teeth to extract the necessary funds required to build that which is generally (and often mistakenly) assigned as a function of government. Roads, for example. I will address this more in depth at another time, but for now I will say that the Three-Rule Social Contract allows for voluntary fund collection and appropriate user fees. I for one do not regard my species with such contempt that I believe force is a necessary means to create common-use utilities and infrastructure. As it has been said many times by many others before; if we can pick cotton without the use of slaves, we can build roads without force.
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