The "Social Contract".
 

Some question was raised concerning the "Social Contract" that d-ray often refers to. I thought I would post this link to further clarify the meaning of "social contract". I decided to put it in this forum since it seems to encompass all aspects of human social interaction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

Thoughts, opinions?

Dave

my though is that corporatism looks at this with disdain

The criticism I hear from Whell or read in this link has to do with the semantic use of the word "contract." Somehow, the criticism seems to use the legal meaning of "contract" as a trump card to invalidate the notion of a "social contract."

Isn't that kinda like saying that you need to give a rabies shot to a hot dog?

As a German speaker, I'm quite familiar with compound words and am able to recognize that "social contract" is a compound word used to explain a concept that differs materially from "contract" used in a purely legal context.

Much better explanation than any damn lawyer would give.

Regards,

D-Ray

I'm on a slippery slope, it appears.;)

It's because "Social Contract" sounds and is, in some measure, collectivist. It rubs their "every man for himself" mentality the wrong way. The "Law of the Jungle" appeals to their base primal instincts and is therefore more compatible with the modern conservative mentality. Baboons don't pool their resources to care for other Baboons that can't keep up with the troupe, they bite and stomp them to death to prevent them from holding the others back. See what I'm sayin'? :p

Dave

You're cold brother.;) Interestingly, many of the conservatives who reject evolution also embrace economic Darwinism - the survival of the fittest. Some of us would see that as survival of the creatures who place profits above all other values. Concern for the environment, concern for the plight of working people, concern for the community are all signs of weakness, unless such concern can be leveraged to enhance profits.

I wonder what a society would look like if it was based on the golden rule stated in the Bible rather than the one that states "them that's got the gold makes the rules."

Regards,

D-Ray

I never signed any contract.

But apparently upon being born I am already able to give my consent to be governed by people who do not know me and do not represent me.

The issue isnt even that I am against this, the issue is that I was never asked.

So, society is not to move forward unless each and every individual gives his or her full consent? How is that even possible? I hear it all of the time, Karl. "Why should I have to comply with that regulation or pay that tax, I never consented to it."

The answer is simple; You will never achieve anything if you have to wait on a unanimous decision from the masses. Heck, half the time it's nearly impossible to do so with a simple majority.

Some just have to deal with it, when they don't get their way. We all face that from time to time. That's just how it is.

Dave

I fixed it to represent our current federal government.
YAWN...this thread sucks.

Excellent point. Take this to the extreme, where we have no "social contact".

Everyman for himself. The ultimate winner has everything, and no one else even exhists. What is the point to being super wealthy or well tto do if there are no other humans to (pick your thoughts - rule over, share with, make jealous, take more from, give to, etc).

Monopoly is a fun game, but in real life it would suck. I win and have everything - no one else has anything.

So being human means being social. Without a person might as well crawl under a rock and live entirely uninterruped for the remainder of their life.

BTW - excellent link and great thread too.

Dont make the mistake of thinking that, when I am against something, I am for everything else within this system.
It is not my fault that the system that we live in is created in such a way which makes it essential that everyone is coerced.

But lets get past that and get to the fact that this 'social contract' extends far further than it actually needs to. Why should people in Washington or people in London get to tell me how to live my life? If I want to have sex with my brother, for example, I should be able to but instead I have to abide by something written down by people who I do not know and do not care about.

Furthermore, lets not call it by its official name. 'Social contract' is an insult to language and its definition is an insult to reality. Lets not pretend that this is anything more than the states ownership of human beings such as me and you. Lets discuss things frankly and lets use words that suit reality rather than fantasy.

Here is another more comprehensive link to social contract theory:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/

If you like original source material:

Hobbes, Locke, More, and Rousseau are all good entry points; however, to get into the real intricacies Kant and Hume must be read. David Hume is quite accessible, but one often quoted statement regarding Kant is "He speaks through clouds without the benefit of the lightening flash for illumination." If you look at the above link you'll find that feminists and those seeking racial equality have traditionally been in opposition to social contract theory. Rawls' Theory of Justice is also worth reading if you're interested in social contract theory and the accompanying social justice assertions.

Don't need a contract when everybody's getting along, it's when everybody QUITS getting along that you need a contract.

Perhaps the reason why everybody AIN'T getting along so good is that our current social contract is leaving a lot of people holding the shitty end of the stick.

And unlike Socrates, if I sense that the powers that be are using "OUR" social contract to run smooth over my ass, then I consider the contract null and void.

BTW, I've always thought that Geronimo was the greatest American who ever lived. Don't guess he went to school proper, but he had the initiate ability to tell when his social contract was flawed, and he had the courage to do something about it.

Chas

Good, so does that mean that we will not see any more of your inane babbling in this thread.

Rob, you need to be more specific whenever addressing the inane babblers in this thread.

Now if you're referring to me the answer is no.

I'm gonna go on the warpath instead. Just like my hero.

Chas

Sorry Chas, a bunch of folks hit the send button whil I was typing, my post was aimed at dj.:p

I figured as much, but I couldn't resist the jab!!!

Well, since my suspicions have been confirmed I'll just skip the warpath and go to work instead.

I need to fulfill my end of the social contract.

Take care,

Chas

All this talk of coercion puzzles me, I do not feel compelled to drive on one side of the road, rather than down the middle, common sense tells me the latter is suicidal. I do not feel the long arm of goverment in my bedroom, it would get cut off if it tried. The basic rules of society are by and large eminently sensible and where they are not they tend to be ignored. I don't find taxes onerous considering what they provide. I do not feel any need to rant and rave against the government beyond what my vote does. If the majority disagrees with me so be it, one day they will come to their senses.:p

Dude...Your own brother? Seriously, WTF?:confused:

Dave

+1. And, there you have it.

Dave

Don't think ANY economic conservatives "embrace economic Darwinism". They DO however recognize that an individual's economic status is largely the result of a bunch of VOLUNTARY choices over which strangers SHOULD NOT have dictatorial control... The INVOLUNTARY choices are the ones we should focus our "social justice" on..

Let's put some concrete to this.. Public Housing.. We REQUIRE a bunch of stuff from folks that live in public housing. We require that they give up their 2nd Amend. rights in some cases. We require that they give up certain 4th and 5th amendments (inspections and admin access) that others are not asked to give up. Many grannies have been booted from public housing because some niece or nephew was peddling dope from her door. I THINK -- that public housing OUGHT TO BE contigient on keeping your kids in SCHOOL until they get a diploma --- but we can't ask THAT can WE????

So how do you make a UNIVERSAL "contract" with people you don't know, will never meet and have no mutual influence? Those things don't phase the lefties.. They LOVE UNIVERSAL solutions.. But even in the case of the altruistic, all-loving, all-caring govt --- they ask for shit in return for handouts. One size fits all solutions to every ill. Heck they can make Rhodes scholars out of kids with Crack moms..

Same in the private charities -- Kind of... You might be asked to praise the lord in exchange for a meal. Or to help sweep the stairwells -- the kinda of stuff that causes holy revolution to break out if you tried that crap in PUBLIC housing..

MY humble opinion of the social contract is that you work for better options for people striving to do the right things. Like choices in public education for parents whogiveashit. And real freedom to drive a cab.. Not just a job for guys who have an uncle in City Hall.

And anyone that falls by the wayside needs one-on-one time -- not just a check and some cheese -- to fix their problems..

It's the diff between the functional, the "couldbe" functional, the "usedtobe" functional, and the dysfunctional that makes the idea of a UNIVERSAL social contract a non-starting pipedream...

Can we ask you not to break-dance or gang-bang your way thru high school til you predictably drop-out? NO - we can't.. Because of respect for individual soveignty -- you know -- that old dead LIBERAL concept that died with heart of the Democrat party....

That has to be one of most misguided epic poems to blind allegiance to govt that I've ever read..

If you truly believe that your one vote guarantees the effective and ethical administration of justice -- you are one clueless dude. If you believe that your taxes ought to be supporting huge Brazilian oil companies and foreign jobs -- you're a hypocite for trying to find vanishing "American products". And if you believe it's "eminently sensible" to condemn most inner school children to a public education monopoly that has criminally low expectations for them -- I pity you...

Sorry man -- If you want to join a union and see your potential wages go to folks who should have been fired ages ago because that's your personal view of "social fairness" then PLEASE have at it. I'm not stopping you.. But NEVER assume that I'm going to one day "come to my senses" and join you in that endevour..

I've been EXTREMELY pissed off for the past week. Can't watch the news or even successfully interact with other human beings right now.. Never mind signing up for pledges that we can't keep as whole society...

Might need a time-out..

Here's the daily rundown on why the concept of simple UNIVERSAL social contract is more complicated than it appears...

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-01/p..._s=PM:POLITICS

Am I HAPPY about this version of "the contract"? Heck no..

ASK folks to voluntarily commit to drug rehab. Offer to pay for counseling and the rehab. That's all that you can do besides catch them using and toss them in jail.. Another not so loving choice eh?

Testing ALL welfare reciepients is a degrading assumption isn't it?

This societal triage thingy ain't as easy as folks imagine..

"Heck they can make Rhodes scholars out of kids with Crack moms.."

I thought it was YOU that could take any group of inner city kids and turn them into Chemical Engineers?

"And if you believe it's "eminently sensible" to condemn most inner school children to a public education monopoly that has criminally low expectations for them..."

I think success is up to individual drive and ambition. So, in lieu of public education, which worked out pretty good for me and very well for you, apparently, just what do you propose? Are you ready to pay for all of those kids to attend private school? Because their parent(s) can't. How about jobs? And not shitty, worthless, low wage jobs that leave people applying for food stamps despite the fact that they work, but gainful employment for the parents of those kids? Seems to me that that would solve a lot of these issues. Then, they could pay their own way. Oh, that's right, the business community finds wages like that to be completely intolerable. Oh, well. Looks like we're stuck paying for it through our taxes. And, you know what that means..............

Anyhow, the "Social Contract" to which we refer is really very basic and simple.
Like it or not, we are a village. A village that grows more and more interconnected everyday. Each man living as an island may have worked somewhat, a hundred years ago, but it is as gone as the last Mohican now. And it aint comin' back. EVER.

Dave

From what I've seen.....Most union jobs pay WAY more and have far, far better benefits than non-union jobs, even the ones running the "incentive pay" scam. (They start you off at half the pay and maybe make up some of it if you really break your back. I've seen it with my own eyes.) If this wasn't true, then why would any employer so vehemently oppose unionization? Productivity? Nonsense. I've worked in both environments. And seen darn little difference in productivity. It's about the pay and the pay alone.

Dave

Okay, where did you get your info for firing union folks? I'd bet a lot it is an off the cuff stereotype statement filled and powered with hate and fear. Not much sense in a generalized statement like that for sure.

Need a time out? Yep, I think so.

And is something entirely different than the concept of merely good neighbor "social contract" and norms that Merrylander had in mind. The depth and breadth of using social contract theory as justification for government expansion knows no bounds. That is precisely the problem—it is indeed slippery on them thar hills.

Dude, sometimes pledges are shortsighted and should never have been bothered with in the first place. (As in, "I signed it just to get elected.")

Signing the Norquist pledge is as silly as a candidate signing a pledge stating he/she will never send our kids into combat. You have no idea what the future holds, or what you may have to do even if it goes against your own personal beliefs. Life just doesn't work that way. And just because someone finds himself/herself having to do something they promised they wouldn't, doesn't necessarily make them a liar. And that's not a partisan thing, that goes for anyone.

At least that's how I see it. You may disagree.

Dave

It would be grand thing if our GOP friends grew a pair and told that dude to kiss off. What's he going to do, become a Democrat? :D



Carl

Really. Who in the he** is Grover Norquist anyways? "Oh, I can't do that, I promised Grover I wouldn't.":confused:

Well, I guess the way it's worded, they're not really making the pledge to him. They're making it to us. Which, I don't really care, I think it's an absurd pledge anyhow. Like making a pledge to my boss, that I will never, ever be late for, or miss another day of work...........And then I get stuck in a traffic jam or my gall bladder bursts, or something. Know what I mean?

Dave

This is not an argument FOR state intervention this is an argument AGAINST it.

Lucky you.

Again, not an argument for the state.

This is similar to a rape victim saying "ah it wasnt that bad. I quite enjoyed it actually, so whats the problem?"

How about you give your consent. Now, while you consider that last statement, I want you to imagine that there are no rich people. Just think about normal people such as yourself. Now, whats the big deal?

Sit, speak, roll over. Good boy.

It was only an example.

I really can't see where you are coming from. What is happening in Ghana is terrible but neither you nor I live there.

From your posts I get the impression that only anarchy will lease you so I suggest you find yourself a desert island. Idiot.

My point was that you may not feel the arm of government in your bedroom but that feeling is not felt in the bigger picture. Ghana is just one example.
You really cant think of any examples from the Americas or UK? What does it matter what country we talk about?

I dont see what a desert island has to do with anything.

The social contract is not an explicit document or well-defined law. It is a theory concerning the most just and effective way to live together in a society. It is assumed that one will give up some freedom to act according to the law of the jungle when he receives some implicit promise of security in return. We are presumed to prefer social order over a life that is "nasty, cruel, brutish and short."

The ruler in Ghana is the type of person who the social contract is presumably designed to protect us from - one who asserts power by violence. Tyranny is not accepted as part of the social contract, and the conduct in Ghanna is unquestionably tyrannical.

In our own "more civilized" countries, we will differ over the degree to which society needs to exert authority to assure some social order. Some of us would see the conduct of the robber barons during the industrial revolution as a type of tyranny which would be rejected under the social contract. Some of us might see that any sort of excessive use of wealth to assert power is outside of the social contract. Others, of course, will see the regulation designed to prevent financial tyranny as in itself tyrannical, because it is an assertion of greater influence than that to which we have implicitly consented. Simply because the range of political opinions can run from anarchy to dictatorship, does not mean that an implicit social contract does not exist in that range between the extremes.

Regards,

D-Ray

Dave:

This public education thing is really what set off my latest volcanic eruption. In terms of the "social contract", when I made the offer to turn inner city kids into chemical engineers the agreement was that their parents would VOLUNTARILY (and eagerly) commit them to my care and my rules. (Actually I know for a fact it can be done and it's not by rules that I have developed, but that I'd willingly adopt)

This would be opposed to believing that the same "miracle" could be done without "a contract" or cooperation from the reciepient or the Crack Mom.. Or by more simple Redistribution of wealth (as taken from the "social contract") we just cast checks upon the wound and watch it all heal up...

Don't know why you copied the last phrase.. "emminently sensible" were MerryLander's words describing all the rules of society.. I've got piles of innocent Drug War bodies and mountains of wasted minds in the poverty pits to dispute how "emminently sensible" it all is..

Actually MANY of their parents are TRYING real hard to do that. But they are burdened with paying for school TWICE -- like the "rich parents" do -- except she doesn't have enough hours in the day. She may not pay property taxes, but her landlord has to. Just give her a voucher for 80% of the $12K that's allocated for her student and we'll call it fixed..

My village is getting cluttered with emails from China and Germany.. Are they now part of my village? Who are the people on this board that want to FENCE the village..

The lefties want to keep jobs and money here by erecting economic and trade fencing, and the righties want to fence and moat the social borders of this country to protect jobs and money (and arguably security).. There's no big diff here.. Got news for you -- THAT "ain't gonna happen" either..

It's a false choice that you offer here with a nebulous concept like a social contract.

That without it -- we're savages- people die..

And if we just sign up today -- we're angels -- and everyone is healthy, wealthy and the kids are all brilliant..

I'm kicking back into society.. Quite alot actually.. But I'm doing it in a measured and focused way. I don't need a "United Way" to show me how to it...

Then why on earth would an employer want to unionize? So all the work goes to China?

Tell me - if I'm running a press, and it goes out of spec, if I could I would adjust it back. Try it in a union shop. So me twiddling my thumbs for hours waiting for maintenence doesn't matter? Why did Toyota crush the UAW?

The founders understood the need for something like the thought behind the social contract, which is why they said repeatedly (whether they were true belivers or not) that our form of gov't was only workable for a Christian society and encouraged it at every turn. Even though "we were never a Christian nation" :rolleyes:

Karl, Jefferson believed that every generation had the right to write their own Constitution....

Pete

Can you imagine giving the current herd of Fools on the Hill the responsibility to write a Constitution? They can't even take a pro forma vote on the debt limit for monies they've already committed.:(

Very sad. Failure of the electorate. I blame the left :p

Pete

?
That is a new one to me. I have not heard or read this before. I'll google, but do you have a source I can look at too?
MArk