The Social Contract

The philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau once postulated the Social Contract. The Contract, he believed, answered one of social philosophy's greatest problems: How do you maintain your self-determination even though you're required to give up that self-determination in order to be part of an association? (e.g. society)

Rousseau said:
"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."

That's why it's a contract: We promise to align ourselves with the general populace since, as members of the general populace, we'll allegedly benefit from our actions. This makes us each a member of the government and subject to the government: giving us rights and duties as citizens.

I wish I could go into more detail about the Social Contract since Rousseau was brilliant and there's so much more to his philosophy, including state-to-state relations, state-to-citizen relations, etc., etc. But I can't without boring the crap out of everyone ("Too late.")...

Basically, the Social Contract is the natural system of social order. It can act as a litmus test to compare different governments against. At one end of the spectrum you would have the ideal form of government--a true democracy; at the other end you would have slavery. Obviously, a true democracy cannot exist on a large scale, so our Founding Fathers created a Representative Republic. The idea is that our representatives will do what they feel is best for their citizenry, and that we will choose our representatives according to what viewpoints they have. The general voice of the population will decide.

What actually ends up happening is far more complex. Representatives' decisions are not only swayed by their citizenry, but also by party politics, lobbyist groups, and self-interest. I'm not trying to be cynical here -- this is just the way things are. Also government is a dynamic system, subject to change every 4-years or 6-years. This makes it so that the incumbents must keep the populace on their side to keep their jobs, and the challengers must turn the population against the incumbents. This is a two-edged sword: these dynamics are necessary to keep politicians dependent on the popular will; and yet they create a system in which so much political energy is expended against the opposing party rather than for the good of society.

Moreover, no one in politics enjoys accountability. The way accountability exists is through the fourth estate, the media. So of course a considerable degree of energy is expended to generate accountability for one's political opponents while, at the same time, dodging the bullet yourself (ok, so now I am being a bit cynical). This creates a system of media control, political subterfuge, and misinformation, as well as a desire for large-scale tranquilization.

But the bottom line is this: we are bound to the Social Contract. We did not choose the system of government we were born into, but we are able to change it. If we do not hold ourselves accountable as citizens, then we are subject to the powers that be. Okay, that's enough for today.