In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1]
Social contract arguments typically are that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order.[2][3] The relation between natural and legal rights is often a topic of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (French: Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept. Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy.
The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent of any political order (termed the “state of nature” by Thomas Hobbes).[4] In this condition, individuals’ actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate why rational individuals would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.
Prominent 17th- and 18th-century theorists of the social contract and natural rights included Hugo de Groot (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel von Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) and Immanuel Kant (1797), each approaching the concept of political authority differently. Grotius posited that individual humans had natural rights. Thomas Hobbes famously said that in a “state of nature”, human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. In the absence of political order and law, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms, including the “right to all things” and thus the freedom to plunder, rape and murder; there would be an endless “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). To avoid this, free men contract with each other to establish political community (civil society) through a social contract in which they all gain security in return for subjecting themselves to an absolute sovereign, one man or an assembly of men. Though the sovereign’s edicts may well be arbitrary and tyrannical, Hobbes saw absolute government as the only alternative to the terrifying anarchy of a state of nature. Hobbes asserted that humans consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the absolute authority of government (whether monarchical or parliamentary).
Alternatively, Locke and Rousseau argued that we gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so.
The central assertion that social contract theory approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but human creations. The social contract and the political order it creates are simply the means towards an end—the benefit of the individuals involved—and legitimate only to the extent that they fulfill their part of the agreement. Hobbes argued that government is not a party to the original contract and citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest.
According to other social contract theorists, when the government fails to secure their natural rights (Locke) or satisfy the best interests of society (called the “general will” by Rousseau), citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence. Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and therefore the rule of God superseded government authority, while Rousseau believed that democracy (majority-rule) was the best way to ensure welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence.
Social contract theories were eclipsed in the 19th century in favor of utilitarianism, Hegelianism and Marxism; they were revived in the 20th century, notably in the form of a thought experiment by John Rawls.[5]
The rest is here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
Only gave this a cursory going over (too long) but looks to me that this is right up there with “The Divine Right of Kings” dictum and the Catholic priests claiming to be God’s representatives on earth. It’s got SUPERIORITY written all over it. Anything that attempts to trump the INDIVIDUAL is false and self-assigned power.
Re: “Social contract theorists seek to demonstrate why rational individuals would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.”
The argument of “Well, it’s for the collective good,” is easily shushed by the infringement concerns that are fully addressed by The Bill of Rights, and exercised in The Common Law Courts which exist to maintain “the social order.”
A “social contract” hands power and decision-making to The State (or church) and it becomes those institutions’ ideas of “order” that are forced on the people. To deny the individual his or her own sovereignty as director of his or her own life is to surrender to a road that will always lead to tyranny.
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We have a social contract, ratified by the people December 15, 1791. It is written in fact. It is the whole of the law and it is the fact that it is not being enforced that allows for anarchy and loss of order.
What I just read was the writings of some punk socialist sons of bitches who think they can make a case for aristocracy rule.
I’m sorry, that is something they can’t have.
Violate no other’s rights and we can live as we goddamn well please, but those rights are protected, and don’t try to pretend that they are not. They are unalienable, not inalienable. They are absolute from the day you are born until the day you die. The 9th Article makes clear that our law cannot be changed in any way.
They talk about sacrificing rights? Sorry piss ant, can’t do it. Our rights cannot be given away, contracted away, or disparaged in any way without creating violations of the 9th and 10th Articles, period.
We are in the state we are in because of the elements these bitches are trying to push more of right now. How about we slaughter these self appointed elite asses and live in autonomy with absolute freedom and justice under our Bill of Rights? This is the true guarantee that we will be free and serve no arrogant mother f-ker of any sort. Try to do this, and in enforcing the Bill of Rights, we will hang every f-king one of them for treason and sedition. Test it.
How succinctly it boils down to this:
“Violate no other’s rights and we can live as we goddamn well please!!”
Thanks, Henry!!
🙂
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Reader, thanks for posting this. I will eventually get through the whole Wiki article. It really is a very telling time-line of their assault on individual freedoms, even though those assaults have likely existed since the beginning of time. But here they’re boldly writing it down on paper as if tyranny is an original idea. How pompous is that?!! Thank goodness there have been (over the centuries) some who staunchly stood up to them, who screamed NO!!!, and who fought to the death. Today, if you ain’t Spartacus, you are already dead.
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Surprised no mention of that “greatest good for the greatest number” jacka$$ Jeremy Bentham….right…”greatest good for the greatest number” of criminal psycho elites, aka synagogue of Satan…or church or mosque or temple or ashram or…. whatever of Satan.
I always tell everybody who wants to know the truth about anything going on in the world right now, to get past wikipedia if they can. It’s kind of like a gate keeping site to keep a certain prescribed narrative in the forefront. This post prompted me to look up the American Bill of Rights on wikipedia. It’s a long scroll through that page! Without the Trenches, I would still be lost.