Time to Rescind the Social Contract
Posted by David S. D'Amato on Oct 22, 2010 in Commentary • 14 commentsIn the classical era, the modern concept of social contract theory had yet to be developed, and political theory therefore largely confined its focus to the question of what makes the good polity. The state, owing to its nature as such, was to be submitted to, the relevant inquiry going not to “the consent of the governed,” but to the necessary attributes of the best possible society, of which the state was understood to be an indispensible feature.
In truth, there was little distinction at all in classical thought between the political institution and the broader society that it governed; the two were seen as coextensive, aspiring to justice as the highest social end, but with justice as something that Professor William M. Evers describes as “status-governed.” Later thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau reformulated the idea of the social contract to conform to a less fatalistic account of free will, to an emphasis on consent, however given, and to the maturation of natural law theory.
It’s safe to assume that most of us, from day to day, assign little of our mental energy to the question of whether we have an affirmative moral duty to defer to the state, whether it should be able to control us regardless of the fact that it can. The pension crisis in France, though, has put “the social contract” — if not the abstract theory, then at least the phrase itself — in the news, raising fundamental questions about the character of our relationship with the Leviathan.
The strikes, which polls show are supported by 71 percent of the French population, come in the wake of a planned government “austerity” measure to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. As Angela Doland and Greg Keller of the Associated Press report the story, protestors are incensed at what they perceive as the French state “tamper[ing] with the near-sacred French social contract.” As it is with any consideration of contractual obligations, the question underlying the pension crisis asks what the legitimate (that is, rightful) expectations of the parties are — what kind of performance the bargain contemplates.
With the supposed contract at issue here, however, there are two related and mirroring assumptions at play, homologous errors that run through the entire debate. The first is the deluded belief, detectable in the frustrated mood of the protests, that the state would honor its promises or obligations. The undertakings of the welfare state, though they are promoted as a helping hand, are designed to create a permanent underclass grinding away for the elites’ bottom lines and consuming, among other crap, the products of Big Agribusiness.
It is an incredible testament to the publicity power of the state, then, that anyone could ever believe that it takes its commitments seriously; in short, the government’s word is worth about as much as the paper that its empty money is printed on, and that is true whether we are talking about France, the United States or any other band of sanctified criminals.
The second premise swirling about media analysis of the “social contract” at hand is the perverse idea that we are morally bound to obey the state, that responsibility, argue statists, stemming from our consent to it. Acknowledging that the very notion of consent entails the existence of a genuine, individual choice, the ability to opt out, defenders of the state hold that, by living in this or that dominion, we tacitly agree to the state’s terms. It ought to be noted here that — insofar as many statists deny individual autonomy and sovereignty altogether — not all of their ideas about consent even require the individual to give it.
Immanuel Kant, for example, seemed to adhere to a view of consent as, in the words of Tibor Machan, a “united act” taking place in the subconscious of the group. The problems with social contract justification of the state are clear enough and were refuted by analogy in Lysander Spooner’s No Treason.
Spooner argued that a contract is nonviable as anything more than an agreement between the distinct individuals who “consent formally” at the time, and that those people have “no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon” anyone else. The series of developments in France are still more evidence that the state couldn’t care less about the provisions of the social contract, or (more accurately) that such a thing never existed.
The very existence of the state is an affront to the principles of mutual agreement, to the principle of contract, and unfortunately for the French the worker can’t win as long as the state survives. Though the elites will, with all the usual placatory gestures, reassure away the strikes, only tearing up the state’s predatory adhesion contract will resolve the ultimate problem.
C4SS News Analyst David S. D'Amato is a market anarchist and an attorney with an LL.M. in International Law and Business. His aversion to superstition and all permutations of political authority manifests itself at firsttruths.org.
The whole idea is sloppy, intellectually. As we lawyers know, a contract needs specificity in order to be enforceable. So using the term "contract" is sloppy. Then if we grant some leeway on the use of the term we are left still with a contract whose terms are indefinite. What exactly is this "social contract" — what are its contours, what are its aims, what are its specifics? Who has rights, who has obligations, and what are they?
It's just a phrase used for fluffy political ends, one that's supposed to generate respect for a government that "honors its contracts," and one that encourages the citizenry to feel obliged to the government — and not the other way around!
It's a clever phrase, psychologically speaking.
But "clever" here is not a compliment.
You said it, CF Oxtrot. Over the past week or so I've heard dozens of vexing references to the idea of the social contract with respect to the situation in France. It dismays to hear people give credence to the idea.
Hey. I'm not sure anyone here expects the State to honor its 'contract.' Unless I haven't been paying attention. The idea that most people and protesters adhere to, is simply that the State is trying to fuck with their pension, and they're just gonna have to fight until they win and keep it.
Mordecai, I take your point. That's a lot like saying, though, that they've lived their lives in reliance on the idea that they have some kind of legitimate expectation — some enforceable contractual claim — to receive pension payments at that particular age. The idea that they think of this as the state trying to mess with "their" pensions shows that they feel they have a recognizable legal right to them, and the point I'm trying to make is that that feeling, in and of itself, says a lot about how people think of their relationship with the state. If they expected to have a compact with the state that would be duly honored, as they might expect in dealings with another kind of institution or another individual, then they fatefully misunderstood the relationship.
Anarchists should be against all contracts. The "anarcho"-capitalist worship of contracts is completely misguided, if you think of what a contract is in practical terms. If it's just an agreement for an exchange, then it really consists of two acts: I give you something, you give me something. This physically has to be done sequentially- so what happens if I give you something, and then you break the contract and skedaddle? In the current system, the government hunts you down. Without a government, there is nothing to enforce contracts. Even if "an"-caps figure out a non-oppressive way to enforce contracts, then what is a contract but an agreement to sign away freedom? aaah now I'm getting frustrated thinking about how silly contracts are. Free people in free, non-hierarchical communities don't need coercion or documentation to work together to get things done! Contracts are good for only one thing, and that is acquiring power over others. Yet ANOTHER reason why "anarcho"-capitalism would swiftly decay into a hierarchical system!
Also, the strikes aren't over the French retirement age "being raised from 60 to 62" as everyone is so fond of uncritically repeating. Actually, 60 is the absolute minimum retirement age to get 40% of your pension, assuming you work 42 straight years after turning 18. If you don't get a job until you're 25, you're not retiring until you're 67. The age for full retirement (again, after an unrealistically long and steady life of employment) was already 65 and is now moving to 67, which is AFTER the American age. Rather than "whining" about no longer being 'pampered', the French are genuinely getting a raw deal… not that anyone cares about the truth; the American propaganda system wins again!
RanDomino, You're right that a contract is merely an agreement for an exchange, but not all contracts are — or need be — reduced to a formal writing. When you buy a coffee, for example, though you pay value in the instant there is nevertheless a contract between buyer and seller; there's nothing inherently or necessarily coercive or oppressive in the relationship. Indeed, anarchism — by prohibiting individuals from using violence against one another — represents a society of contract.
I don't mean to imply the kind of contract where one party has, due to state-granted privilege, unfair bargaining power or position, but instead the kind where both consensually agree to exchange value for value, whether from goods or services, in a particular way. The idea that, "Without a government, there is nothing to enforce contracts," flies in the face of the anarchist vision of society.
Even today many commercial actors choose arbitration over the state's courts; they are often motivated by the idea that the arbitrators in their fields know the substantive law better than the court system and that the result therefore be more fair. In a free, stateless society, there is no reason why arbitration societies based on voluntary agreements and relationships couldn't resolve contractual disputes between parties.
This, to my mind, represents a non-oppressive way to enforce a contract. The hierarchies you rightly fear are the direct result of the state's monopoly and the many smaller monopolies it engenders by using force to compel people into economic relationships that are fundamentally exploitative instead of choice-based.
I think you may be conflating the notion of contractual agreement with contracts as they exist today as between puissant corporations and relatively powerless consumers. If you're trying to suggest that contracts would look much different in anarchy than they do today, then I certainly agree — and it's an important point to make — but the idea that voluntary agreement is per se oppressive seems like it confuses the relevant ideas.
I encourage you to check out this blog post (http://aaeblog.com/2010/09/17/how-inequality-shapes-our-lives/) by Roderick Long, discussing how the idea of contract today is polluted as a result of the state's aggressive intrusion into our economic lives, and how that could be expected to change in a society without governments.
Thanks a lot for you comment! It's much appreciated!
(Also, I should note that I agree with you that the French, like all people living under the weight of state control, are getting a raw deal. My argument is just that the state is not trustworthy, and that there is no choice involved in our relationships with it, contrary to the insistence of those who give credence to the social contract idea.)
Sorry for that off-topic post, but every time the word 'contract' is uttered I feel that way. Contracts are based in quid pro quo exchange, which is predicated on capitalist ideas of property (namely, title-based ownership), leads to concentration of wealth (since those who are better at getting more for what they give will do so), and is unnecessary and unnatural in the sort of strong communities founded on mutual aid we desire. Quid pro quo economic systems all are corruptible; what's to stop an arbitrator from being bribed? What's to stop one party from simply ignoring the decision if they don't like it?
I don't think a "social contract" means the same thing as a worker contract, 'we'll work for you and in return you'll provide for us'. Rather, I think it's an agreement among all of society to work together for long-term success rather than screwing everyone over at the first opportunity and running off with everything that can be grabbed. It seems to me that the French people feel their government is trying to push pension cuts without asking them first; in that sense, the social contract is being broken in the neoliberal way, a tragic (but inevitable) first for France.
Is there anything less social than neoliberalism, which assumes that all economic transactions are completely isolated from each other and from society? It demands that people screw their neighbor, and those who lose out deserve it and too bad for them. I wonder what Hobbes would think; the strong state is the agent of predation and the state of nature promotes civil cooperation! The poor bastard's head would probably explode.
RanDomino, I actually quite appreciate your post, and it affords an opportunity to discuss related issues. I recognize your problems with the current capitalist system, but I would take issue with the idea that recognition of property titles alone leads to concentration of wealth. Getting more for what you give is just bargaining, and if done in a non-coercive context — a level playing field — there is nothing per se exploitative in it. Concentration of wealth comes from state-granted privileges to favored economic actors, violently-created and -enforced barriers to entry that destroy rather than cultivate true free markets. You're very right that capitalism has nothing to offer but abuse of power, but free markets — simply another way of saying voluntary, consensual relationships — are the way out of such a system. As Brad Spangler has rightly noted of property titles, they "are simply the material boundaries of autonomy in the context of discussing when violence is legitimate or not. When you advocate against property, you argue in favor of ambiguity on use of force decisions."
Now, that said, market anarchists of course take issue with property titles as they manifest themselves in current economic life, but this is actually an objection to them as violations of (rather than as correct applications of) a correct theory of property titling. That is to say, if our ideas about property were consistently applied, then corporate power and privilege would necessarily disintegrate. Proper homesteading of property through some kind of labor-mixing/use requirement stands very much in opposition to the system of artificial, state-fortified property that enslaves the worker today.
In a free society without government, there would never be a way to completely erase bribery, corruption, or crime, but what is the alternative to a system that prescribes only aggression? I tend to think that the best way to mitigate bribery is to allow free people working in non-coercive ways to challenge institutions that promote unfairness or corruption. Though there will never be a way to miraculously erase all crime or disregard of proper societal rules, the erasure of the state's monopoly on justice and enforcement is the best way to foster the right impulses in society.
When you discuss the social contract as "an agreement among all of society," I have a hard time understanding how that's coherent, and that's the point I was trying to address in this piece. An agreement can only be ethical — and thus binding — where each individual has a legitimate option not to enter into it. Any coercive system such as the state perverts the idea of "agreement" and transposes it with enslavement. The "screwing everyone over at the first opportunity and running off with everything that can be grabbed" model is the state's model, this dishonest social contract model. The reality is that the "social contract," as such, we broken in France, and everywhere else where there is government, long before this crisis; this is just the latest example of the government pilfering society.
Of course the state is the agent of predation. We have merely to look around and witness the effects of its aggressive incursion into every facet of human life to see that a state of nature that recognizes the sovereignty of human beings and promotes their cooperation is much to be preferred to it.
"Getting more for what you give is just bargaining, and if done in a non-coercive context — a level playing field — there is nothing per se exploitative in it."
If a person ends up with more than others merely through mutually-agreed-upon bargaining in which some profit sufficiently and others profit a great deal, that is concentration of wealth which is both unfair and rife for abuse. The problem is that value is impossible to accurately measure. If I'm willing to accept less than the value of my product (my labor) for my wage, then the difference between what I'm paid and what that labor is worth is taken by the owner even though he didn't earn it. Then, if I complain, my own labor-value can be used against me through propaganda or even the naked violence of thugs. Call those thugs Police, and the modern capitalist system is reconstructed! Bargaining, exchange, is not exploitative per se, but it leads to exploitative ends.
Even if there is no blatantly evil activity to protect undeserved inequality, think of a 'properly'-functioning anarcho-capitalist system in terms of game theory: Those who are best at accurately guessing value will rise to the top, will be rewarded with more wealth. Why is that what we want to promote as a society? Shouldn't we structure the system so that it rewards activity that is actually useful in some way?
"free markets — simply another way of saying voluntary, consensual relationships — are the way out of such a system."
'Market' is just a mechanism an economic system can use, not an economic system in itself. Isn't Kevin Carson a Market Anti-Capitalist? "Market" just means that producers decide what to produce and who to give it to, and consumers decide what they want from the choices available (as opposed to a "Command" economy in which producers and consumers are told what to do). A Gift economy is a Market economy.
In fact, it might be that exchange is a coercive relationship- Coercion is when I demand you do something in order for me to do or cease something. If I demand you give me money for me to give you food, isn't that coercive? Even today, perhaps as much as half of food taken to retail in the United States is thrown away rather than let people have it for free (since then they wouldn't need to pay for it), and I don't see any State interference in that.
"if our ideas about property were consistently applied, then corporate power and privilege would necessarily disintegrate. Proper homesteading of property through some kind of labor-mixing/use requirement stands very much in opposition to the system of artificial, state-fortified property that enslaves the worker today."
Okay, so what are our ideas about property? I don't see any gray area between title-based ownership and use-based. If title is fundamentally sacrosanct, then there is no room for homesteading of abandoned property; hoarding results from title. In order to have a title property system incorporate some kind of dependence on use to maintain ownership, then artificial rules have to be developed, like arbitrary time limits to achieve adverse possession. Instead, why not say property ownership ought to be (and in some ways even is today) based entirely on use/occupancy? That's a simple rule everyone can understand, which is a requirement for a good system according to Chaos Theory.
A system that promotes cooperation without coercion is what we want, but a system is based on common operating rules. It's not enough to say "no government!" without having a clear understanding of what supplants it.
I guess I'm a bit confused about what you're advocating. You note, correctly, that "value is impossible to accurately measure," a concession to the subjective theory of the Austrians, then you seem to suggest that labor is the measure of value, and that any voluntary exchange for labor is inherently exploitative; I could be misunderstanding you there. My point about bargained-for exchange is that it is impossible to know objectively who gets a better bargain because, in a free, non-coercive system, people wouldn't make trades that they didn't think they were benefitting from. Now whether or not they actually got the better end of the trade is not a question disposed of by answering the first question — whether the means they chose was ethical. The way I see it, there are only two means for human relationships: peaceful means — like trade or, as you mentioned, gift — or violent means. We just seem to define force in different ways, and maybe we can't be reconciled on that.
In terms of "structuring the system," I don't think speculation is necessarily rewarded by a true free market, and I would suggest that the productive activity you talk about is most rewarded by a system without the use of force — what shape that takes is not the concern as long as the means are ethical. As for use vs. title, I think we may be using the words in different ways. I think title should come from use, so I don't see an inherent contradiction.
"A system that promotes cooperation without coercion is what we want, but a system is based on common operating rules."
I think we're basically in agreement. Is your problem with the idea of property itself?
Value might be impossible to measure precisely, but we can tell if something is worth more or less than something else, and if someone got a raw deal. Since it's vanishingly unlikely that a worker is going to paid exactly what they're owed, they'll either be paid more or less than what they deserve. Since businesses that pay their workers more than their labor is worth will fail, the aggregate result is that workers will be paid less than what their labor is worth. In a capitalist system, the difference between the workers' product and their wages is pocketed by the owners. This principle is the same for any system based on exchange.
I understand that, ideally, an exchange system will result in mutually-beneficial trades… but as wealth concentrates into the hands of those who are best at manipulating and screwing others, the market will become less free. Without a government to (theoretically) prevent it, the wealthiest owners will simply hire thugs and mercenaries to protect their ill-gained property and intimidate competitors and workers, and we'll be back to square one.
"Is your problem with the idea of property itself?"
No, my problem is with how property ownership is tracked. To Anarchists, the 'owner' loses all rights to a factory or farm the moment he ceases working at it; a house when they do not dwell in it, etc; workers should own their workplaces, and people in communities should own mutually the things they use in common, such as roads, forests and open water, and utilities. That is use-based property. That kind of property ownership makes contracts irrelevant… and that kind of system also involves a 'social contract'.
Insofar as I obviously agree that ownership of property ought to be based on use rather than the state's spurious titling, I'm obviously with you in the underlying rationale. I still think, though, that even in the kind of system you envisage there would have to be some kind of quid pro quo trades/exchanges, perhaps not necessarily implicating the exchange of a wage for labor, but at least as between goods. Not everyone, I think you'll admit, would operate as a completely self-sustaining farmer and, conversely, not everyone would choose to live in a voluntary, mutual aid association. People would be driven to trade, and sometimes people would choose to enter into trades that cut against their own interests. I think this is just an unavoidable part of a society without government, and it's not clear to me how this could be prevented without government — which is to say I don't think it's desirable that we try to prevent it. I think I can get on board with a lot of what you're really getting at here though.
Not prevent it, but rather make sure that people have enough support to resist coercion. That both requires and builds community.