The stated aim of The Social Contract is considered to be: “to determine whether there can be a legitimate political authority.” This is a laudable question, given that many forms of governance seem to place people in a state far worse than they would otherwise encounter. What then, is the good, of an organized society, if you lose more than you gain?
Rousseau states, “Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers.” Begging the terrible question of our day and all days, “what powers are legitimate?” The answer is not easy to arrive at, except to say that during the past century, the world has generally come to agree with Rousseau, in that, “the ability to coerce is not a legitimate power, and there is no rightful duty to submit to it.”
Meaning, your capacity for bullying does not equal my requirement to obey.
All of which is fine and good, if I am willing to live with the bullying that will follow, should my chosen society fail to protect individuals from such illegitimate leadership. But, by being born here, there, anywhere…did I choose my society? Or was it mere accident?
Rousseau goes on to say this:
“In this desired social contract, everyone will be free because they all forfeit the same number of rights and impose the same duties on all.” Rousseau explains the absurdity of a man surrendering his freedom for slavery; saying, “the participants must have a right to choose the laws under which they live.”
“…must have a right to choose…“
To my eye, Rousseau is arguing that freedom does not mean you forfeit nothing. Freedom is not the absence of losses of liberty, nor is it a life without obligation to others. Freedom is one thing and one thing only: our inalienable right to choose which laws to live under. Which society to join, if any. Which country to offer our partial surrender and promised duties.
This is arguably codified by the foremost goals of our own (American) constitution, with these treasured words: “We hold these truths to be self–evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
These rights, as so written, and naturally or divinely promised, speak of our right to make the ultimate choice of which society to join, which sacrifices to accept, which obligations to take on. Each for ourselves. And to do this, we must have freedom of movement.
I have never heard a better argument for open borders in my life. From a purely pragmatic perspective, should borders open, and should humans be free to move about as they wish….would not the most successful and desirable “social contracts” naturally attract more people? And those with faulty or poorly contracts, lose them?
We know this would happen, and we know that power moves as the people move. Proof lies in the past century, as The Soviet Union, Red China and North Korea demonstrate(d) perfectly by preventing their captive populations from leaving.
Therefore, if we wish to see social contracts around the world improve, maybe we need only free people up to choose for themselves? Could it be as easy as that? Perhaps the solution to the issue of “immigration” is to simply step aside, open the gates, and let the natural selection of quality social contracts over crappy ones tip the global balance toward a world with truly valuable Social Contracts.
It’s worth consideration, at the very least.
The role of government, of course, is to manage the will of the people, and to not impose unreasonable burdens on those it is created to serve. Some forms of governance, however, are specifically designed to have government impose its will on the activities/rights of the governed. The latter is the effect of Socialism, many proponents of which used the logic of Rousseau in the formulations of their respective constructs of “government.”
The suggestion posed, here, strikes me of the ideas about “social contracts” as expressed by Howard Zinn, a notable excluder of facts that prove his thesis in his “People’s History of the United States” to be patently vapid.
The idea of an open border or other malleable “social contract”would destroy the culture and ideals of America as set forth in the mentioned U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. People coming from places where the idea of private property and the rule of law is non-existent at worst, and where scofflaw is the behavior de rigueur at best, is a prescription for disaster for this Country. The rush to judgement of Justice Kavanaugh is a prima facie case of the tossing out of the rule of law for political and ideological expediency.. Watching the degradation of societies in Germany, Italy, France, Denmark and Sweden resulting from the free flow of immigrants is just the latest manifestation of this proposed form of “social contract.”
Instead of being concerned about how to circumvent laws that make life “inconvenient,” maybe this idea should be put in the can so folks could focus on how to eliminate (pun intended!) the need for this app found on the iTunes store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snapcrap/id1436238261?ign-mpt=uo%3D2 That’s right, an app that allows you to view and report human feces and druggie needles for the concerned local denizen and fawning tourist in one of Liberalisms greatest failures….the Sanctuary City. Of course, if the presented :social contract” were to be instituted, there would be an even greater need for the SnapCrap app, which would no doubt send followers of Rousseau to the cameras to demand the institutional bullying of Americans lead by Trump (who else) be stopped by….you got it, a law.
Laws have and are written to protect individuals or groups regardless of their willingness to be protected….Seat Belts and Vaccinations are examples. The military has rules and regulations to not only protect the individual, but to protect a unit as a whole from activity that puts that group in danger – A sailor standing Fire Watch who falls asleep puts an entire ship at risk. The penalty is severe to serve notice as to the seriousness of the duty at hand.
If a guest casually walks across your sofa (border) sans shoes despite your admonition to not do so, or decides to “hit the rails” despite laws forbidding the hobo activity (primarily for the safety of the violator), the behavior perpetrated shows a lack respect for private property (a Country) and ignoring a law that is somehow justified because the law or the society that generates the law is considered “bullying?”
One would be better informed to read “Debunking Howard Zinn,” by Mary Grabar to get a real feel for what this open borders “social contract” is really all about. Or, have a good sit down interview with residents of Ukraine (as I have in the past two weeks) or those who have lived under the various Socialist regimes of the Balkans or Poland that were not merely “bully” regimes, but deadly contrivances cloaked in a facade of protecting and ensuring rights of the citizenry.
“The Founders (NOT the Founding Families) believed, and the Conservative agrees . . . that we, as human beings, have a right to live, live freely, and pursue that which motivates us not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights.” But statism replaces the recognition of unalienable rights as rights inherent to an individual because he is a human being created by God, with the perception that it is the state that is the grantor of rights.”
“Having dismissed divine providence, it follows that statism would abandon natural law as the objective basis for civil law and replace it with relativism, where truth is, in theory, a matter of opinion, but in effect, it becomes whatever those in power say it is. The combined shift works to change the understanding of a right as something inherent to an individual, which the state is obligated to respect, to pseudo-rights or benefits the state bestows (or promises to bestow), usually in return for popular support. Consider the “right” to health care or affordable housing.”
Mark Levin
Hi Paul,
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. I believe we are in overall agreement. My article does not really deal with the details of various social contracts. My point, rather, is that allowing people freedom to “vote with their feet” may result in a world filled with increasingly positive contracts.
Americans are often taught about the USSR. It is the western world’s model for “communism” and it is a scary story. The USSR social contract was forced upon whoever was unlucky enough to be born within certain borders; with death, imprisonment or government torture as the penalty for disagreement. AND, if you wish to leave? Nope, sorry. North Korea is a similar example (if not worse).
Of course, we all get it that if you’re being forced to do something (or stay somewhere), the chances are high that you would leave if you could. I mean, who traps their own population? Those who offer an undesirable social contract. Of course, if the USSR social contract had been a success, there would have been no need for the massively weaponized borders, right?
Recently, I traveled through North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia…I was there for a month and the story (as expressed to me by literally every single person I spent time with) was that Yugoslavia was a wonderful place to live and grow up. I didn’t know anything about Yugoslavia. As an American Government School student, it just never came up. So, you can imagine my surprise at hearing that it was a communist country….and, you can imagine my further surprise at learning that Yugoslavia had open borders.
Communism is an idea, not a single document with a strict set of rules. Yes, there are documents and books that try to capture the idea of communism and lay claim to how it can (or cannot) be used…but, just as America enjoys a uniquely modern, American version of Democracy (while pointing to its ideological birth in ancient Greece), so could Tito say, “I like these communist ideals and concepts, but I’m going to create a social contract that is quite different from what you see in the USSR.” So, what a surprise to learn that a communist country thrived for decades, during which time its citizens could have packed up and left, if they’d wanted. Instead, they voted with their feet, and they stayed. Why? Because the social contract was acceptable.
Humans are the source of human society. Whether created by God or Mother Nature, humanity is uniquely human. Zebras, for example, do not create human society. Humans do. And, if we allow humans to move freely across the Earth, which many believe God created for all of us, then we will see which social contracts are more or less attractive.
The United States of America are the result of this very premise. Once the “ideas” of America reached the rest of the world (religious freedom, publicly funded education, women’s rights, private property rights, elected leaders, legal representation and a jury of our peers…), what happened? People came. People left social contracts they didn’t like, and they traveled toward one they preferred.
Paul, as you say, it is our inalienable right to freely choose. We are born with and will die with that intrinsic right. No law can remove this right, even though some social contracts pretend to do so. Some even convince their members that it has this power…but there is nothing that can remove each human’s internal self-determination or God-Given free will.
Just consider the impact on North Korea. Open the borders and the humans who keep the North Korean system up and running, will probably leave. The system will falter, as humans move toward the system offered in South Korea (few would flee to China, except to follow other family members who have already escaped over the Chinese border). Then, as North Korea collapses, the people can return to reclaim their ancestral homeland and bring with them…the preferable social contract found elsewhere in the world.
We can use borders, resources, energy, weapons and money to try and control, control, control. Or, we can trust God (free will) and see what happens when people vote with their feet. In my mind, it will simply result in the gradual elimination of poor social contracts while the best social contracts flourish and expand.
More about Howard Zinn and his falsehoods …..is it any wonder that college students and lazy get their information from corrupted sources…such as CNN, as the new whistleblower data provided by Project Veritas exposes?
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/10/14/scholar-leftist-historian-howard-zinn-lied-about-christopher-columbus/