Social contract is a phrase used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote a hypothetical agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibility of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members. All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society. The term "social contract" was coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his influential 1762 treatise The Social Contract.
(See STATISM.)
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[wikipedia]
Social Contract Theory is an attempt to justify coercion by claiming that certain involuntary arrangements are actually voluntary after all.
Individualism rejects any hypothetical contract with any hypothetical collective identity.
Contracts exist only between and among individuals.
(See MORAL AGENT.)
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Most modern theories of how society ought to work rest on some idea of agreement. Almost invariably, however, the agreement is fictitious, hypothetical, one that would be concluded if all men had equal "bargaining power," or saw things through the same "veil" of ignorance or uncertainty about their future. Or felt the same need for a central authority. The social contract, in its many versions, is perhaps the best known of these alleged agreements. All are designed to suit the normative views of their inventors and to justify the kind of social arrangements they should like to see adopted. Yet the only agreement that is not hypothetical, alleged, invented is the system of voluntary exchanges where all parties give visible, objective proof by their actions that they have found the unique common ground that everybody accepts, albeit grumblingly, but without anyone being forced to give up something he had within his reach and would have preferred. The set of voluntary exchanges, in one word, is the only one that does not impose an immorality in pursuit of a moral objective.
Anthony de Jasay, "Your Dog Owns Your House"
[deJasay]