Political Theory: US Social Contract

By Steve Kassel Smith

Exploration of the Political Theory of Social Contract in context of US Founding Documents reflecting European Struggle for Self Rule and Civil Rights.  The task is too much for one man, one book.  This book explores the questions and lays out the structure for analysis.  Many links & addendum included with focus on decline of middle class and manufacturing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Kassel Smith
• Release date: May 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386873976

Book preview

Forward Goals

The goal is a hypothesis that a US Social Contract exists within the structure of the US Constitution, that this contract has been broken, that our national government is in a state of interregnum or simply led by wealthy political machines displacing the US Citizen government by the people to produce an ebook.  The hypothesis must be placed in the context of wealth & power, Eisenhower's Military, Industrial, Intelligence, Congressional, Complex (MICC) and the backdrop of European Monarchies, Empires, and the strategies of power we know from the Roman Empire/Vatican.

Political Theory is concerned with legitimacy of government and the Social Contract is a seems a very appropriate term to cover the subject.  Pressing issues today are endless war, endless federal spending and it's impact on all citizens and our future, growing inequality, downward pressure on wages & compensation, growth of an underclass, war on the middle class, transfer of jobs to workers with out worker rights and protections and slave labor rates, and growth of very powerful globalist forces.

The Social Contract theory is that society relies on government representatives to be predictable, reliable, to provide basic common utility, service, and protection to the people of that society.  The government and people agree to a large degree where we are all headed and in exchange for giving up some power and decision making the people have expectations.

Wikipedia states that Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel von Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762), and Immanuel Kant (1797) are among the most prominent of 17th-century and 18th-century theorists of social contract and natural rights.  The social contract concerns the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1] Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have 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 of social contract approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but are instead 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. According to Hobbes (in whose view government is not a party to the original contract) 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 in 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 that the rule of God therefore superseded government authority, and Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way of ensuring the general 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, and were revived in the 20th century, notably in the form of a thought experiment by John Rawls.[3]

The origins of Social Contract originates with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762.  However perhaps the sentiments reach back through feudalism, through the Roman Empire, through Greek history, to Sumerian history carved in stone stele or cuneiform tablets 4,000 – 5,000 years ago.  Citizens want to know what their rights are and what to expect from the king: will slaves be set free and debts erased in the coming Jubilee. 

The official US Political Economy is a constitutional republic with capitalism, social programs, pluralism, lobbying, and free markets.

The unofficial Political Economy is a republic with finance capitalism, consumer-debt based economy, mixed economy, pluralism, lobbying, many financial markets, government bailouts, State Capitalism, 1/3 of the land owned by