It’s been something of a privilege to watch better minds than mine tackle the issue I raised in this post about my friend Joe and the ‘social contact’.

The issue was fairly simple: How do you counter the idea that the Government can get you to do anything it wants because, by remaining in the country, you’re implicitly agreeing to abide by a  ‘social contract.’

IanB got stuck into the idea that you can ‘just leave’ because this is the standard response that you always get from collectivists – “if you don’t like it, leave”

This argument creates the illusion of a contract being voluntarily agreed with. You go into a pub, you’re agreeing to abide by the rules set out by the landlord. You come into my home you’re agreeing to abide by the rules that I set out.

But being born into a Nation and living in a Nation is not the same as ‘going into a pub.’ Under international law you cannot deprive someone of their nationhood. He concluded that the Social Contact would be valid if you could leave the state whilst physically remaining where you were. As in, Milton Keynes deciding to secede from the United Kingdom. If this were possible then the collectivist’s argument holds up. If it’s not (which it’s not, not anywhere) then it does not.

This question of personal sovereignty was tackled by Jock Coats, who writes that a ‘Social Contract’ is inherently totalitarian unless it can be explicitly agreed to by individuals, and reasserts what IanB said about ‘leaving’ meaning being able to reject the social contract without physically leaving the geographic bounds of the state. He explains how the principle of self ownership is the only one that can be universally applied (without creating two classes of people, ones who are owned by others – or slaves, or ones who own others – the state), and that a ‘social contract’ denies the possibility of self ownership. Very clever stuff.

Counting cats takes a different approach by ripping apart the idea that you can ever be said to be agreeing to a contract that you can’t actually read, or see before you sign it. The more repressive a Government, the less information people have about the contract they’re signing when they elect each successive Government. In other words, you can have a social contract but only one that ensures complete freedom, because this is the only circumstance under which individuals within a state can be said to have a full, comprehensive understanding of what ‘signing the social contract’ actually means. If you’re forced to sign a contract you cannot read, is that enforceable?

Finally, Costigan Quist drives the final nail into the coffin of the social contract, pointing out what should have been screamingly obvious from the start – there is no social contract. It’s just a metaphor, and one that doesn’t actually hold up. He points to the exceptions of non-violent direct action, to conscientious objection – all things tolerated and allowed under a modern western democracy, but that the ‘social contract’ does not allow for. At this point the whole thing just quietly falls apart, and forms the basis of a very simple and effective retort to even the most stubborn lefty.

I quote,

As a rule of thumb, when your political philosophy comes up against reality and fails to explain it, reality is declared the winner.

This summary of the debate doesn’t really do justice to the comments people have left on these 5 posts, and in most cases calling them comments is a bit of an insult. This is what makes blogging worthwhile and shows that blogging is sometimes at home to Mr Reason and Mrs Logic and not just bluster, gossip, rhetoric and dogma.