this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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A social contact is an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection. Theories of a social contract became popular in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries among theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a means of explaining the origin of government and the obligations of subjects.
Interestingly enough. In France, the definition of freedom contains “my freedom ends where the freedom of others begins”. Freedom is therefore a social contract held by boundaries, as opposed to the individualist unbridled freedom from the USA.
There's a common phrase in the US, "the freedom to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose". The trouble is no one really agrees on the size of noses.
The idea of a "social contract" is flawed in the sense that it is not a contract at all, as it is unilateral in nature.
Voting and taxation do not necessarily imply explicit consent with how government (the monopoly on violence) works.