Discrimination, Government, Minorities
Social Contract Theory has millions of philosophical supporters worldwide, of all political and philosophical stripes. Locke, Russeau, Hobbes, Kant, and many others have formulated the theory, but it generally consists of the following:
Democratic government is a body composed of all of the individuals in a society acting in concert, delegating their individual rights of protection of persons and property to the body for the purpose of simplifying the enforcement of those rights.
Social contract theory holds that we have implicitly formed a contract with government in which we have given them certain rights (in exchange for our loss of some rights, presumably). Putting aside all of the arguments that concern democracy itself (such as, why should the will of the majority be effected into binding law on the minority?), let’s do a bit of logical thinking and put the thoughts of these powerful dead men to rest for good…
Theory: If a person can delegate the rights government claims to the government, social contract theory is valid.
Premise 1: Each person has natural rights that exist for the mere fact that he is a human being.
Premise 2: Each person may delegate any of their rights to another, such that the other might act in their stead.
Premise 3: A person cannot delegate rights he does not have.
Premise 4: A person does not have the right to initiate force against another person.
Premise 5: To exist, a government requires a monopoly of force which includes the ability to collect taxes to sustain itself monetarily.
Premise 5A: The collection of taxes is an initiation of force against people.
Conclusion: To exist, government requires that people delegate rights they do not have, making social contract theory invalid.
The social contract makes sense only if the rights to protect persons or properties are delegated (but they do not even need to be, per the idea of transferred self defense), which rules out any non-voluntary governance in which coercion is a means. It is likely that the Founding Fathers and John Locke were somewhat partial to this view, but a majority of people today mistake this to mean that people have delegated to government the right to treat anyone however, whenever. But the collective cannot agree to anything. And people cannot delegate that which they do not already possess…
There is no logical coherence to the argument of social contracts, as can be shown with a simple line of questioning to our nation’s representatives: