• Alteon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • retrieval4558
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • MenKlash@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.