Social contract theory

Also called: Social contract, Contractarianism · Topic: Political Theory: Freedom and Rights · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Social contract theory says that the state gets its authority from an agreement among individuals. Through this agreement they leave the state of nature (the imagined life before any government) and set up a political society to protect their safety, their rights or the common good. The theory answers two basic questions of political theory: why we need a state, and why citizens should obey it. That duty to obey is called political obligation.

Explanation

How the theory works

• Starting point: the state of nature
• Each thinker first imagines how people lived before any government existed.

• The problems of that life explain why people need a state.

• The agreement: the contract

• Individuals agree to give up some or all of their freedom to a common power.

• In return they get something they could not get alone, such as safety, protection of rights or a share in making laws.

• The result: authority, not just force

• Authority is power that people accept as rightful. Coercion is power used by force alone.

• Because people agreed to the state, its power counts as authority.

• Hobbes (1588–1679), Locke (1632–1704) and Rousseau (1712–78) all said that the social contract is how organised society comes out of the state of nature [1].

• They disagreed on what the contract creates [1]:
• Hobbes: one sovereign, set up through promises each individual makes.
• Locke: power shared among different organs of government, so that no single organ holds too much.
• Rousseau: all citizens joined into one all-powerful sovereign whose job is to express the general will.

The three classic versions

Thinker and work	State of nature	Terms of the contract	Result for liberty
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)	A "war of all against all". Life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"	People give up almost all their rights to an absolute sovereign (the "Leviathan")	Security comes first. There is no right to rebel.
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1689)	People already have natural rights to life, liberty and property, but no fair judge to enforce them	People consent to a limited government that protects those rights	Government by consent. People keep a right of resistance if the government breaks the trust.
J.-J. Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)	"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"	Each person gives themselves to the whole community. The people as a whole become sovereign (popular sovereignty).	Law is legitimate only if it expresses the general will

Each thinker in detail

• Hobbes: fear leads to an absolute sovereign
• Without a common power, everyone competes and no one is safe.
• Fear of violent death pushes people into the contract.
• The sovereign's power cannot be divided, because divided power brings back civil war.

• Freedom here mainly means freedom from fear. This is where the "order first" argument comes from.

• Locke: limited government and the right to resist

• Natural rights (rights a person has just by being human, before any state exists) are life, liberty and property.
• Rulers hold power on trust from the people (government by consent).
• If the government attacks the rights it was made to protect, the trust is broken. The people may then resist it and replace it.

• The US Declaration of Independence (1776) echoes Locke: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and governments get "their just powers from the consent of the governed".

• Rousseau: the general will

• General will: what citizens want when they think about the common good. Rousseau saw it as a moral will that puts the community's interest first [2].
• Natural liberty becomes civil liberty. A person gives up natural liberty (doing whatever they like). In return they get civil liberty (living under laws they helped make). After that, all individual rights, including property, come under the general will [2].
• Locke and Hobbes cared mostly about stable government based on consent. Rousseau cared mostly about legitimacy that comes from every citizen taking part in law-making. This makes his ideas look more democratic [1].

Limits and criticisms

• Hobbes risks tyranny. People get no right to rebel, even against a cruel ruler.
• Rousseau's "forced to be free"
• A person who disobeys the general will may be made to obey it, and Rousseau says this makes them free.

• Isaiah Berlin warned that positive liberty (freedom understood as self-mastery) can be twisted this way to justify force "for your own good".

• Anarchists reject the contract altogether. Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin argued that the state is unnecessary and harmful, and that voluntary cooperation can replace it.

In the Constitution and practice

• The Preamble works like a social contract
• It opens with "We, the People of India".
• It closes with "do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this Constitution", dated 26 November 1949 in the Constituent Assembly.

• So the people are both the authors of the Constitution and the people it governs. That is the core idea of a social contract.

• Early drafts used the same idea

• The Union Constitution Committee's report used: "We, the people of India, seeking to promote the common good, do hereby, through our chosen representatives, enact, adopt and give to ourselves this Constitution" [5].
• The Constitutional Adviser's Draft (October 1947) used the same words [4].
• A Socialist Party draft of 1948 also began "We, the people of India" and said the people acted "through our chosen representatives assembled in the Constituent Assembly" [6].

• The words "common good" in these drafts reflect Rousseau's general will.

• Locke and Hobbes together in the rights chapter

• The Constitution grants fundamental rights. This matches Locke's idea of limited government.

• It also lets the state put reasonable restrictions on rights for public order and the security of the state (Article 19(2)). This matches Hobbes's concern for order.

• Consent through democracy

• NCERT (Class 11, Freedom) says some form of government may be unavoidable. Democratic government, though, lets people keep control over their rulers, so it is the main way to protect freedom.

• Democracy joins the three thinkers: Hobbes's need for a state, Locke's consent and Rousseau's people's sovereignty.

• Legitimacy in India

• Modern states rely mainly on legal-rational legitimacy, which means people obey rules and offices, not a particular person [3].

• In India, the Constitution, elections and a rule-bound civil service are the sources of this legitimacy.

• Locke's right of resistance, Indian style

• Satyagraha joins satya (truth) and agraha (persistence). It means determined but non-violent resistance to evil [7].
• It works like Locke's right of resistance, but without violence.

Don't confuse with

• General will vs will of all: the general will aims at the common good [2]. The will of all is just the sum of private interests. They are not the same thing.
• Hobbes's absolute sovereign vs Locke's limited government: in Hobbes, people have no right to rebel. In Locke, people keep a right of resistance if the government breaks the trust.
• Social contract vs anarchism: the social contract justifies the state as the result of agreement. Anarchism says the state is unnecessary and harmful and should be replaced by voluntary cooperation. Gandhi stood between the two: he called the state a necessary evil, and his ideal was "enlightened anarchy".
• Consent-based legitimacy vs Weber's view: contract theorists base authority on an agreement among people. Weber defines the state by its successful claim to a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a territory ("Politics as a Vocation", 1919).

Prelims Hooks

• Book matches: Leviathan is Hobbes (1651), Two Treatises of Government is Locke (1689), and The Social Contract is Rousseau (1762).
• Quote matches: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" is Hobbes. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" is Rousseau.
• Locke named the natural rights as life, liberty and property and gave people a right of resistance. The US Declaration of Independence (1776) echoes him.
• Trap: the general will (common good) is not the same as the will of all (sum of private interests) [2].
• "Forced to be free" comes from Rousseau. Berlin criticised positive liberty because of this idea.
• The Preamble's "We, the People of India … adopt, enact and give to ourselves" (26 November 1949) shows the Constitution draws its authority from the people. It reflects popular sovereignty and the social contract.

Mains Points

• Order or liberty: Hobbes puts security first and Locke puts rights first. India's Constitution tries to balance the two.
• It grants fundamental rights, which reflects Locke's limited government.
• It allows reasonable restrictions for public order and the security of the state, which reflects Hobbes's concern for order.

• Answers can argue that the balance tips towards tyranny when restrictions stop being "reasonable".

• The danger of the general will: the claim that "the majority knows the common good" can be used to suppress dissenters ("forced to be free").

• Constitutional rights, judicial review (the courts' power to strike down laws that break the Constitution) and protections for minorities guard against this.

• Link this to Berlin's warning about positive liberty.

• Consent and legitimacy today: the contract idea says power is rightful only while it rests on the people's consent.

• India moved from Gandhi's charismatic authority to legal-rational authority (the Constitution, elections, the civil service) [3].
• Falling trust in institutions weakens legitimacy, even when the state's power stays the same. Grassroots participation, such as Panchayati Raj and non-violent dissent through satyagraha [7], renews consent.

Related concepts

• State of nature
• General will
• Weber's types of authority
• Anarchism

Read more

• The state and authority: social contract, legitimacy and anarchism