The Social Contract
Society's foundational bargain
The Social Contract is a philosophical concept holding that individuals surrender certain freedoms to a governing authority in exchange for protection and social order.
The idea, developed by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, underlies modern democratic theory: citizens consent to laws and government in return for rights and stability.
More loosely, any unwritten agreement about mutual obligations within a society: The social contract between employers and workers has eroded.
- RousseauFrench surname, philosopher or painter
- HobbesEnglish political philosopher
- LockeEnglish empiricist philosopher's surname
- consentVoluntary agreement given
- tacit consentAgreement without explicit statement
government · limited government · citizens · sovereignty · body politic · compact · obligation · moral obligation · rights and duties · civil · civil liberties · liberty · authority · legitimacy · covenant · natural rights · agreement · democracy
- 18th Century WorksCandide, Gulliver's Travels, Pamela, Tom Jones, Dangerous Liaisons
- Great BooksMeditations, Leviathan, The Prince, Utopia, Walden
- Political TextsThe Communist Manifesto, Communist Manifesto, Leviathan, The Prince, Federalist Papers
- Rousseau worksConfessions, Emile, Julie, Dialogues, Pygmalion
- French LiteratureVictor Hugo, Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Dumas, Jules Verne
- essaysessay, personal essay, formal essay, Self-Reliance, critical essays
The Social Contractanarchy
Disorder from absent authority
state of nature · tyranny · despotism · totalitarianism · absolute monarchy
The Social Contractradical individualism
Belief in absolute personal sovereignty
egoism · atomism · every man for himself · social Darwinism · objectivism
The Social Contractdivine right of kings
Monarchs rule by celestial mandate
theocracy · hereditary rule · patriarchalism · mandate of heaven
social, contract, society, societal, socialize, socialization, socialism, socialist, antisocial