Contractarianism is the theory that models or evaluates social interaction on the basis of a social contract. Whether one tends to agree or disagree with this approach, it is important to understand it. In my review of Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan’s The Reason of Rules, just out on Econlib, I note:
The classical liberal contractarianism elaborated in The Reason of Rules presents a big challenge to both the anarchist, who thinks that the state cannot be beneficial to everybody, and the statist, who believes that it must be run by some enlightened elite, numerical majorities, or populist movements.
The commenters who engaged with my EconLog posts on Buchanan’s theories may want to read the book or at least my review. Two more short excerpts of the latter, which of course doesn’t do justice to this complex but fascinating topic:
A fundamental component of the contractarian theory defended in The Reason of Rules is that the basic rules of human interaction must be agreed upon unanimously, by all individuals. The social contract is the set of these basic rules. Individuals would have little hope of agreeing on actual outcomes (think about agreeing on the actual distribution of income or other advantages), but they all have an interest in agreeing on the rules of the social game, the general rules that will guide social interactions among individuals each pursuing his own self-interest.
Brennan and Buchanan emphasize how the contractarian approach radically differs from non-contractarian views. In a contractarian perspective, politics is the search for what every individual wants. In the non-contractarian view, “the good” is something external to individuals and politics becomes a search for it, analogous to the search for truth in science. In the best case, “[t]hose who disagree with the definition of the ‘good’ are misinformed and in error.” In the worst case, the supposed “good” is imposed by a benevolent despot, democratic or not.
READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
Jan 3 2023 at 7:00pm
Pierre: Thought provoking. An asymptote of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as one or both of the x or y coordinates tends to infinity. A limit problem in analytic geometry. Similarly, “that the basic rules of human interaction must be agreed upon unanimously, by all individuals” can only be approached to a limit that exists in theory alone. For example. In terms of social contract among individuals,
I suspect 99% agree that breaking and entering are violations, but 1% will actually do so. Unanimity is the limit, but I’ll settle for 99%
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 4 2023 at 12:32am
David: You touch two important points. (1) We may indeed have to settle in practice for something like 99%–which remains anyway a theoretical presumption because there is no practical way of actually counting consents at this level of abstraction.
(2) Note that if the social contract really contains rules that are likely to be consented to by 100%, the 1% would be free riders who are among the ones who consent(ed). I may well agree to a rule prohibiting murder, because I don’t want to be murdered in the future, but I may later be tempted to commit such a crime because I think that I will escape detection and punishment.
As I wrote in my review, the theory is not totally waterproof. But recall that a social contract can only contain general, impersonal, and abstract rules; otherwise it could not be presumed unanimous. X would not agree to a clause saying, for example, “money will be taken from X to buy what Y wants.”
David Seltzer
Jan 4 2023 at 11:27am
Good stuff! Thanks Pierre.
Mactoul
Jan 3 2023 at 11:30pm
When in the linked review you write
“Constitutional Revolution
Can we get there from here? Can a defective constitution be reformed so as to meet unanimous consent? ”
Do you mean to say that the existing Constitution of USA is defective from Buchanan’s viewpoint? Then it needs to be elaborated–the defects aren’t obvious.
In any case, this section doesn’t harmonize well with the next section where you talk about “Brennan and Buchanan end up claiming that every individual who plays by the established rules can be presumed to consent to them even if he has no other alternative, even if it is “the only game in town.”
So does the present Constitution or indeed any Constitution whatsoever fit Buchanan’s theory of social contract or not?
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 4 2023 at 12:09am
Mactoul: Good questions. (1) It is quite obvious that the rules established by the US Constitution and the Bill or Rights have been been repeatedly violated, at least since the first part of the 20th century, by the legislative and the executive with the complicity of the judiciary. The very dissatisfaction and polarization in American society testify to that. (2) There may be a contradiction as you suggest, but it is not sure. If established constitutional rules have been broken, somebody breaking them is not violating the social contract–perhaps it is the contrary.
Jose Pablo
Jan 10 2023 at 6:52pm
“the rules established by the US Constitution and the Bill or Rights have been been repeatedly violated, at least since the first part of the 20th century, by the legislative and the executive with the complicity of the judiciary”
Yes, indeed!
But relying on a “Constitution” as a mean to limit the harm done by the Government was (quoting Huemer) “childishly naïve”.
I find the whole piece is enlightening:
https://fakenous.substack.com/p/the-basic-problem-of-government?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=863919&post_id=92889464&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
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