The term “social contract” has a deep history in political theory. Today it generally refers to the implicit bargain that exists in any stable society over social rights and duties, and the division of economic benefits and costs.
In the U.S., the social contract has become badly frayed over the past 30 years, as the gap between the rich and the poor has widened to Biblical proportions and an estimated one quarter of our population has sunk into more or less extreme poverty.
Now, as we launch a national debate about how to deal with our ballooning national debt and our widening state budget deficits, we confront hard choices that could very likely exacerbate the already deep political divisions in our society and shred the social contract, unless we use the principle of fairness as the compass for resolving these challenges.
Some cynics view fairness as nothing more than a mask for self-interest. As the playwright George Bernard Shaw put it, “The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.”
But the cynics are wrong. The emerging science of human nature has established that we do, in fact, have an innate sense of fairness, though it can easily be subverted by cultural, economic and political influences, not to mention the lure of our self-interests. And, of course, there are always the “outliers” – Bernie Madoffs – who seem to be “fairness challenged.”
From Seattle
Toward a New Social Contract
Toward a New Social Contract was originally Published in
Berfois, February 2011