About that social contract!?

So...I was thinking...we are hearing a LOT about the "social contract" these days.  It goes by different names such as social safety net, but it is what we are talking about whenever the topic comes up.  In my thinking, I started to question.  Just what is a social contract?

A contract is "an agreement with specific terms between two or more persons or entities in which there is a promise to do something in return for a valuable benefit known as consideration" (free legal dictionary).  Contracts can be written or spoken.  In other words, you can sign a document to agree to it or you can give your word, so to speak.  This latter one is where we get ideas like "sealed with a handshake" from.  In the case of a contract, all involved parties must agree to the terms in order for them to have force.  Also, all involved parties expect to receive some sort of benefit in the transaction.  This is how contracts work.

Social is defined as "of or relating to society or its organization" (free dictionary).  So, social is something that happens within the context of society as a whole.  That brings me back to the "social contract".

Just what is it?  From the above definitions, you'd think it was a contract that all of society agrees to.  After all, for it to be a contract governing all of society, it must be agreed to by all...right?  Well, it is defined as "an agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each" (free dictionary).  This sounds like an agreement between a governing body and the governed on how they want to be governed.  In other words, the U.S. Constitution, for example.  But...the Constitution isn't what people are talking about when they say the "social contract".  They are talking about things like welfare, Social Security, health care, and other "positive rights".  Our Constitution doesn't allow for positive rights.  In fact, it is specifically set up to prevent the federal government from doing anything to or for us, contrary to what modern politicians want us to believe.

However, people could easily argue that the Constitution is our social contract.  It is the contract that "we the people" agreed to.  We agreed that the federal government would be limited to only enumerated powers (amendment 10), that it would be prevented from passing laws that inhibited our inalienable rights (amendment 1: press, religion, speech), (amendment 2: right to bear arms), (amendments 3-4: various forms of property rights), that it would be governed by a specific set of rules regarding how it treated its citizens (amendments 5-8), that it didn't cover every form of right and so the government couldn't do things that violated those not stated either (amendment 9) and it goes on.  However, nowhere does it say that the government must do something for you.  It doesn't give the federal government the responsibility of helping the poor, the sick, the elderly, the infirm, or anyone for that matter.  In fact, it is a contract designed specifically to  make the government keep its hands off.  Madison said that the powers of the federal government are limited and defined whereas the powers of the states are unlimited and infinite.  This means that Madison (who wrote much of the document) had the proper understanding of our federal government.  He knew that the federal government could only exercise those powers specifically granted it.  The states, on the other hand, had power to do just about anything, as long as it wasn't one of the granted powers in the "contract".

So, the Departments of Education and Homeland Security are clearly not governed by granted powers.  The Department of Energy is only allowable under the commerce clause, meaning the federal government can only get involved when interstate commerce is in play.  This means they can't tell a state what kind of power plant they can or can not build unless that plant provides power across state lines, but that is for another post.  At any rate, there are a lot of departments and agencies in our modern federal government that have no basis or authority in the Constitution.  Yes, I know the Supreme Court said so, but since they say so in favor of the federal government 90 percent of the time, they can't be trusted to protect the Constitution and therefore certainly not the citizens who either directly or implicitly agree to the contract.  The U.S. Constitution is the ONLY contract that our society has ever formed, as a group, with our government, and it is being violated and ignored on a regular basis by that government.

That brings me back to the social goods that we are really talking about when we say "social contract".  Welfare, Social Security, assistance to children, food stamps, unemployment insurance, health care, etc.  These are all programs that most people would find to be "good".  This "most" is the key term here.  This is where we get the idea of a social contract.  If "most" of the people think it is good, then we should do it.  This is also where the problem lies.  Democracy is, simply put, majority rule.  It is a system that says that whatever "most" people want, that is what we'll do.  However, we don't live in a Democracy.  If we did, a lot of things would have been different than they are today.  Nonetheless, we live in a Republic.  This is a system where we use representative government.  Both Democracies and Republics are systems that, left unchecked, eventually deny the rights of the minority in favor of the majority.  This is why we have the concepts of division of powers and checks and balances written into our Constitution (not that anyone knows what they mean or pays any attention to them, but I digress).  This is also why our founders felt it necessary to say what government couldn't do to us and also to spell out exactly what they thought government could do.  Our system is meant to protect us from the whims of the majority, whomever they may be.  So, just because most of us think something is good, does that mean the federal government can enact laws to carry it out?  This is the essence of the social contract.  If the government is not limited and is not designed to protect the rights of everyone from the whims of the majority, then it can do whatever it wants in the way of enacting a "social good" into law under the Constitution.  If the government is limited and is designed to protect the rights of everyone from the whims of the majority, then there is no way that any laws for "social good" can be enacted constitutionally.

How do I conclude this?  Well, the tenth amendment clearly states that only the granted powers belong to the federal government and all other powers belong to the states and the people.  There are no powers in the Constitution granting the federal government any authority to "take care of the people" in any way.  So, a limited government with dispersed powers amongst the various states and the people can't help anyone out without specifically amending the charter in order to grant the federal government that power.  But we've been doing these things for 80 years now you say.  Well, precedent doesn't make it constitutional despite the predilections of the Supreme Court.  Yes, for the past 100 years, our federal government has enacted law after law through the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, etc. in order to "help" our fellow man.  This growth in power in absence of a Constitution basis for it can mean only one thing in the long run.  It means that, eventually, the tenth amendment becomes utterly useless and all the power will be concentrated in the federal government while the powers of the states and the people will be placed on the scrap heap of history.  In essence, it means we will one day go down the same road as every other democratic project in history.  Tyranny.

After all, the only contract that our society can say it has with its government is the Constitution.  Properly ratified treaties also count since they are considered constitutional.  However, all other laws passed by the government are not inherently part of the contract unless they are governed by a specific clause in the charter document that grants the federal government that power.  Therefore, all laws where this is not the case must be agreed to by every generation in order for them to bear any weight.  I believe this is partially what Jefferson meant when he said "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes."  He was saying that it is immoral for one generation to pass on to the next the debt it incurred.  So, it is also immoral for one generation to make a law that is not part of the actual social contract, the Constitution, that is applicable to the next generation.  The principle is the same.  Therefore, almost nothing the federal government does is Constitutional and I certainly didn't agree to have money taken from my paycheck to pay for programs I may or may not agree with.

The proper and constitutional role for the programs we call the social contract are to allow each state to enact them individually or choose not to do so.  Over time, the programs that work filter up and the programs that don't die off.  But no!  We have to have the federal government dictate to us now rather than using a proper, yet longer, method.  Sure, some states might not pay for their poor or uninsured or disadvantaged as well as other states do, but that is one great thing in this country.  If you don't like what your state is doing, you can move to another one.  With all these one size fits all cookie cutter federal programs that generally have done more harm than good (yes, that's my opinion, but there are a few studies that I'd argue support it), we have no alternative but to submit to them.  I guess we are already at tyranny folks!