Chris Whiting Blog: Explaining The Social Contract (Via Abraham Lincoln and Mexican Drug Cartels)

REMEMBER signing the social contract? ‘Course not: the rest of society has signed you up for this contract, on your behalf.

At a time when people are signing multiple contracts for cars and iPhones, not to mention huge cavernous houses, this unstated and assumed contract about how we are governed is probably the most important of all.

If you didn’t waste your partying years by studying political philosophy at uni (nerd disclaimer: I did), let me briefly rattle this explanation by you.

The social contract is the hypothetical agreement between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each of us, says the Encyclopedia Britannica.

That’s right: you didn’t sign up for it, but you have an expectation that it is in place. It is one of the great assumed foundations of our society, like driving on the left hand side of the road or expecting to see Test cricket on TV during summer.

The Social Contract & Lack of Vampires

Elect me, and I will rid you of vampires. And slavery.

In this social contract, we allow politicians to rule and make decisions, in return for looking after us.

For making sure that brigands and vampires don’t roam the streets at night (nerd disclaimer: just watched Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter*), we don’t exercise violence to replace the pollies we don't like.

By the way, you’ve consented to give up a few freedoms in return for this social order and security. For instance, you do not have the freedom of choice or expression to screech abuse at the police and lob beer cans at them.

If you do exercise your free will in this futile manner, you will be deftly manhandled into the back of a police car and driven away. And no-one will give you any sympathy whatsoever.

In fact, the rest of us will breathe a sigh of relief to see your pale upturned face through the rear window of a police car as it speeds away.

They do the social contract in different ways in different parts of the world. In a part of the Mexican state of Michoacan, the narcotic trafficking Los Caballeros Templarios essentially are the law and order of the place.

The Mexican Army, trying to reclaim Michoacan.

Many of the people have consented because, well, they do a better job than the government in keeping the peace and generating jobs ...

In Australia, there’s a part of our social contract, I think, that is also a bit different to other parts of the world.

One. If our politicians make sure we are employed or cashed up, we allow them some self-enrichment.

Two. We allow them to make laws for us, but the pollies have to be accessible to us. We have the right to go into the office of our local member and call him a bloody idiot. (Brian Hayes, I’m talking about you).

And this is the crux of this post. Our social contract is fraying because these two conventions are being breached.

Lobbyists, Mining Leases and the Social Contract

The news that Eddie Obeid and Ian MacDonald allegedly looked after each other really well and abnormally enriched themselves has infuriated many working class voters.

The news that cashed up lobbyists can get to see Queensland Ministers – all the time and any time, it seems – has steamed up Queensland voters. You try and get to a Minister to complain about job cuts: you will be waiting a long time.

The breaches of these conventions don’t signal the end of the great Australian social contract. Australians don’t resort to violence to enforce the social contract, apart from brief flurries such as the Eureka Stockade and the Kelly Outbreak.

And I’m not advocating turning to Mexican cartels as an alternate source of security and employment. We have mining multinationals that can fulfil that role.

But if the pollies aren’t keeping their end of the social contract, this great unspoken bargain, they can’t expect us to co-operate when it comes to things like belt-tightening and job cuts.

*Footnote* I had foolishly high expectations of the movie Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I had enjoyed the book, and allowed some “suspension of disbelief”, because it stuck to basic historical accuracies, apart from the assumption that the Confederate South was run by vampires (there’s an odd social contract for you). But the film just waved good bye to historical veracity. I mean, making Lincoln’s best friend a black slave he had freed? And Joshua Speed, an anti-slavery hero in real life, but a vampire collaborator in the movie? And Mrs Lincoln, somewhat hysterical in real life, personally leading to the battlefield a slave "underground railroad" train loaded down with silver? I quite like vampire movies and adore Lincoln biographies, but this was a lesson for me never to mix the two again. I will watch Abraham Lincoln Vs Zombies just to confirm this judgement.