The concept of a social contract was popularized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau prior to the American Revolutionary War. In many ways, it gave moral standing to the creation of the United States of America, as well as the Jacobin terror and French Revolution that followed. The European socialist uprisings of 1848 also owe many of their intellectual underpinnings to Rousseau's social contract concept which holds that the rules of the state are binding only to the extent that they express the will of the governed. Abraham Lincoln echoed many of these concepts as he campaigned to end slavery and hold the Union together.

However, there are many criticisms to this concept, not the least of which being that it boils down to little more than a truism. One could argue that it's based off another concept of French intellectualism, "noblesse oblige" or the obligation of the noble class to be generous toward those of lesser means. In this way, it is both condescending and demeaning. While it sounds pretty to girls and liberals, the fact is that it holds little weight in the real world. One need look no further than to the violent uprisings that swore by it to see that it is force and wealth that enforce these "freedoms" and not the other way around.

Especially when looked at in light of millennia of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian political, cultural, and religious concepts, Rousseau's concepts are child-like, barely a blip on the radar of human achievements. Rousseau is a hope that leaves for wanting. Even Thoreau's Civil Disobedience -- which espouses the need to prioritize conscience over law -- has a more tangible grasp on the realities of governance and the individual.

In fact, Rousseau's "social contract" is often used to enforce government control, whereas Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849) is truly a revolutionary concept founded on freedom. What is most interesting, though, is that Rousseau is of a time when authors wrote of Utopias. Nearly all conceptual literature prior to the revolutions of 1848 described Utopias (such as Sir Thomas More), theoretical places where people made rules that were fair and just and kept society happy. Following 1848, literature turned and wrote almost exclusively of distopias -- places where the rules of humans failed and the world felt more chaotic. It's quite certain that Rousseau's concept of a social contract held little real sway after this point in history, though some still cling to it as backing for their socialist tendencies.

To say this all another way, I'll quote Wittgenstein's "On Certainty," paragraph 315, in part:

It would be as if someone were looking for some object in a room; he opens a drawer and doesn't see it there; then he closes it again, waits, and opens it once more to see if perhaps it isn't there now, and keeps on like that. He has not learned to look for things. And in the same way this pupil has not learned how to ask questions.

You do a great job on the technical side of things with this website and I truly appreciate that. But I'll walk up and down your little "pyramid" all day.