From: runyan@cup.hp.com (Mark Runyan)
Newsgroups: ba.politics
Subject: Re: The socialist/fascist claptrap item #1: the 'Social Contract'
Date: 28 Jan 93 18:44:16 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: HP, Cupertino, CA, USA
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June Genis (XA.U20@forsythe.stanford.edu) wrote:
>In article <C1JBDH.7Ky@cup.hp.com>,
>runyan@cup.hp.com (Mark Runyan) writes:
>>Phil Ronzone (phil@netcom.com) wrote:
>>>Hey George, did you sign your "Social Contract"? ...
>>
>>...It is strange that those very people who most often repudiate the
>>analogy of the social contract do so while using the very advantages
>>that their society gives them.
>
>How can you claim that continuing to use services for which you pay
>a usage fee (or taxes) and over which the government claims a
>monopoly on providing the service implys any acceptance of the
>social contract?  

I'm not sure I did, but if it helps the discussion, I'll try that stance
for a bit.  Excuse me if I infer a few things from this posting (I'm
sure you'll correct me...  :-), but you seem to believe that those
things that the society provides could be done by other than a monopoly.
For instance, Law Enforcement would be an interesting issue if it
weren't a monopoly.  Of course, in the U.S., the basic belief is
competition improves things (yet unrestricted competition led to
monopolies...  ah, well, everything has its trade-offs), hence the
dislike of monopolies.  But a couple of things about our
pseudo-social-contract:  1) you can change it and 2) it isn't something
you have to be bound by.

>If a private company controlled all the jobs and
>services in a town, and outlawed anyone else from coming in to
>compete with them, would you say that people who work for the
>company have accepted the right of the company to use such tactics?

I'll point that such situations did exist at one time and in those
instances the contract was real and signed by those who worked for
the company.  It wasn't pleasant and the laws enforced the contract
so that even leaving was impossible.  Such tactics are not often
used these days because fewer people are willing to agree to this
situation.  Of course unions may have had something to do with stopping
this type of approach -- yet another example of a group of people
getting together to do more together than they can do individually.

>>>What actually happens of course is that some set of people gain enough
>>>control of the means of coercion to force another set or sets of people
>>>to hand over their property at gunpoint for the first set to dispose of.
>>
>>And while you make fun of the analogy of Social Contract by asking for
>>a piece of paper, allow me to ask for a picture of the gun pointing at
>>you.  :-)
>
>...
>This is not an issue to joke over.  Your smiley is not appropriate.

He rejected an analogy and used one of his own that is really no more
real.  I didn't create the joke, merely pointed it out.   I simply
used the smiley to indicate my own amusement, one of the `appropriate'
uses for it as I've seen it used on the net.

>If you violate the social contract eventually a man in a uniform
>will arrive on your doorstep to enforce that contract.  ...

And yet, the social contract doesn't exist?  Yes, I know you mean that
if you don't pay your taxes, the government will get you in some way.
Yet, if you use what they provide, don't they have a right for payment?
Since you refer to private companies, if you took a car without paying
the dealership, that same man in uniform will arrive on your doorstep to
enforce a `contract' that you didn't sign.

Given that you are using the services that the society provides you
with, what is your objection to paying for the services?  That it is a
monopoly?  That implies that the government has restricted you in some
fashion.  Now for a total socialist government (as the USSR was), you
*are* restricted, without the ability to change the laws, leave the
area, or even complain.  Ah, but the U.S.  isn't quite that far gone
yet.  If you don't want to pay taxes to the U.S.  government, simply
don't use *any* of the services provided by that society -- leave the
U.S..  If you want some services, but not others, then there's a problem
and you may work toward changing that.

The concept of social contract can not be used to justify government's
tyranny (as the full blown printed theory of Social Contract seems to
try to do).  It merely is one way of explaining how society functions,
and provides you with the chance to correct it.   And, yet, at times,
it seems that the very things that Randites argue for is a very real
contract (as long as the choice to sign or not were uncoerced).  Well,
I find it amusing, anyway.  :-)

Mark Runyan
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