Hacker News Reader

Comment by technologue | Hacker News Reader

Wrong Wrong Wrong. Could not be more wrong.

Freedom of Contract is one of the most important concepts of free market capitalism. People must have the right to review the terms of contract, decide to sign or not and be held to the terms, and there should be penalties for breach on both sides and conditions for dissolution of the contract.

The "Social Contract" you are talking about is no contract at all. It is imposed by force, you are given no chance to sign, a false choice (red or blue!) and only 1/385millionth of a say in it. There is no remedy for breach and no conditions for dissolution. It is the very opposite of voluntary exchange and mutual agreement.

DO NOT conflate the two, or go back to whatever liberal arts school terribly educated you.

View on HN

> The "Social Contract" you are talking about is no contract at all. It is imposed by force, you are given no chance to sign, a false choice (red or blue!) and only 1/385millionth of a say in it.

For the vast majority of people, contracts provided by the market are an even worse false choice: Maslow's Hierarchy imposes needs on every individual, fixing the supply of labor at a lower bound which is empirically observed to lie far above the demand for it, thereby commoditizing the unskilled worker and coupling his salary to the minimum dictated by his Maslow needs rather than to the value he creates. The difference goes to his employer, and a non-governmental tax is exacted upon each of his purchases that is distributed to local capital-holders according to their wealth, exacerbating the imbalance in an exponential feedback loop. There is no remedy when his employer resorts to wage theft (frequently), because the justice system requires time and capital that he does not have to achieve the simplest forms of redress. There are conditions for dissolution, but he fears them, because written between the lines are an economic certainty that will dash him repeatedly against the rocky shores of unemployment and homelessness.

This is a laughable notion of consent. When did he agree to have Maslow's needs imposed upon him? When did he agree to abide by the rules of a game that systematically disadvantages him? When did he agree to initial conditions that give him far less than 1/400millionth of a share in economic power? This is the very opposite of what someone with a choice would have chosen.

The only things this hypothetical worker has going for him came from the government: minimum wage laws (and yes, I believe these are a good thing, since wages in commoditized labor markets tend towards the lower end rather than the higher end of the economically feasible range), worker safety standards, subsidized food and health care, education for his children, and so on. None of this is speculation: we can look to history to see what happened when government did not "intrude" on these areas of life.

PhD in STEM, if it matters. And as someone who specifically and directly moved from one city to another because I didn't like the local policies (school district, in this case), I'm a straightforward and simple example of someone who left one social contract for another and paid for the privilege, thanks.

(If I repeat the word "wrong" a few more times, will it improve my opinion?)

The mistake of both libertarians and liberals in these loud arguments is that they focus on the top (national government) where the real social contracts start locally. If you start to build up a system of local social contracts; well, if it quacks like a government, it's a government, even if you'd rather call it a Homeowner's Association with Guns.

Governance is fine, but there are contractual forms of governance and non-contractual (non-consensual) forms of governance.

But please don't use "social contract", it's just a liar's word. It is neither social or contractual what people do under a "social contract". It is naked force: "Do what I say or I will hurt you".

Since you have a PhD, I'll assume that you are not so lazy you can't separate these things in your brain.

Your level of confidence seems entirely out of line with the level of education in politics and history you display here. Instead of insulting people from a position of ignorance, why not read more books? Sorry for putting it bluntly, but every one of your comments in this discussion so far is a rudely worded assertion of something that at best is highly contested, and at worst something you could not even possibly believe if you had read more than a few libertarian newsletters and websites. Not even if you had read only libertarian-leaning theorists (such as Hayek). Stop it.

Since you've advanced literally no argument, I don't feel a need to respond to this. Sorry I hurt your brain?

Here is an argument, which I have carefully tailored to the level of the arguments you have advanced:

Democracy, augmented with some anti-majoritarian safeguards, is a reasonable way of organizing society on a basis that generally advances overall liberties, and social-contract theory provides a reasonable philosophical basis. Libertarian freedom-of-contract is essentially a right to indentured servitude with only the barest attention paid to anything resembling actual real-world liberty or genuine consent, and only people who are either primitivist hippies living in the woods, or malicious exploiters, promote it as a fundamental good. And also anyone who disagrees with this paragraph is dumb.

The problem here is that you are choosing your definitions for "real-world liberty" and "genuine consent", etc. I guess if your point was only to make a point about the parent post doing the same thing, then, erm.. good job? But as an argument in it's own right, I don't find this very compelling.

Anyway, technologue has a point in suggesting that the "social contract" is worthy of skepticism. And I, for one, will join him/her in rejecting the notion of nebulous implicit contracts of this type. When considering this, I'm reminded of what Thomas Paine said about the absurdity of the dead being able to bind the living.

Well sure, "social contract" is an imperfect metaphor, but it's not devoid of meaning, nor divorced from the idea of contracts.

It's the living that bind the living.

Specifically, previous but still-living generations. No one comes of age in a vacuum. If you inherit the benefits (or situations) of the previous generations, you don't just inherit the good stuff, you inherit the debts of the previous generation as well.

Looking way, way back, one can say that the first settlers in a given region might have formed a consensual contract, and the "social" contract is what each continuous generation inherits.

1. Collect all the downvotes.

2. ???

3. Declare victory.

Sometimes trolling is its own reward.

Check their comment history.

How'd you get that cool light gray text for all your posts?

> "People must have the right to review the terms of contract, decide to sign or not"

You are describing a universe which only exist in an imaginary island where all the Galts are living. "Freedom of Contract" works when there are one or two similar-sized parties involved, but it does not scale well beyond that. Try renting a car with a customer agreement tailored for your liking; or try negotiating custom EULA with vendor of whatever browser you are using to post your comments.

Also, you'd better hope that the accessible methods of accumulating wealth haven't already been commoditized (which amounts to hoping that you are special in a world with plenty of people).

Do you actually sign a contract when you buy a loaf of bread?

It isn't signed, but there is definitely a contract in that situation.

My point is that the terms in the sale of a loaf of bread are implicit, just like those in the social contract. The idea that it isn't a free market until you sign a document is demonstrably false.

The contract law behind buying a loaf of bread is well-codified and settled.

The term "social contract" means whatever the person using the term wants it to mean.

Not the same thing. At all.

If it's well-codified and settled then you'll have absolutely no problem providing a complete, and completely uncontroversial, version of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code

Enjoy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com