Towards A New Social Contract

One of the most vexing issues in political philosophy throughout history has been the idea of the social contract.  This idea, at its most basic and general, is "the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live", to quote the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Though idea dates back to at least Socrates, the three most prominent schools of thought concerning the modern social contract date back to the so-called Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries:  John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Their ideas can best be summarized as follows in the following chart taken from the site 1215.org:

Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau Comparison Grid

	Hobbes	Locke	Rousseau
State of Nature	The state of nature is a state of war.  No morality exists.  Everyone lives in constant fear.  Because of this fear, no one is really free, but, since even the “weakest” could kill the “strongest” men ARE equal.	Men exist in the state of nature in perfect freedom to do what they want.  The state of nature is not necessarily good or bad.  It is chaotic.  So, men do give it up to secure the advantages of civilized society.	Men in a state of nature are free and equal. In a state of nature, men are “Noble Savages”.  Civilization is what corrupted him.
Purpose of Government	To impose law and order to prevent the state of war.	To secure natural rights, namely man’s property and liberty.	To bring people into harmony.  To unite them under the “General Will”.
Representation	Governments are designed to control, not necessarily represent.	Representation ensures that governments are responsive to the people.  Representation is a safeguard against oppression.	Representation is not enough.  Citizens cannot delegate their civic duties.  They must be actively involved.  Rousseau favors a more direct democracy to enact the general will.
Impact on Founders	Governments must be designed to protect the people from themselves.	1.       Governments must be designed to protect the people from the government.  2.       Natural Rights must be secured.	1.       Governments must be responsive and aligned with the general will.  2.       People make a nation, not institutions. 3.       Individual wills are subordinate to the general (collective) will.

Each of the three theories has its own strengths and weaknesses.  For example, Hobbes could be considered too strict and authoritarian compared to the other two, while Locke could be considered too lenient and laissez-faire compared to Hobbes and too individualistic compared to Rousseau, and Rousseau could be considered too collectivistic and impractical compared to the other two.   Each answers certain questions better than the others.  That said, all three had a huge influence on America's Founding Fathers and beyond.

Of course, other thinkers later on have critiqued all three of these theories.  John Rawls, most famously, came up with an alternative theory of justice.  Feminists, such as Carole Pateman and Annette Baier, have noted how androcentric these social contract theories are and criticized this on several grounds:  1)  that such theories really just decide which men get to dominate and control Women and how the "spoils" of the War on Women (i.e. patriarchy) are divvied up, trading one form of patriarchy with another, 2) the nature of the liberal individual, and 3) arguing from the ethics of care, which appears to be absent in such theories.  Riane Eisler would most likely agree with such feminist criticisms.  And other critics have noted that the issues of racism and classism need to be addressed as well.

So where does that leave the Matriarchy movement, exactly?  We clearly need to move towards a new social contract while phasing out the old androcentric and phallocentric paradigms of patriarchy.  Even at their very best, none of three (Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau) really are entirely compatible with Matriarchy.  But personally, I believe that given a choice between those three in the meantime while the new social contract is being fleshed out, we should (albeit very grudgingly) choose Locke primarily, with a bit of Rousseau thrown in for good measure.  Individual rights should still exist after Women eventually take over, in other words.  Like Thomas Jefferson said, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."  And as tempting as it may be to take an overly Hobbesian approach towards men in general, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that doing so would most likely simply lead to "reverse patriarchy" or "patriarchy in drag" as opposed to the fundamentally different paradigm of Matriarchy. 

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I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff122589.html