The American Myth of Equality Through Contract: and Why We Need It

Poli-Sci 1 Final Paper

Each society, past and present, has–at its core–a myth or story. A founding ethos that sustains it. The few words that offer a guiding principle to its people giving them a reason to believe in their flag and work tirelessly under it. Make them willing to die for it, defending its values. Values of liberalism. In what we claim to be freedom. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all men are created equal. This is our myth, our story, the foundation of our American exceptionalism when we convince ourselves that nowhere else has freedom. That we invented equality. So, as we seek progress and long for a more equitable society, how does our foundation support this goal? While it is true that liberal ideals formed in the social contract has failed to achieve political equality, there is hope for it to do better yet. What the social contract claims to offer remains the ultimate goal, thus it becomes a matter of living up to the words we claim. The modern state is established on a social contract; placing liberalism at the center of its ethos can create political equality and is the best option available to us, in spite of its historical failings.

Plato teaches us the need for a central common story to a society. When describing his ideal state, Kallipolis he notes the need of myth to establish harmony. Speaking through the character of Socrates, Pato says a “noble falsehood that would, in the best case, persuade even the rulers (. . .) and they've persuaded many people to believe it too. It hasn't happened among us, and I don't even know if it could (. . .) perhaps there is one in the case of their sons and later generations and all the other people who come after them” (Plato, 1050). He finds it difficult to imagine that those founding the society would necessarily have faith in the story they tell, but hopes that future generations will keep it close. How the story changes and embeds itself is important in understanding the American mythos. At some point, recently in our history, we have become more self-aware of this story and may begin critical analysis. Carole Pateman addresses this in the opening lines of her work The Sexual Contract, “Telling stories of all kinds is the major way that human beings have to make sense of themselves and their social world. The most famous and influential political story of modem times is 'found in the writings of the social contract theorists” (Pateman, 1).  While she too recognizes the human need for story, Pateman critiques the story told by Hobbes and Locke. Their work–which was then built on by Rousseau and Kant–has had the most profound impact on the modern world, for it is the nations, like the United States who hold these values close. The words of Locke thread through the country’s founding documents.

The social contract embedded in the modern state is first made possible by through Hobbes who argued the monarchy’s right to rule came not from God but from the people it rules. He establishes consent in politics and makes it the responsibility of the monarchy to ensrue it acts such that the people are protected from the state of nature. Locke then goes further to reject absolute monarchy favoring split power and more importantly for this discussion expands on the idea of natural rights & law of nature. Locke’s state of nature is a state of total equality and it is only due to man’s selfish nature and inability to judge fairly that we turn to government, “if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which state of nature is therefore not be be endured” (Locke, 105). In the most ideal sense what we derive from these original contract authors are notions of consent and equality which goverment protects. The government’s very existance-its legitamacy–relies on fulfilling this duty to the people. So how then did this turn out so wrong, In a since it didn’t. The contract described was never meant to include people beyond those that look like those who wrote it.

Charles Mills describes the racial contract (in his book of share name), which describes white supremacy as a political institution that is upheld by Western liberal democracy while spreading its hate across the globe. This racial contract is found so deep within our society we can trick ourselves into missing it. Mills writes, “Thus in effect, on matters related to race, the Racial Contract prescribes for its signatories an invented epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance, a particular pattern of localized and global cognitive dysfunctions producing the ironic outcome that whites will in general, be unable to understand the world they themselves made,” (Mills, 18). The racial contract works such that it exists in the ether in the space between words. It seeds the implicit bias that continuously separates black and white. It sets the white man as standard and all else must conform to his image. This is a subconscious process that is engrained through our education and culture for this reason Mills tells us that most cannot understand this. Even those who benefit from it can’t recognize it. Generally, he says, the signatories–the white men who sign the contract and benefit–live in, “ a virtual reality through their existence in travelers' tales, folk myth, popular and highbrow fiction, colonial reports, scholarly theory, Hollywood cinema” (Mills, 18). But while many may exist in this virtual world most others understand the brutal consequence of this contract.

We return now to Pateman to address her critique of the authors mentioned previous. The idealized verison of the world we see in liberal ideals is a facade–this we know from Mills. So she says this, “The genius of contract theorists has been to present both the original contract and actual. contracts as exemplifying and securing individual freedom. On the contrary, in contract theory universal freedom is always a hypothesis, a story, a political fiction. Contract always generates political right in the form ·of relations of domination and subordination” (Pateman, 8). Political fiction she calls it, the myth is just that a story we tell ourselves. So while we may be taught that when Jefferson writes men, he includes women. He does not. Patemen develops throughout The Sexual Contract how women are restricted placed into a private sphere separate from their country. The home is their life thus are not granted privileges outside it. One must imagine the two separate–at least in theory–the public sphere of power and politics and that of the home. Abstractly these wouldn’t mix, and the private can flourish because of no government interference. But government is always involved, the state’s involvement with marriage immediately begins to break this down, determining who can get married and who cannot. Legally controlling assets and family savings.

So, we have a sphere without political power and another that dominates it while claiming to remain separate. Here we see yet again how women’s freedom is restricted. Confined then subjected. Pateman says this, “But women are not born free; women have no natural freedom (. . .) Sexual difference is political difference; sexual difference is the difference between freedom and subjection” (Pateman, 8). The gender divide present in the state of nature is only emphasized and made permanent in the social contact. Civilization could have made man and woman equal instead, it continues the patriarchal norm. Pateman continues to argue that because of this fundamental separation between the sexes laid down in the philosophical foundations of the West this liberal society is too deeply flawed. The fractures run too deep for the system to be salvaged and we should move past liberalism and these posioned contracts.

We must then ask ourselves what we ought to do? How can we interact with the system knowing it was constructed to omit so many. Exclude so many. While it is natural for the just anger of the people to want to destroy the system. Deconstruction can lead to destruction but it doesn’t have to. It is possible to dissect–to pull apart–every last strand of our society and then work together to rebuild it with our new more complex understanding. Using this new insight granted to us through our deconstruction, we may use our modern understanding to build the future once only promised to white elite. From within the framework established, it is possible for us to advance and progress so far past what this nation was then and is now. The promise of all men equal, of a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was a lie, but remains the goalpost. We should not discard these values, for while the promise was a lie, the dream can be kept. Now we work to make the original promise a reality for every person. The modern state founded on the social contract and liberalism is the best path to creating political equality among its citizens.

I would not claim the system to be ideal but we must recognize it’s accomplishments. The world stands as it is through great tragedy and the suffering of so many people, but the modern world is safer than ever. There is less poverty now than before. While we cannot and should make no attempt to justify the past for today’s luxuries, it is not hypocritical to accept both. Progress has been made to begin the long crawl to get to an equitable place. To leave all people of equal political standing. It is slow and agonizing, but we can see the improvements made. Education is a fine example of this both in regards to Pateman’s gender inequality, where now we see women outnumbering men in higher education. Today's Universities are dominated by women and this will surely have a profound effect in the workforce and politics, for it is now women taking greater advantage of education. And to Mills, the epistemological device of ignorance may be wavering in some places. Zinn is read in High Schools the “alternative” true history of our country is being taught more and more. And smaller voices can be heard through social media which constantly reshapes the conversations we have. The ghost is moving out of the shadows, and if we could talk to it in reshaping our world, the ideals first presented by Locke and social contract authors may become a reality. Not in the limited way he intended for it to be applied but in myth, the way we were once taught that all meant all. What was once a story could become a reality with our faith. Our institutions are strong do well to provide safety and stability. Working to change within this system guarantees the stability they offer, and while our democracy is not perfect and often delivers unsatisfactory results, it keeps us from falling too low. While radical change may allow us to reach higher heights, the risk is too great. In time, capitalism and liberalism will fall. Like all empires and systems before our current institutions will crumble and to future generations look barbaric but then is not now. We may be saved when revolution arrives, but until then, we must prioritize what we can manage. We must prioritize getting the best out of our contract-based state, which, while flawed, shows the capacity for change and progress.

Works Cited

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. New York, NY: Cambrige University Press, 1996.

Locke, John. Two treatises of government ; and, a letter concerning toleration. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Pub., 2005.

Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. New York, NY: Cornell University, 1999.

Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Stanford, CA: Polity Press, 1988.

Plato. Complete Works of Plato. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.