the need for a new social contract

Pieter Omtzigt, a Dutch politician recently started a new political party. The name? New Social Contract (NSC). The party is named after the book he wrote with Welmoed Vlieger.

The title of both his book and his party refers to the philosophical concept of social contracts. Social contracts have been the subject of academia for centuries. Plato described his views on social contracts for instance. And more recently Hobbes, Locke, Kant or Rawls wrote about their own versions or perspectives. And as is with any philosophical theory, critiques were plentiful.

I will explain the concept and some critiques further on, but I would like to first give credit to Omtzigt. Omtzigt has been part of the Dutch political scene since about 2003: a veteran and senior at his job. And he carries those titles with grandeur. He is known as “dossier-bijter“, someone who completely bites down in political files, asking the right questions that no-one could find and getting things done. If we can speak of a truth, Omtzigt is the one who could find it.

His book published in 2021 was mostly centered about one of those dossiers dubbed the toeslagenaffaire (benefits affair), that harmed parents who rightfully should have received certain benefits. His thesis in this book is that there is a need for a new social contract to counteract and balance out the power of the government. Omtzigt offers a few practical tips that could solve the issues we experience in our society, like organize thinktanks to verify or falsify government claims, allow our constitutional laws to be tested and thus to be changed, while at the same time reinforcing the importance of our constitution. He lists 10 proposals. Some of them have been tried and tested, some haven’t. Some have had succes, and some haven’t. If they were all implemented, they would lead to a new social contract.

Social contracts are implicit or explicit contracts that allow people in a society to coexist. People will want -for various reasons as we will see- themselves to be ruled by a government. Whether that is a democracy, republic or a monarchy is open for debate. The people that formed this implicit or explicit agreement chose to have their freedom slightly impeded to benefit their own goals and needs. And to benefit ourselves, we let ourselves be ruled by a government.

Plato wrote about social contract theory in his Republic and Crito. Plato argues that the well-regulated man (or woman!) is a just man (or woman!) that recognizes their obligation to the state by obeying laws. In *Crito *he argues that even a detained criminal ought to stay in jail and comply, even if that means their own death. Why? Because it is desirable to be well-regulated.

Hobbes carefully explicits his social contract theory in his masterwork: Leviathan. Hobbes sees societies as leviathans, enormous machines that only work when all cogs, radars, rudders and pistons fullfill their part. Coincidentally, that analogy is exactly how he sees humans: mechanical organic machines. According to Hobbes, humans are self interested but reasonable. People have their subjective desires, but due to their reason and rationality chose to submit to a larger form of authority. Whether that be a democracy, republic or monarchy. It would be rational to do so, because our state of nature allows for competition and conflict. This situation would lead to disorder and insecurities for all involved. But, if we will to have less freedom, we could arm ourselves against our natural states.

So, there is already a difference between Hobbes and Plato. According to Plato, every just man (or woman!) would want to live in a society, for everybody wants to be just and well-regulated. According to Hobbes, everybody wants to live in a society for their own subjective desires. Those desires could be indeed their own regulation or something completely different.

Even more recently (1972), the late John Rawls published A Theory of Justice. In 2018 this boring book was modernized as a musical (Have a listen, it’s great!). Rawls assumes that people have the capacity to reason from universal points of view and can therefore be impartial. He came up with a thought experiment, which he dubbed the veil of ignorance:

Suppose you wear a veil and cannot see who you are. You do not know the color of your skin; the amount of money in your bankaccount, or whether you are man or woman.

If you were in this situation and you were prompted to chose to do the just thing, what would just be? For instance, if you were to decide new laws regarding taxes on properties, would you vote for laws benefitting people who own a lot of property? Or would you chose to benefit the people who do not own homes. In the veil of ignorance you do not know whether you belong to category 1 or 2: whether you even own a house. So, Rawls argued that you would probably chose the second option. Rawls answered that everyone wearing the veil of ignorance is the same and is presumabely equally rational. And if that is true, then everybody would conclude the same principles with which we could regulate society.

Rawls came up with 2 principles that logically follow from his veil of ignorance: each person should have as much basic liberty as is possible. Which also means that everybody has the same amount of liberties. The second principle state that social and economic inequalities can exist (and even be justified!), but must be available for everybody, and inequalities must be advantageous to everybody.

For instance, take Elon Musk. Elon Musk has multiple companies: exploring space and launching sattelites, making cars, and whatever he does. Because of this, Musks existence creates a lot of economic inequality, in the sense that he has a lot of money and I don’t. But, the fact that he creates value for everybody, like the option for space exploring or making great new cars that could be advantageous to the rest of the world, this inequality is justified.

Or if you don’t like Musk and Tesla, take Bill Gates for example: the one who developed Microsoft. Bill Gates’ riches can be justified, because the whole world can share some advantages of his innovation: This article is written on a computer that runs Windows.

Just like Hobbes, Rawls does not assume that people are just. But just like Hobbes, Rawls assumes that people are rational and would reasonably want to live in a social contract.

Now, back to Omtzigt. Why does he propose a new social contract? Because the old one is broken! I paraphrase: the function of the government and society have been neglected. There are large problems with power dynamics.

For a social contract to work, there needs to be trust according to him. Omtzigt needs the people to trust the government and we do not right now, according to Omtzigt. Which is in itself a statement that I can hardly agree with. Or are there some people who do not trust the government?

Furthermore, Omtzigt wants the government to act fair and square and to always serve the subjective goals of the individual. Not to be the all-knowing agency that objectifies its citizens, but to treat everybody like the subject that they are. A new social contract is for the people and for the government to serve its people.

These measures should, claims Omtzigt, lead to newfound trust in politics and society, with adequate and effective policies and laws. Whether that is sufficient to warrant trust could be the scope of a future blog, but for now let us focus on the questions I asked earlier, being: what does it mean to want a NEW social contract? What constitutes the new?

According to Omtzigt we would have answered that question already: if we assume that to install a new social contract means to try to restore trust in the government with new policies and other measures that could reinstate trust. But I do not think that a new social contract implies merely upping the trustworthiness of one of the parties.

Because, what happens when we get something new? New substances: whether physical or conceptual, take up a certain space. The space new substances take up could already have a substance in them, or could have been void. For instance: new clothes take up a place in your wardrobe. Furthermore, new clothes take up a spot in what you can wear in a week. If you buy a coat, you could only wear that coat at a time. It would be weird to wear two coats. Another more abstract idea is that of the law. When a new law is in place, it takes up a certain space, not a physical one, but it guides the society in how they should or should not behave. The space a law takes is freedom. And on another level, laws can coincide and clash. For instance, Dutch laws could clash with European law. In both instances, the new affects the old. And it changes it to never be the same again. New and old cannot exist simultaneously. Old clothes are recycled or sold or perhaps kept in the void of our wardrobes. And in the case of laws, even more laws are created to determine which law applies to any given situation: they are ranked by law.

Then, what Omtzigt is proposing sounds absurd and raises a lot of questions. What will happen with the old? And what is actually going to change?

What Omtzigt should mean, is not completely replace the current social contract but to change it and make it better. Calling something new does not make it more trustworthy. Making improvements that benefit both parties does.

I mean but that is just what I would advise him.