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For Policy Wonks

Repairing the Foundation: Why Social Policy Must Start with the Social Contract

To policymakers, their advisors, and those with influence over public discourse:

This document outlines why recent efforts to strengthen American society are faltering — not because of poor intentions, but because a key foundation has been eroded. If we misunderstand how societies become cohesive in the first place, we’ll misdiagnose their failures — and misdesign their recovery.

Let’s be clear: this is not about left or right. It’s about coherence vs. collapse.
Here’s the deal:

Unless you’ve looked closely at the evolutionary roots of cooperation, you may be missing a crucial fact:

The social contract is not something the state offers. It’s something people build — and then the state is built on top of that.

That insight is often left out of the usual political and academic discourse. Even respected sources like Wikipedia define the social contract as a theory about the legitimacy of state authority over individuals.

But the real story — documented by thinkers like Brian Skyrms and foreshadowed long ago by the philosopher Xunzi — is deeper. The social contract first emerged before states, from small-scale agreements among people to refrain from harming each other and to solve problems together. You don’t need a constitution to have a social contract. You need only this:

“If you don’t try to hurt me, I won’t try to hurt you.”

This compact, in its many cultural forms, is the glue that holds everything else in place — families, tribes, courts, legislatures, economies.

When that glue weakens, even good institutions begin to fail.
The Undermining of a Social Ideal

The American project, as envisioned by the Founders and expressed in the Declaration of Independence, assumed this foundational trust. But compromises — like slavery — fractured the underlying contract from the start. Since then, certain strains within society have worked not to repair it, but to exploit its weakening.

The result? A slow cultural shift away from shared values like fairness, conscience, and empathy:

Conscience is dismissed as childhood conditioning.

Empathy is called weakness.

Compassion is seen as letting others off the hook.

Fairness is downgraded to a mere social construct.

The Golden Rule becomes “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

In such an environment, the idea of a social contract becomes hollow. Even well-meaning professionals come to define it as: “Behave yourself, and the government will treat you well.” But that’s not a contract — it’s an enforcement bargain.
What Actually Holds Societies Together

Skyrms’ research, and long-standing anthropological evidence, show that real social contracts arise in early human (and even some animal) societies as mechanisms of mutual restraint and cooperation. Groups that monitor behavior, reward restraint, and expel chronic exploiters can survive and grow. Groups that fail to do this fall apart — or become prey to those who do.

This pattern repeats at all levels, from herds to households to nations.

Modern governments work when they preserve this foundation. Laws, courts, infrastructure — these are extensions of a shared compact, not substitutes for one. When that shared sense erodes, the tools of governance can become brittle, corrupt, or openly violent — as we see in gang-controlled regions of Haiti and other failed states.
What This Means for Policy

Trying to repair tax law or criminal justice systems without restoring the social contract is like repainting termite-eaten walls. Surface fixes won’t hold if the foundation is rotting.

To turn this around, policymakers must understand:

People accept laws when they trust the system is fair.

People cooperate when they believe others are also cooperating.

People withdraw, resist, or revolt when they feel exploited or abandoned.

So any effort to rebuild civic harmony must start from the ground up — reviving trust, reinforcing fairness, and re-establishing mutual restraint as a norm.
Closing Challenge

If I’ve misunderstood the dynamics, tell me where I’m wrong.

But if you recognize the erosion I’m describing — and you want to preserve a government of, by, and for the people — then help re-center the conversation. The problem isn’t just crime, polarization, or infrastructure decay.

The root problem is that the social contract has been hollowed out. Fix that — or everything built on top of it remains at risk.

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