Social Contracts

Social Contracts

Typically, a political jurisdiction defines a like group in a single place. A country or nation is an example. Recall the discussions on story and what binds us together. Consider Maslow’s sense of belonging and purpose. That can explain a great deal about the type of social contract or constitution that will/can be constructed.

Traditional social contracts assume a closed system: a sovereign government levies rules, taxes, and protections over a defined physical territory, and its citizens reside within those boundaries. Modern globalization shatters this model through jurisdictional arbitrage. While legal and physical borders remain rigid for most individuals, wealth, capital, and digital assets move effortlessly across geography. Sovereign domains are no longer hermetically sealed—they are porous filters where financial assets cross freely while human movement remains tightly regulated.

Global mobility breaks the traditional social contract because capital is free while people are not. The modern social contract is destabilized because capital enjoys global sovereignty while humans remain bound to territorial sovereignty.

Global Jurisdictional Arbitrage: 

• Sovereignty and property rights are traditionally tied to physical territories, but wealth and capital are globally mobile. The governing areas are not seamless where everything in stays in AND/OR everything out stays out. That is in flux and a challenge to stability. 

• One of the greatest challenges in the world today is where people who live in oppressive regimes want to get into better circumstances. 

1) This can be the economic incentive to work in an area of higher wages, greater opportunity and freedom, which is often a voluntary choice.

2) OR it can be to escape a potentially deadly circumstance such as fleeing from a war-torn area or one dominated by a lack of rule of law, such a gang/thug dominated political situation, which is implicitly forced. 

Sometimes nations welcome outsiders, sometimes not.

Specifics 

• Capital, intellectual property, and digital assets move fluidly across borders and legal loopholes – still, legal systems and tax regimes remain bound to physical geography.
• The Imbalance: Capital moves instantly, while human beings face strict jurisdictional walls. Those with wealth can engage in arbitrage (choosing where to pay taxes, where to register assets, and where to live), whereas ordinary citizens remain bound to the social contract of their birth country. Recall that the element of “luck” was referenced with respect to birth. It is the biggest lottery.

Human migration highlight the systemic failures of local social contracts (it has been referred to “voting on foot”).

Mobility: Incentive vs. Survival

There are two distinct drivers of human migration to highlight the systemic failures of local social contracts:

• Economic Arbitrage (Opportunity-Seeking): The drive to move from low-capital/low-wage environments to high-capital/high-wage environments. When a local economy fails to provide upward mobility, individuals attempt to sell their labor in a better-functioning jurisdiction.
• Existential Refuge (Asylum & Survival): The fundamental breakdown of the host state's primary duties, security, rule of law, and basic property rights. When state capacity collapses into warlordism, organized crime, or totalitarian oppression, flight is not an economic optimization; it is a necessity for survival.
• State Selectivity: Note the tension where recipient states selectively accept capital or skilled labor while rejecting refugees, creating moral and political friction in the modern world order. Receiving nations face an inherent contradiction: they welcome external capital to build wealth yet frequently restrict the incoming labor and human beings seeking security within their borders. In short, we’d like your wealth not your people. This is why nearly every nation has an easier entry for newcomers with wealth, than without.

Toleration is the Systemic Stabilizer  

Toleration is the capacity of a sovereign system to absorb heterogeneity without losing coherence.

Pluralism within Sovereignty: Toleration is the agreement by a host society to allow non-conforming beliefs, practices, or backgrounds as long as the overarching legal rules (peaceful conduct, respect for rights) are upheld.

• The Coexistence Principle: Without toleration, jurisdictional arbitrage and migration inevitably lead to social friction, nativism, and xenophobia. Toleration acts as the legal and cultural lubricant that prevents multi-ethnic or high-immigration societies from fracturing.

For a modernized social contract to function in an era of global mobility, a foundational principle must be toleration. Toleration is the pragmatic agreement that diverse populations—with varying cultures, origins, and beliefs—can coexist under a shared legal framework without requiring absolute cultural homogeneity. It allows a sovereign nation to maintain social order while remaining open enough to absorb external talent and grant refuge, turning the friction of global movement into a sustainable model for human cooperation. It is most helpful if there are core principles that can be shared and observed. Generally, all human beings agree that order is preferred to chaos, fairness is preferred to prejudice, there should be rules that are universally known, accepted, enforced and can be amended if found to be wanting.

Social contracts often break down internally before external pressures mount. Domestic wealth inequality, perceived unfairness, or eroding property rights breed widespread discontent. When host systems destabilize, political leaders frequently direct frustration toward "newcomers"—using migrants as a convenient scapegoat to mask systemic domestic failures, whether fair or not. This can be an effective smokescreen for what is really the problem. This tendency stems from fundamental contradictions in human nature. As Yuval Noah Harari notes in Sapiens, human societies are bound together by imagined constructs—nations, money, laws, and rights—that exist entirely within our collective imagination. Furthermore, as Samuel Huntington observed in The Clash of Civilizations, people define their identity not only by shared values, but also by contrasting themselves against an "other."

Human nature is rarely monolithic. We are simultaneously capable of altruistic cooperation and self-interested hostility. When logic and deep-seated emotion collide, individuals experience cognitive dissonance—the psychological discomfort caused by holding contradictory values. In moments of perceived identity threat, this internal friction frequently manifests as social intolerance.

In authoritarian societies this has often been the first and effective deflection of real issues. One of the key means to unite people is to find a common enemy. Without toleration, human mobility triggers acute social friction, nativism, and xenophobia. It acts as the legal and cultural lubricant preventing multi-ethnic societies from fracturing.

Toleration is difficult because human beings experience identity threats as existential threats. Migration amplifies this tension.

Recall… from The Cognitive Revolution - Language “…stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.” (Harari, Sapiens, p. 28)  

In “Beginnings of Human History - The Original Story” Graeber was quoted and asks, “are we inherently selfish and violent, or innately kind and co-operative?” Is this the most important question? Because again it sounds like either or. Why not both? There is evidence to support selfish and violent, and innately kind and co-operative. Just not all at the same time or in the same person. Toleration is a sometimes, hopefully a “most of the time” thing, but not always. If we make it a principle to live up to remind us of its importance.

In “World Order Driven by Culture” Huntington states, “People define themselves in terms of ancestry, religion, language, history, values customs, and institutions… People use politics not just to advance their interests but also to define their identity. We know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against.”

Human nature is NOT all one thing or another. There are often several conflicting, illogical characteristics that compete. People often have cognitive dissonance, defined as the ability to hold two opposing and contradictory views at the same time. It is often a nagging trait to the holder and those who deal with them. Why discuss this? Because it is a reality in dealing with people. Intolerance can be the result of cognitive dissonance. Recall from Human Thought, Reasoning and Critical Thinking, “Plato divided the mind into two separate spheres. The soul was seen as conflicted, torn between reason and emotion”. In my opinion cognitive dissonance may often be the result of logic and emotion colliding.  

Borderless Ideas vs. Bounded Sovereignty

Openness to human mobility has historically generated unprecedented leaps in innovation. The modern technological landscape was heavily shaped by immigrants who crossed sovereign lines:

• Nikola Tesla (Austrian Empire) – Developed alternating current (AC) systems and the induction motor.
• Albert Einstein (Germany) – Formulated the theory of relativity, transforming modern physics.
• John von Neumann (Hungary) – Pioneered modern computer architecture and game theory.
• Enrico Fermi (Italy) – Led the creation of the first nuclear reactor and advanced quantum theory.

Scientific discovery and technical innovation operate without borders; political sovereignty does not. Modern social contracts must reconcile this fundamental mismatch. 

Synthesis

Global mass migration is ultimately a symptom of failing social contracts, both locally and internationally. When local environments collapse or stagnate, human mobility becomes the primary mechanism for survival and growth.

States risk losing legitimacy when they fail to balance openness with stability. Because human identity is inherently fragile, toleration must be institutionalized within legal frameworks and woven into cultural norms. Only by establishing shared, universal principles can sovereign societies turn the friction of global movement into a sustainable engine for human progress. 

There are countless others who helped the flourishing and development of Silicon Valley, algorithms, satellite, internet and more. These advances were recognized, applied and further developed globally. These individuals illustrate how openness to human mobility produces disproportionate gains in innovation. 

Science has nearly always cooperated and collaborated across borders. Ideas and developing them are foremost. Science is nearly borderless, sovereignty is not. Modern social contracts must reconcile this mismatch.

As my readership shows this blog is read globally.  

I remind the reader that the point of this blog is to discover the truth. Armed with that, people can come to logical, hopefully stable solutions, by their own deductions. I sometimes come to conclusions based on my observations of the truth. I don’t always have answers but hopefully some of the right questions. 

The (almost) bottom line: Humans have often needed an external force to help them seek a new conclusion. The same old, same old is NOT progress. Global mass migration is a symptom of increasing failures of local and international social contracts. 

Historically, change has come often from an outsider who redefines the game. Recall in Conquest, Pizzaro changed the Inca’s civilization. Recall the birth lottery. With mobility restrictions this creates structural unfairness. 

There is an asymmetry between property and human rights. States lose legitimacy when they cannot reconcile openness with stability. Toleration becomes the stabilizing mechanism in heterogeneous societies. Because human identity is fragile and often contradictory, toleration must be institutional rather than merely cultural. However, a means to integrate toleration into culture may be a necessary condition for lasting success. 

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