The Madness of (Religious) Crowds

I always hated "social contract" theory. It was self evident that nobody I knew got to "sign" a social contract to establish social order. Instead you were born into a society and had to make your adjustments to what little room they left you.

Here's an economist from George Mason University, Peter Leeson, who has written a book about some real societies that formed from a written social contract. In this blog entry by Leeson presents an interesting argument. I find it most relevant in thinking about the Christian Right who want to dictate religious morals to the rest of society. Leeson's arugment shows why that is a bad idea.

Here is the argument:

... society works best where the need for policemen is least. Precisely because in self-regulating societies individuals regulate themselves, these societies can afford more freedom and the benefits that come with it. But self regulation is only possible where most citizens agree with the rules that govern them. The key, then, is to increase the extent of social agreement underlying the rules that govern society.

There are two ways to do this. The first way is to try and build greater agreement over the existing range of issues we decide socially (i.e., in the public sphere). That seems unlikely, though, if for no other reason than Americans are as diverse in their beliefs and preferences as they come.

The second way is to be more modest about the range of issues we seek social consensus on in the first place. Most of us agree that murder, for instance, should be prohibited. Making this decision through the political process is unlikely to undermine social agreement.

But there’s much greater variation in Americans’ thinking about, say, what schools should teach fifth graders about sex, whether trans-fats pose an unreasonable risk to one’s health, and whether Andres Serrano produces provocative art or sacrilegious smut.

By depoliticizing decisions — making more of them private choices instead of public ones — we can strengthen the consensual basis of American government, and hopefully enhance social agreement over the rules we have.