Some Answers on the American Health Care System: Part One
SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY: The Basis of American Values and Governing
“Because before we can go outside the box, we first have to know what’s inside the box.” -Bobbi Miller, Adjunct Instructor of English at the University of Hartford
Let us embark on a journey to the scorching June 1776, when Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to a committee to draft a declaration of independence, and their britches were stifling. Look good, feel good...right?
What a time! Thomas Jefferson especially found himself consumed with the ideas of the Great Enlightenment, ft. our star philosophers: John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Jefferson was a very self-conscious person but despite this, the other members of the committee voted for him to make the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. They thought that he was the best writer of the group, although John Adams would come in second place in the vote.
As it pertains to the Declaration of Independence, the ideas from Locke and Rousseau that Jefferson drew from specifically were in the area of social contract theory. Here I should note that while the Declaration of Independence holds no legal standing today, it is the document that dissolved our paternalistic bond with the British Crown. Therefore, it is the founding document of our nation and relevant to the conversation we are having about why the government is allowed to do certain things. By the end of this, you will come to see how the recent legislation on health care is well within the social contract which founded our country effective July 4, 1776.
The social contract depicted in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was used to justify the dissolution of ties with the British Crown. Here, Jefferson combined the ideas of Locke and Rousseau on social contract theory to form the amalgamation of ideas that went into the Declaration.
Locke said essentially:
All men were born in a “state of nature”, where they had “natural rights” to life, liberty, and property by virtue of existing.
Here, natural rights are defined in the above bullet and are precluded from infringement due to the nature of their existence.* A social contract exists to protect the natural rights given in a “state of nature”, where other rights are limited in exchange for protection of natural rights.
For clarity’s sake, I am going to quote Locke directly:
“A state where men have the right to freedom, to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions as they think fit. A state of equality, no one having more than the other.”
Rousseau on the other hand, brought in one of the most important pieces of the social contract which is at the heart of our government: that a social contract has to be a “reciprocal commitment”. Meaning - the people being governed must consent to the proposed government, otherwise the government is invalid.
Essentially, it all boils down to this:
^here, “give power” may be equated with the giving up of certain rights in exchange for protection of natural rights.
The diagram should allow you to easily see that from Jefferson and those who recognized social contract theory’s point of view, their replacement and overthrowing of the British Crown was 100% justified.
Jefferson & the Continental Congress @ the British Crown:
So, how does any of this relate to government involvement in health care?
One of the more beautiful things about our government is precedence. The precedent that the Declaration set forth was that this new government that “was and of right ought to be, free and independent states” existed for the purpose of protecting natural rights, which, as we all know, they enumerated as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Thankfully, this precedence showed up again when we decided that America needed a constitution. Article 1, Section 8, clauses 1 and 3 of the US Constitution is where the government derives its ability to make these laws. You’ll see that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness have been condensed to “general Welfare of the United States”. Here’s the text:
Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Clause 2:
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Just to break things down, here’s what the government has the power to do re: healthcare, in theory, by clause:
Clause 1:
Ability to define “provide for the...general welfare” to include health care, and therefore use that definition to enact laws regarding health care and everything which it encompasses. Of course, there are limitations, and that is where the Bill of Rights comes in. But, it should be duly noted that the due process clause of the fifth AND fourteenth amendments can be used to expand even further the government’s ability to make laws regarding health care.
Clause 3:
In an economic sense, health care is a good, and therefore commerce. This clause has been expanded to include regulation of all commerce, especially after the Wickard v. Filburn ruling of 1942. This gave the federal government power to regulate all commerce at interstate, intrastate, and international levels.
I would like to close with a very recent example of the social contract theory being invoked, by none other than Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA):
Modify that last part:
“Now look: you built a great career and turned your life into something terrific - God bless! Keep a big hunk of your salary. But part of the underlying social contract is that you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next person without any means to purchase their own healthcare who comes along.”
