Americans Haven’t Saved Enough for Retirement. What Are We Going to Do About It? (fighting, welfare)
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...They were employed by an entity that does not pay FICA taxes. The one I was helping has a pension through the Texas teacher retirement system. I could be getting some details wrong - but this is what I witnessed.
My aunt (now 92) worked her whole life in the Philadelphia school system. There was a time when she could opt out of Soc Sec, which she did. Being retired now for 33 years, she says she regrets that decision.
In both moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment. Usually, the social contract concerns the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1] Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (French: Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept.
Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent of any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the "state of nature".[2] In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.
Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel von Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762), and Immanuel Kant (1797) are among the most prominent of 17th-century and 18th-century theorists of social contract and natural rights. Each solved the problem of political authority in a different way. Grotius posited that individual human beings had natural rights. Thomas Hobbes famously said that in a "state of nature", human life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In the absence of political order and law, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms, including the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to plunder, rape, and murder; there would be an endless "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes). To avoid this, free men contract with each other to establish political community (civil society) through a social contract in which they all gain security in return for subjecting themselves to an absolute sovereign, one man or an assembly of men. Though the sovereign's edicts may well be arbitrary and tyrannical, Hobbes saw absolute government as the only alternative to the terrifying anarchy of a state of nature. Hobbes asserted that humans consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the absolute authority of government (whether monarchical or parliamentary). Pufendorf disputed Hobbes's equation of a state of nature with war.[3]
Alternatively, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have argued that we gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so. The central assertion of social contract approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but are instead human creations. The social contract and the political order it creates are simply the means towards an end—the benefit of the individuals involved—and legitimate only to the extent that they fulfill their part of the agreement. According to Hobbes (in whose view government is not a party to the original contract) citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest. According to other social contract theorists, when the government fails to secure their natural rights (Locke) or satisfy the best interests of society (called the "general will" in Rousseau), citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey, or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence.
Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and that the rule of God therefore superseded government authority, and Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way of ensuring the general welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence. Social contract theories were eclipsed in the 19th century in favor of utilitarianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism, and were revived in the 20th century, notably in the form of a thought experiment by John Rawls.[3]
In my younger days I read Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and Kant amongst others and had to do papers on this specific topic amongst others. For a personal read I would suggest you start with:
John Locke's Second Treatise and his famous discussion/articulation of man leaving the State of Nature to engage in a collective society. It is and has been often discussed and is a primary foundation of most collegiate Political Science/Government programs especially with a sub major in political thought.
Second Treatise of Government Summary
In the Second Treatise of Government, John Locke discusses men’s move from a state of nature characterized by perfect freedom and governed by reason to a civil government in which the authority is vested in a legislative and executive power. The major ideas developed throughout the text include popular sovereignty and the consent of the governed, the protection and limitations of property, the problems inherent in an absolute monarchy, and the ability of a people to dissolve their government if it does not adhere to the bond of trust established between the governed and governor.
I would suggest exploring beyond the first paragraph of a summary. Essay itself:
Many states, municipalities and school districts have their own separate pension plans, that 'opted out' under FDR.
On a side note, a very interesting conversation is the contrasting theoretical concepts on the role of government and society between some of the Enlightenment era authors and a more modern political thought writer like Ayn Rand. Not sure if you interest are that deep but if so you might find it engaging.
... role of government and society between some of the Enlightenment era authors and a more modern political thought writer like Ayn Rand. Not sure if you interest are that deep but if so you might find it engaging.
I wondered when her name would come up! She who ended her life on Social Security and Medicare.
While a secure and comfortable retirement is not in the constitution of the United States is it in the Social Contract that binds us to our government and our government to us?
Please post the text of this "Social Contract" you speak of.
I wondered when her name would come up! She who ended her life on Social Security and Medicare.
Sure it isn't her personal life that is important it is her writings and ideology that has been embraced by many and has a special meaning to those close to the core of power in the country today and they are often using hers or similar ideology to determine our future at the federal, state and local levels.
That to me makes her veddddddddy significant. And having read and understood the handwriting I am on alert.
Sure it isn't her personal life that is important it is her writings and ideology ...
I note that her life didn't meet her ideology, that's all.
I love that her heroines couldn't be too thin or too rich, and always had 2-3 highly principled hunky men vying for them. But that's just me.
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