social contract

noun

|Updated on: 21 Jul 2018

Definition of social contract

: an actual or hypothetical agreement among the members of an organized society or between a community and its ruler that defines and limits the rights and duties of each

Recent Examples of social contract from the Web

The International Monetary Fund sponsored several changes to government entitlements that underlay the Jordanian social contract.

— allison spencer hartnett, Washington Post, "Can Jordan’s new prime minister reform the government?," 13 June 2018
At a time when Britain’s social contract has been shaken by Brexit, and scandals like the Grenfell tower fire, there is enormous— value in having a member of the royal family who is not white, nor especially privileged.

— daisy goodwin, Time, "How Meghan Markle Is Giving the Royal Family the Shake-Up It Needs," 17 May 2018
Or rather, the reason is that words have meanings arbitrarily assigned to them, according to a vast social contract co-signed by all its speakers at any given moment in history.

— josephine livingstone, The New Republic, "What’s So Bad About the C-Word?," 5 June 2018
The region’s social contract, which promised a decent job to anybody who wanted one, has been ripped up.

— New York Times, "Tax Breaks to Draw Jobs: A Bad Option, and Often the Only One," 8 May 2018
This dynamic is an integral part of living in a free-speech society—if not the First Amendment itself, then the social contract built atop its foundation.

— jay willis, GQ, "Racist Lawyer Aaron Schlossberg Did This All to Himself," 19 May 2018
While these societies are busy building walls of one kind or another, whether to prevent integration or to pursue protectionism, Mr. Bremmer says that their social contracts are steadily eroding.

— howard w. french, WSJ, "‘Us vs. Them’ Review: The Haves and Have-Nots," 23 Apr. 2018
Does PiS, which won 38% of the vote in 2015, have a mandate to rip up the post-1989 social contract?

— The Economist, "Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party is doing lasting damage," 21 Apr. 2018
Which is why there’s a lot to learn from the adult film world, where performers are arguably the most adept at navigating sex’s social contract.

— rae witte, GQ, "What We Can Learn About Consent from the Porn World," 29 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'social contract.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of social contract

1660

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

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Law Dictionary

social contract

noun so·cial contract

legal Definition of social contract

: an actual or hypothetical agreement among individuals forming an organized society or between the community and the ruler that defines and limits the rights and duties of each