POLITICAL SCIENCE

SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY

Quote arthashashtra book 1 chapter 18– people suffering from anarchy as illustrated by the
provorbial tendency of the big fish eating the small fish that is matsney – first elected manu to be
the kind and allotted one-fourth of the grains and one-tenth of the merchandise as sovereign dues,
fed by the payment the king upon himself the responsibility of maintaining the safety and security
of the subjects and of being answerable to his subjects for his sins when the principle of levying just
punishments and taxes have been violated.

Romans like Polybius and cicero took the same view.

Roman jurists like Ulpian “ The will of the emperor is law only because people confer supreme
power on him”
Social contract is not a piece of paper that can be signed nor considered to be a historical event
THREE ESSENTIAL ASPECTS
1. All the thinkers advocated that there was a state of nature, a stateless society before the contract
in which the Hobbes claim that the life of the people was solitary poor nasty brutish and short.
And in this case there was a war of all against all.

2. This state was a barbarious environment and the thinkers suggested why it was necessary to leave
the environment and come to an agreement. This was the raison d’ etre for the creation of the state.

3. Finally the contract obliges the citizens to obey the state in respect of the security it delivers.

Hobbes has used their theory to justify political freedom, constitutional government and limited
sovereignity supoorted legal sovereignity

/Lock /has been dubbed as a political ideolog of emerging capitalism with the chief natural right
being the right of property – supported political sovereignity

Rousseau has supported popular sovereignity