How Did the National Consensus and Social Contract Lose Their Way?

Part 3 of the Longer "Post-Modern Human Flourishing in the Absence of a Social Contract – Is It Possible?"

In my book, The Crisis of Nationality, National Identity and the Social Contract in the 21st Century (The Crisis), I explore the different the ultimate concepts of and applications of the social contract as the cornerstone of nationality, primarily through national identity. Common and traditional law had a patriarchal concept of nationality which focused on organic and birth-based identity with limited access to outsiders except in special cases (Jews, Moravians and Huguenots for example). The more modern Westphalian concept of nationality revolved around language and also the presence of shared identity largely represented by common interests and investments in a political economy and allowed more formally for outsiders and accommodated domestic empire such as Austria-Hungary.

The United States was the outlier and exception wherein it rarely turned away arrivals at main ports of entry. There are some occasions where people might have been deported or restricted from various work opportunities and citizen benefits, but open borders at ports prevailed until the period of 1921-1965 when preference and number restrictions were placed on immigrants from various countries. However, in the period before and after World War II, new facilitation of large numbers of European refugees and stateless persons, largely with reference to international agreements, facilitation of marriages between citizens and aliens, favoring of immigration from the communist bloc and the Philippines, and the gradual acceptance of international concepts of the freedom of migration led to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 which brought the earlier controlled immigration regime to an end.

It should be noted that until 1965 the earlier formal immigration had been predominant with informal migration almost non-existent due to the cost of travel, and lack of information about methods and benefits of migration. In the Cold War era, the US engaged in new international policy activities that attempted to propagandize the world to its political perspective, particularly post-colonial nations and the Soviet Bloc. This propaganda was initially in terms of political alliance, but over time evolved into a presentation of the United States as the ultimate society in historical development rather than the best ally. The result was that the global public mindset with regard to the US was of wealth much greater than that of any other country, a political structure and economy ultimately available to all, and yet supporting only the pro-USA faction in each country. This meant that for those who were basically aware of world conditions, the US offered immigration and prosperity to many without any entrance fee, and at the same time represented the pinnacle of European civilization which had dominated third world countries and recently had supported leaderships there which oppressed much of the population.

The Civil Rights Movement and other social movements had sought to remove any policy standards from many decisions including immigration and to reverse the power structure of the country’s previous history. Beginning with the 1965 Immigration Act, domestic politics and a particular strain of academic thought began to increasingly affect immigration policy outside of actual national legal and historical philosophy and consensus. Under the emerging conditions there was no longer a historical or logical basis for immigration, migration, residence, nationality and citizenship. As I discuss in The Crisis, this resulted in a new arrangement where immigration became a transaction that was removed from the social contract and historical tradition.

At the same time there were other identities working to fragment American society such as race, generation, religion, education, wealth, profession, privilege, gender, and region. In the 1970s the combined fragmentation resulted in the loss of a national consensus and cohesion which broke the earlier national social contract and the accountability structure through traditional community-based patronage pyramids. What replaced the social contract initially was the seemingly endless national wealth and growth as manifest in the consumer society and the mass marketing that supported it. Gradually the consumer society began to weaken as the Great American Middle Class itself fragmented, as the national population exploded from immigration, and as mass higher education began to lose its ability to deliver increased opportunities and satisfaction that resulted in an over-supply of elites.

By the 2010s great dissatisfaction was emerging among a large part of the population without a clear understanding of the origins and structure of the system that was not delivering the results that they expected. Various manifestations of the system such as globalization and immigration, were identified as the problem, but rarely was the core issue of political economy as the implementation of the social contract explored. Despite all the challenges in the society, almost no one considered the nature of the historical social contract and the reality of its loss to the contemporary American society. Instead, most thought that the problem was that some government policies had been misguided, when the fundamental problem was the structure of the contemporary political economy and the fact that there was no consensus for a social contract that once prevailed.

It is in this context that we can build on the work of Thomas Picketty in Capital in the 21st Century. Suddenly, the allocation of wealth and opportunities to different groups and classes in society had fundamentally changed. At the same time, the affordability of earlier standards and opportunities for prosperity for various classes have suddenly been challenged as the growth of the economy slowed, more and more national wealth has been redirected to small rich classes, the cost of living has increased, and policies of open borders and international wealth distribution have been implemented. Now, the issues are no longer about tweaking benefits for different groups, but establishing a national consensus and social contract for the overall distribution of wealth and opportunities throughout the entire society. That is far beyond public policy and political accommodation – it is a revolution. ?

In Part 4, I will explore more detailed ways in which a national consensus and social contract can be reestablished and a new political economy designed.