dissentandtransformation

[dissentandtransformation]

Historically, economical and political elites have been consolidated across a variety of regimes. Their establishment conveys not only the legitimacy afforded by each differentially constituted regime (de jure power), but de facto power. This is the capacity to exercise their will on the political and economic spheres of their State which can be considered the first and second sectors (the State and the market). The existence of an elite depends on its ability to remain powerful, which is why they have devised the social contract and the rule of law to maintain threatening actors on check. This regulation often takes place in the third sector, and can be observed in the bureaucratization of dissent: protest permits, a minimum amount of signatures for an independent candidacy, among others. 

Therefore, the elites hold the most power to change the system, to reform its rules, to translate social transformation (de facto) into law (de jure). Change lies in the hands of the same elites that have maintained current rule of law to their advantage, which is why it is so hard to achieve. What else would we expect they use their power for? 

This dynamic has created and, with time, entrenched socioeconomic and political inequalities that are now considered fundamental to the functioning of the system. For this reason, organized dissent can be conceptualized as the third sector response to said injustices in the first and second sectors. Paul Kivel describes how the elites in a capitalist economic system control the relations and opportunities of the groups in the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy. Laws limiting access to education, labor, healthcare and many more have worked to do this in a legal manner. The elites have historically amended the deficiencies of capitalism in redistributing wealth by creating welfare states, but these ignore the underlying root causes of the problem. As a result, organized dissent develops to eradicate the intrinsic inequalities in our societies.

That is not to say, of course, that organized dissent cannot work within institutional pathways built by the elites. After all, its main distinction from civil disobedience is that it is a lawful objection. By seeking to reform—building coalitions, organizing, and eventually occupying political or economic spaces—organized dissent has worked in accordance with the rule of law. Since we have already established that this kind of change is strictly regulated and repressed, dissent often does not follow this path, but it doesn’t mean it can’t. Most successful social movements to acquire political and/or economic rights have involved both civil disobedience and organized dissent (see the Suffragette movement, the civil rights movement). 

Consequently, organized dissent emerges from the dissatisfaction of historically underrepresented and undercompensated groups. Systematically repressed by a rule of law designed to keep the elites in power, dissent is the best tool available to antagonize the elites. Though we must remember that it does not seek only to reform, revolution is always on the table.

[dissentandtransformation]

Hello everyone!

Through the analysis of the Pro-choice and the Pro-life movements in Mexico and the U.S., the podcast describes their protest behavior. We take into account their political and social objectives, the spaces they regularly occupy, and the way in which their discourse is presented. Our objective was to apply the protest publics framework to the Pro-choice and Pro-life movements to understand why they are mutually constitutive.

Hope you enjoy!

[dissentandtransformation]

NGOisation - R.M.

Kivel mentions the relationship between social service and social change, the actions are completely different and decisive in the relationship with those who have the greatest influence/power in our community. Although the author focuses on American society, is not far removed from the social reality in Mexico. Social service is understood as the action of helping society, specifically to less benefited groups, however, this aid is apparently positive since it has been exposed as a strategic factor to promote development in certain areas. Kivel expresses that it is a normalization towards the deficiency of our society. The reason is because if there is help for the homeless, it is normalized that they should exist, that it is normal that there are groups with little economic and political power. When this situation should not be completely different. On the other hand, social change refers to motivating the groups that are below those who dominate the system (women, gay, lesbians, poor, among others) to raise their voice and can change their situation, if they are excluded groups to be part of the decision-makers. This is why, by creating a social change and not a social service, there would be a tradeoff in society. I think that creating this lasting change in society goes against the current system, since power is the sole interest of the powerful. In addition, the capitalist system is highly influential as it is based on the benefit of a few at the cost of living and the human rights of others (the most vulnerable). From the idea that capitalism defines our attitudes, thoughts and we turn out to be more moldable, it can consider a trap not to achieve social change. The fact that capitalism promotes individual success and the process is "selfish" has generated a lack of empathy among society and blinding people from making a real change. Also, economic policy fosters geographic separation between those who have a lot of money and those who don't. By this, I mean that there are rich areas where it is quite exclusive to be part of that community (also within that community it is easier to network) while segregated areas do not have the opportunity to be part of the community with more money to stand out, they lack the connections. Therefore, I believe that the political, economic and social system influences the confusion between what is social service and social change, limiting the fact that a real change is made so as not to give up its power.

For this very reason, you might wonder if we as the third sector are making a problem. I think that the answer cannot be negative but neither can it be positive. As a society we are conditioned by the capitalist system and the interests of the powerholders. Therefore, it is difficult to reflect with a lack of knowledge of the subject (and more so because many people do not have access to education) and being blinded by the common view of inequality between people. However, it is our fault that we do not want to demand more from the authorities, and those who have the possibility of realizing the situation in which we live have a responsibility to society for making known this information and trying to make a change. As Kivel said, the union between people can create a change in society and in the policies made by the government, but it cannot remain half as other social movements have done, it is necessary to continue fighting for complete equality of opportunities and that the abuse of power no longer exists.

[dissentandtransformation]

NGOisation - N.C.

NGOsation can be traced back to the fact that civil society and government are not in balance, people want to be heard and helped out which results in the entangling connection between them both. The government, as the institution chosen to lead a nation and protect people’s lives and rights, uses its legitimate power to enforce several laws, programs and campaigns that seek to benefit its citizens in a way or another. And the NGO as the new form of activism or in the particular case of this paper, of women’s activism. NGOsation happens when many people have the same interests, goals or project that they want their government to hear out and work towards and it reduced the amount of struggle that civil society would have to endure with several social movement in order to make noise and get things done, which in a lot of cases does not work if the power of the people united is not strong and s=noisy enough.

From a structural perspective, NGOs allow social movements and people within it to be more neatly organized when it comes to knowing what they want, what they need to do to achieve their goals and how to do it. They achieve this by shaping up the needed levels of the NGO itself, getting a director or higher representative that’s gonna be in charge of leading the ideas and projects, choosing board members for a broader perspective and more diversity in ideas and of course constantly working on their next move. And the best part of it all, from a personal point of view is the diversification and expansion of ideas through working with other NGO’s. Civil society, therefore benefits by not having to meet up in a park while everybody is trying to yell out their opinion about what they all are supposed to do next to get what they want, and instead being more organized without the struggle of massive communication in old fashion ways or tons of WhatsApp groups, for example.

When it comes down to how NGOisation is functionally shaping civil society, based on the reading I would suggest that it makes it more efficient. As Jad puts it, “the success of the cadres lay in organizing and mobilizing the masses…” Linked to the structural shape that NGOs give to civil society, them taking care of all of the time-and-energy-consuming tasks allows the people to join the multiple social movements, activities and projects in an easier way. This means that the NGOisation has made civil society more prompt to participate since the more complicated tasks are taken away from them and their  only duty is to inform themselves and unite to contribute to the cause by making noise and make the government see them and therefore act on their behalf. But it is not only that, it is also that it makes the process even more agile.

[dissentandtransformation]

NGOisation v. Social Change - V.M.P.

NGOisation can be conceived as the concentration of civil society action into professionalized corporations whose driving force is a legion of donors with various interests. The budget afforded to NGOs allows them a certain degree of legitimacy as representatives of civil society’s demands. However, instead of representing political agendas, NGOs are geared towards the provision of services to civil society. This incompatibility of aims becomes the main obstacle for the coexistence of social service and social change in NGOisation.

The tradeoff becomes intrinsic to the system of NGOs when social service is conceptualized as individual solutions to a structural problem. When donors fund social welfare programs, they are addressing the consequences of injustice and inequality, not the root causes. They work to co-opt social change by absorbing social movement leadership and resources and adding more controlling elements to society. NGOs surveil and monitor agents of social change, invalidate them as illegitimate representatives of civil society, and curtail their demands for structural change. As a result, a highly NGOised civil society is one with little possibility of real social change.

Furthermore, although funding affords NGOs the ability to provide social services, the power of donors is much more relevant since they dictate their agenda. The example of Jeff Bezos funding schools for low-income students demonstrates the parallel roles of the ruling class: while on the one hand they use their political power to keep their wealth intact and under-regulated, they employ a fraction of their wealth to wash their hands from the impact of their policies on the bottom 80%. Social services, then, serve as a distraction from real social change while they become part of the structure that perpetuates inequality and injustice.

Another reason why the Third Sector may be incidentally perpetuating the problems it intends to solve lies precisely in its professionalization. The creation of the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC) implies the creation of a labor force that relies on the existence of those problems. There is no incentive to actually address them since it would imply that the networks of NGO occupations, careers, and professions will be eliminated. Although it may be said that those changes could create new opportunities for employment for everyone, including the disenfranchised and the NGO professionals, this long-term perspective is incompatible with the short-term, project-based schedule of NGOs.

That is not to say, however, that the Third Sector is creating the problems it solves, it is mainly perpetuating them into the future by acting as a distraction from real social change. Not only would their legitimacy be put into question if it were the former, but the rationale that has awarded them this legitimacy would be hard to uphold in the face of social movements. As seen before, NGOs and their projects may produce different results that amplify socioeconomic inequality between communities, but that does not mean that they created the source of said inequality. Instead, they work within a zero-sum game on behalf of the ruling class which bolsters the concentration of wealth and power.

The result is that social change is co-opted, dissent is suppressed, and all the while, the status quo remains in place. It is upheld by unsuspecting employees who believe their research, outreach programs and in-site evaluations are contributing to a better world. When the communities NGOs are supposed to be aiding remain trapped in a cycle of competition for funding, inequality remains unquestioned. This is what can be considered as the trap of the political economy of NGOisation: grant proposals need to present their case as the most “deserving of funding”, which not only incentivizes the existence of problems, but implies that other “non-deserving” cases will not be attended to. 

All in all, NGOisation can be understood as the result of good intentions with lack of a good execution. Although their creation attends to the ruling class’s interests, the members of the NGO labor force can hardly be blamed for their role in the co-optation of social change. The root causes of inequality remain in the structural setup of our capitalist society, which promotes inequality and seems to be ever elusive.

[dissentandtransformation]

Renegotiating the terms of the social contract through climate change - N.C.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats that humanity is currently facing.[1] Its development is like a cancer, slow and quiet until it starts showing some symptoms. Suddenly, winters in Washington D.C. are 5 to 10 Fahrenheit grades higher and summers in Sinaloa are slightly less hot. Temperatures all over the globe are changing, slowly but surely, and the vast majority of people do not even notice it.[2] In this essay I will be using the social contract as an analytical tool to understand the state-society power balance regarding the climate change movement, intending to demonstrate the importance of civil society getting involved in it while making a call to action.

As seen in class, civil society is not a concrete tangible entity that we can just point out to and immediately identify because it is in constant change thanks to dialogue and discourse. (Habermas). Taking into account everything learned in the sessions previous to this exam, I would like to classify civil society in two major spheres: the active and passive civil society. In the latter, you can find all of the people that are interested in making theirs voices and the equity-seeking groups be heard by the government and who, therefore, actively try to achieve this; and in the former, you can find all of the uninterested people as well as the interested ones that do not really do anything to make a change.

In this case, the goal of the active civil society in the climate change movement is to make the government take the right decisions to stop Planet Earth from suffering from human action. The best way to achieve it, when infiltrating in power positions is not possible right away, is to unite with as much people as possible and make “lots of noise.” We can fin this “noise” in the multiple protests led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, for example, who has led multiple environmental focused protests until she got to address the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Here the power was clearly balanced between power-holders and a representative of the global civil society.[3]

But what happens when the passive civil society constitutes the majority of the world and is being green washed? “It is just one plastic bottle” said 7 billion people. We like one Facebook post about eco-friendly bags and the next 2 days we see posts about how alarming climate change is. The problem with this is that most of the population believes that their individual actions are not going to change anything, that it is not worth it to try. That is when they go into the passive civil society sphere, they might be aware of what is going on, but they feel either discouraged to take action or they simply are too lazy to do anything about it. Of course, thanks to the attention economy is easy to think that the world is doing just fine and that “there are already people out there working on it.” Green washing is when multinational companies -or even small companies- use the green color in their products marketing them as “eco-friendly” or recyclable. In 2015, for example, Coca-Cola started its green-washing campaign in which it targeted ecoconscious people and tricked them into believing that their coke cans were actually ecofriendly, when the reality is that half of their materials were plastic.[4]

That is exactly the reason why the social contract that we mainly hear about in international relations is so outdated. The good thing about the classical ideas of Rousseau is that we can now take them and use them to better the state-society relations that we got while making the right choices for humanity’s future. Like the principle of agreement for legitimate authority in human society. Hence, if the active civil society knows that we need to take action in order to stop climate change and their multiple attempts to make the passive civil society join them in the movement are still on able to make them act, then they have to hold the government accountable for future consequences.

Although the social contract might be hegemonic and that the stronger actor of it is the state, civil society still has the power and the duty to revoke it when their rights are not being properly guaranteed. (Locke). For Rousseau the state might have to assure that the common interests are being taken care of and for Hobbes the state might have to protect the people from one another, but nowadays citizens rights are explicit in the constitution, in the case of Mexico, or in the Bill of Rights of the United States of America. In both cases, just like in the rest Western world, people have freedom of speech, which local and global civil society can use to make their governments take action and that is were the power balance lies on, the rights of civil society and the rights of the government -to use power for the benefit of the common.

In this case, the global civil society must unite to, for example, get their governments to declare a global climate emergency with its respective actions. The only way to make an actual change is to destroy the roots of the problem. Civil society is therefore important for balancing the power between power holders and itself, hence rethinking and rewriting the social contract over and over again until we are satisfied with it. We the people keep forgetting that power is not meant to be held by politicians and diplomats only, but it is actually in our hands as well. That is why we must take action right now and truly believe we got the power, too, and use it to make our governments take major action now.

Notes 1. https://www.now.world/global_climate_emergency 2. https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/ 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg 4. https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/coca-cola-greenwashing-attract-health-consciousconsumers/

[dissentandtransformation]

Challenging the Majority - V.M.

In his seminal work Democracy in America, Tocqueville sought to assess the experiment of United States’ representative democracy, which for the first time allowed a greater part of the population to partake in elections for public office. Tocqueville, a French aristocrat and classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government, was nonetheless quite skeptical of the extremes of democracy, particularly what he termed the “tyranny of the majority”. His concern lied in its omnipotent potential, which rendered the law unstable [1]. However, the main danger found at the heart of said tyranny was the possibility that the majority would rule over and repress the interests of the minority. In this essay I will point out that the tyranny of the majority has presented itself in civil societies as the influence of political elites, subverting the idea of “majority” and “minority”. 

As a European aristocrat, Tocqueville was concerned with the equality underpinning the exercise of power in democracies, which empowers a largely poor majority. A point of contention is found in Charles Mills’s racial contract theory, which repurposes the social contract to demonstrate the role of race in the conformation of civil society. This contract is not between everyone in a given society but “between just the people who count, the people who really are people”[2]. Although his argument pertains to race and white polities, it can be extrapolated to cover other equity-seeking groups that can be considered minorities in light of their reduced influence. This does not underestimate Tocqueville’s argument regarding a tyrant majority, but recasts those roles based on the influence of each within civil society: the majority are the political elites, even if the so-called minorities outnumber them. 

An interesting example regarding Mills’s racial contract can be found in the same United States that he visited during the political period known as Jacksonian democracy (1825-1854). During this period, the government decided to expand civil rights, removing property requirements that prevented poor people from voting [3]. Evidently, this move was meant to empower the poor majority in the country, confirming Tocqueville’s fears regarding an all-powerful poor civil society that would tyrannize over the political elites. Nonetheless, suffrage was extended only to white men, simultaneously excluding white women, free African Americans, and Native Americans [4]. This intentional disenfranchisement from civil society mirrors Mill’s point regarding “the differential privileging of the whites” [5]. In this way, political elites have the power to influence public opinion because they configure civil society to their interests and constitute the majority thereof.

Having established that the majority is differentially constituted, it is helpful to discern the different ways in which it perpetuates in society. Using a French monarchy example, Tocqueville illustrates that the moral maxim “the King could do no wrong” has been applied to the majority in U.S. democracy [6]. The result is not only that the majority is not questioned, but that political systems are rarely reformed to expand and include equity-seeking groups. Therefore, the lack of direct accountability could be an iteration of what Carole Pateman denominates fraternal modern patriarchy [7]. In her work, Pateman described modern contractual patriarchy as one that exchanges obedience for protection [8], but also entails disenfranchisement of women from civil society. This tradeoff, along with the Tocquevillian fear that the tyrant majority could do no wrong, seems like a justification for the sexism present in civil society. 

A familiar example of the unlikelihood of reform that reinforces the idea of a tyrant majority is the global fight for women’s suffrage, pioneered by European activists. The reason why political systems can be considered “fraternal rule” lies in the network of male dominance imposed by men on women, of which suffrage is only one example of systemic exclusion. In her speech “Freedom or Death”, British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst delineates the need for revolutionary methods when women are excluded from decision-making:

[Women] would have to make a choice of two evils: they would either have to submit indefinitely to an unjust state of affairs, or they would have to rise up and adopt some of the antiquated means by which men in the past got their grievances remedied [9].

The idea that the sovereign is unable to do wrong is a dangerous idea since it prevents reform to the political system. It allows disenfranchisement to remain in place with virtually no possibility of peaceful reform, forcing equity-seeking groups to work outside the system to enact reforms.

One final concern by Tocqueville is the risk of fragmentation of civil society to the point that the privilege of the majority is often overlooked [10]. This fragmentation rather than reinforce the tyranny of the majority, hides it so that it can remain unchallenged. A useful point regarding Mills’ racial contract is its use as justification for colonization, which creates an economic structure designed to “pump wealth from one side of the globe to the other” [11]. This extractivist activity—alongside industrialization and exponential population growth— has resulted in climate change and global warming, effects that are seen by most as irreversible in the 21st century. However, although only 100 companies (mostly from Western countries) are responsible for 71% of global emissions, this fact has been undermined by global civil society [12]. Instead, individualist narratives have taken the forefront of the efforts against this phenomenon, avoiding policy reform that would tackle the privilege of these companies. This is an example of how fragmentation works in a Tocquevillian manner to hide the influence of the political and economic elites.

The tyranny of the majority is a distortion of democracy, thought by Alexis de Tocqueville to be a threat against the United States’ representative political system. Most worried about the empowerment of the lower classes, his assessment failed to consider the fact that civil society had been restricted for a long time in most political systems. Intentional disenfranchisement on the basis of sex, race or class has been a tool for political elites to maintain control over civil society: over who conforms it and who becomes a majority within it. Tocqueville was right to send an alarm on the omnipotent qualities that an unrestrained majority could have in the governance of a democratic society, but what he termed as “majority” is better understood as a majority of influence which had already been reserved to a certain (white, male, and property holder) elite.

Notes

[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy In America, “Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part I”, para. 16, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm#link2HCH0035 

[2] Charles Mills, The Racial Contract, p. 3.

[3] U.S. History, “The Expansion of the Vote: A White Man's Democracy”, para. 2, https://www.ushistory.org/us/23b.asp

[4] U.S. History, “The Expansion of the Vote: A White Man's Democracy”, para. 5.

[5] Mills, p. 12.

[6] De Tocqueville, “Chapter XV: Part I”, para. 8, 

[7] Pateman, “Patriarchal Confusions” in The Sexual Contract, p. 25

[8] Pateman, p. 31

[9] Emmeline Pankhurst, “Great speeches of the 20th century: Emmeline Pankhurst's Freedom or death”, The Guardian, November 13, 1913, https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/apr/27/greatspeeches

[10] De Tocqueville, “Chapter XV”, para 9. 

[11] Mills, pp. 31, 36

[12] Tess Riley, “Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says”, The Guardian, July 10, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change 

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Tyranny of the majority - R.M.

Tocqueville wrote about democracy in America where he analyzed the relationship between the government, laws and society. From there, he mentioned the tyranny of the majority, which arose with the beginning of a democratic country. Democracy works by ruling in order to satisfy or solve problems of the majority of the citizens, trying to homogenize community. Tocqueville, in his essay, mentions that the social conditions are excellent for the habitants of America as well as the laws, because both try to seek the wealthiness of the majority. This is mostly achieved due to the importance and power of civil institutions in laws and political agenda, while the laws represent social needs. However, the prosperity of the citizens in America is temporal due to the way of thinking (satisfy majority and try to homogenize needs) creates that some people are not included or are not taken into account at the moment of decision making because they are unknown to some or those groups are not beneficial nor disadvantageous. 

The concept of Tocqueville is a critic to democracy and society itself because the society is who choses their representant by supposing it is the most equal and fair way of election for all citizens. Tocqueville says that “General prosperity is favorable to the stability of all governments, but more particularly of a democratic constitution, which depends upon the dispositions of the majority, and more particularly of that portion of the community which is most exposed to feel the pressure of want”. [1]  So, the benefit of the majority is and will always be a goal to pursue in this politic system; nevertheless, if general prosperity is only pursued, what happens to those relegated groups by this political and social structure? Those groups lack of space of representation. For example, in Mexico one of the many groups that are not taken into account are indigenous communities because, putting aside physical aspect, inside the public space (understood as govern services and politic representation) are ignored. The CNDH (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos) gave data (2017) recorded complaints of human rights violations with respect to health services, education and public security of indigenous communities increased. [2]  This is a group that is affected because are not part of the commodity of the majority. Although, discrimination by the physical features is a major influencer of inequality, the majority beneficial has an effect in geographics. Based on the case of Mexico and indigenous groups, law enforcement is more effective near large cities than in remote towns or communities.

Under this social circumstances, Charles Mills have an important roll because he defines that the social contract has several contracts in one: political contract, moral contract and racial contract. First, Mills idea of the several contracts is related with the tyranny of the majority since the lack of representation of certain groups is attached with racial contract we created. The racial contract allows racism function in a society, relegates vale to an invisible sphere due to the social structure. 

Tocqueville criticizes the structure of the relationship of powers and decision-making power in a democratic society; however, the problem goes beyond just the social and political system but it also enters the economic system, which leads to capitalism. General prosperity is influenced by the capitalist vision since the desire to consume affects who is listened to. The groups with the greatest purchasing power are the ones that will be the "majority" to represent. For example, those who are considered as middle class or more and entrepreneurs are those who have the benefit of representation and the creation of laws, since they are the ones who contribute the most economically to a society. Mills also has influence in this part because of its economic status, as he mentions that within the social contract social to count into politics you must be beneficial in an economic way to the government. 

This reminds me of Erich Fromm, a German philosopher, who explains though his book “The art of love” this social-economic relation. Fromm criticize society for its purchase wishes and its happiness based on articles without considering the price or its system. Fromm sees that society is emphasized by freedom, however, there are people who take action for the ideas that are in their social space. Within this social space it is capitalism which created consumerism. [3] If liberty is affected by purchasing actions and individual benefit, then the contradiction arises between what is sought (general prosperity or equal opportunities) and what is being carried out (the homogenization of society and the destitute of those who do not have an economic status of society).

With this, it can be concluded that the concept of the tyranny of the majority is currently applied in our society since the system has remained the same from years before. During the monarchies, those who were most represented were the nobles or those who had economic power, and now, with democracy and a different economic system, the effects remain the same. There are people relegated by the search for satisfaction of the majority, which is the same as saying satisfaction for economic power, so for all these years the tyranny of the majority has not been because of democracy, it has been due to the importance of the economic status of groups in societies.

Notes

[1] Tocqueville Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic  Republic—Part I

[2] Indígenas, el grupo más relegado de México. Link.

[3] Erich Fromm. El arte de amar

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The Contemporary Social Contract

What can be conceived as the “original” social contract actively excluded people on the basis of sex, race, and class. For hundreds of years, these sectors of the population were prevented from participating in the political and economic spheres, subordinating them into a power dynamic that was detrimental to their individual and collective development.  

As a result, the motivations of these groups cannot be understood outside of the general mission to get the same status of privilege. Every civil rights movement is an attempt to be included in the social contract, not only legally, but socially, culturally, and economically. Every participation is framed by their identity and they are thus trapped in playing a game of catch-up that is impossible to win. 

This “original” social contract implied an exchange: giving away our natural freedoms and receiving protection and civil freedoms. With every civil rights movement, a new sector of the population was seemingly included to this social contract. However, a reality check is needed. Governments and political-power figures acquiesced to these demands each time, apparently instituting equality among all citizens. Why? Because they knew that to be in power, they needed to be legitimized by the people. While rulers can interfere in one way or another to get to power, they cannot stay there if the people overthrow them. 

This begs the question, what is the social contract today? We could say it is an illusion with tiny clauses in between the lines, meant to alleviate social tensions. The truth is sex, race, class, sexuality, or ethnic group continue to be prominent factors in a citizen’s success, participation, and treatment. The state—understood as all political-power figures, institutions, and laws—has failed to address these vectors of subordination. Therefore, we can also perceive the contemporary social contract as “broken”, since it’s not fulfilling its purpose for all contracting parties. 

Thus, if the contemporary social contract has been “broken”, a question arises: do others know what it is or even know that it exists? In Mexico, a paternalistic understanding of the state permeates society, authorities have almost forgotten they are meant to serve society and not the other way around. This is a hindrance for political participation since it is a problem of empathy and knowledge of how society is structured. Equity-seeking groups know first-hand how their identities can make them second-class citizens; in which case the contemporary social contract would be broken. If they are actively excluded from it, this contract is an illusion. However, a real contemporary social contract needs to actively include different groups and their perception of justice to effectively protect them. Without this, any social order lacks legitimacy.

John Locke stated that when a government is failing to provide protection to its citizens, the latter have the responsibility to take the former out of power. It’s a citizen’s duty. Acknowledging that the contemporary social contract is a broken at its best and an illusion at its worst is the first step towards real change.

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5 Ways the Racial & Sexual Contracts Manifest in Mexico and Why It Matters

1. The race hierarchy structure

Even though Mexican society claims to be free of racism, which is thought to be most present in the neighboring United States, race continues to be a prevalent factor in the country’s class structure. In an illuminating study, researchers were able to show the direct correlation between race and the access to education and high-paying jobs, with white people benefiting more from these opportunities than mestizos or indigenous people. However, there’s another race group that is often overlooked in the Mexican population: Afro-descendants. With their existence not being acknowledged by the rest of the Mexican society, specifically by the privileged white one, this equity-seeking group is systematically forgotten. Their symbolic absence in the Mexican racial hierarchy results in the lack of legislative protection, representation, and disenfranchisement from society. In an effort to recognize the existence of this group, the 2020 INEGI census included a historical question regarding African heritage. As this example reflects, much remains to be done to assess and deter the impact of the racial hierarchy in Mexican social organization.

2. Access to health services

This issue is of a transversal nature since it impacts different populations to various degrees. As it has been demonstrated that the class structure is directly related to the racial structure in Mexico, race also correlates to the access to health services. Furthermore, women are especially vulnerable, an example being their lack of access to contraception. In the case of indigenous women, proper access to menstrual products is not a given as in other race and class groups, signaling the intersection of the racial and sexual contracts in Mexican society. A final example that illustrates the danger of lack of access to health services is the case of abortion, legal only in Mexico City. While this benefits women of all kinds in the city, women in other states (such as Oaxaca or Chiapas, which have a high concentration of indigenous populations) are left unprotected. According to civil society organizations, clandestine abortions are the fourth cause of maternal death in Mexico, which makes this problem a matter of public health.

3. Rape culture

The normalization of rape culture in Mexico City has left deep scars in its female population: in 2019, an average of 50 rapes was committed in the country each day. This is exacerbated by the eventual escalation to feminicide that results from it, with an average of 3 per day. The underlying problem, though, lies in the impunity in the judicial system with which cases of sexual assault and rape are resolved. Victim blaming, revictimization and the liberation of rapists are manifestations of the sexual contract. This fraternal rule has disenfranchised women from the judicial system, generating skepticism and allowing 99.7% sexual crimes to go without reporting. This problem affects women equally all around the world but in Mexico it has found a breeding ground for its perpetuation. 

4. Employability

The employability rate in Mexico is low due to the lack of female participation in the workplace. An OECD research paper shows that the employability rate in Mexico is 78%, but of that percentage, 45% is for women, which indicates a low participation of this gender. There are many reasons why women have that percentage, for example, most girls are not allowed or cannot attend school (due to their home chores) preventing them from gaining work experience; unplanned pregnancies; or having to give up professional careers after starting a family. On the other hand, intersectional analysis highlights the added layer of discrimination to indigenous women due to their ethnicity. Without considering the constraints of traditional gender roles product of the sexual contract, indigenous women also must deal with language barriers, less access to education and racism. With no compensatory policies for this discrimination, it is hard to envision a world with similar employability rates for women and men alike.

5. Political representation

Although Mexico has incorporated gender quotas into constitutional law since 2014, which forces political parties’ candidate nominations for Congress to be composed 50% by women, there is much to be done regarding this political process. Mexican women in political positions are not only few, they are also at risk. To be a politician as a woman in Mexico involves threats of physical, psychological, and even sexual assault. The supremacy of men in politics has been normalized, with a minimal support for women due to the belief that those places should be reserved for men. This lack of representation has direct impact in the Mexican female population: their interests are not taken into account during the decision-making process. Without women in positions of power, how can we expect to carry out public policies that address the needs of this demographic? 

The process of otherness carried out by the racial & sexual contracts deeply affects women, Afro-descendants and indigenous people in Mexico. Identifying the ways in which it carries out systemic discrimination is one step towards addressing and enfranchising these equity-seeking groups into Mexican civil society.

[dissentandtransformation]

Political and civil society, freedom, and morality.

If we are to understand freedom in its negative sense, which is the total absence of external constraints on one’s will, political and civil society is decidedly not free. When entering society, this personal will is rescinded in favor of the general will, which qualifies as a constraint. However, using the positive definition of freedom, we might be able to discern the type of freedom enjoyed by members of political and civil society. While submitting to the general will is a kind of constraint, it is conducive to other kinds of freedoms not enjoyed apart from this agreement. The way this general will manifest is law, which aims to respect individual spaces and liberties and at the same time represents the general will. Hence, society is free because each member has the right to choose and there is nothing forcing you into a certain way.  

This capacity to choose leads us into the second question, because being able to decide within a society does imply a certain “amount” of morality. Political and civil society is bound by said morality given the fact that everyone has the agency to take decisions freely. Hence, each decision comes with morality in the light of the fact that it is constantly created by the background of one's values and beliefs and continuous life experiences. If a person was in a situation in which they were not free to take those decisions, they would still be made. The only difference would be that they would be taken without moral meaning. This is also essential to understand the question of freedom: without the capacity to choose, coercion and force would be the default guide of the general will.

While there will always be decisions taken by the general will, if one does not want to take them, not taking a decision is a decision in itself. Therefore, one would be deciding that the rest of the people will have more power in the decision than them. This could be out of lack of political involvement, not wanting to participate in certain situations, not being sure what one’s mind is truly set in or out of poor laziness. That is why, regardless of the situation, morality will always be involved. Part of the freedom to choose is the freedom to abstain from choosing, a decision that should nonetheless be discouraged in order to encourage a sense of belonging and responsibility in the society.

Questioning who guides the general will, and why, is helpful to understand the correlation between agreement and accord in both political and civil society. As a matter of fact, society's values are never static. The fact that it changes creates the need for change in the political society in order to satisfy new needs of a general will. This plurality was not always observed, as some groups have historically not been included in civil society, which means that some people do not have any say in the conformation of said society. This creates doubt on the procedure of the agreement, because opposition and dissent should be encouraged in order to account as many personal interests into the general will. As a result, a universal accord is not likely to be achieved in civil and political society, rather the agreement ensures that the general will evolves in hand with its citizens.