Does social contract theory justify the creation of a social “safety net”?
Those who are well off have no need of welfare, public education, and government assistance in general. So, on the face of it, it is not in the interests of these people to pay taxes in order to support government assistance. But the social contract is supposed to be in everyone’s interest. For this reason, conservative social contract theorists sometimes argue that a social safety is not part of the contract.
There are two kinds of replies to this argument. (1) Some forms of government assistance are in everyone’s interest. Even the wealthy are advantaged by the existence of public education; they may not go to public schools, but they benefit from living in a society with a high level of education. (2) The wealth that people have now depends on the existence of society. When we ask, “What kind of contract would self-interest people agree to?”, we do not mean to ask what they would agree to right now, given that society already exists. Rather, we are asking what people who are on an equal footing would agree to. People in such a position might well agree that there should be a social safety net just in case they end up in need of it. (This line of argument is central to the liberal social contract theory of John Rawls)