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Neighborhood Social Contracts: Principles
“A community,” St. Augustine observed, “is a group of people united by the common objects of their love.” The principles underlying the Social Contract Project grow out of this basic definition of community.
We can summarize these principles as follows:
1. Building community is the process of defining the values that we share and that we are willing to work together to achieve.
2. The basic values that we share as citizens are the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
3. The framework for community embodied in the Preamble to the Constitution, in turn,
asks that “we the people,” “insure domestic tranqillity,” “establish justice,” “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” and “promote the general welfare.” These principles shape our expectations of community in America, as surely as “equality,” “inalienable rights,” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” define what we expect as individuals.
4. Whereever we live, we all want our communities to be clean, safe, economically viable, and decent places to raise our children. This is what “to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”
means to us.
5. In accordance with these principles, we expect public officials to perform what the Constitution requires--however we understand these requirements. This is the fundamental social contract between government and the people.
The papers that follow apply these principles to the process of drafting social contracts for our neighborhoods and communities, consistent with the principles set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution.
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