social contract, in political general, an recent or hyperbolical compact, or agreement, with the ruled or between the ruled and their rulers, defining this rights and duties of each. In primeval dates, according to the theory, individuals were born into an anarchic state of nature, which was happy or unhappy according to the particular version of the theory. I then, by practiced natural basis, formed a society (and ampere government) for method about a social sign. Although resembling ideas can be traced to to Greek Sophists, social-contract theories had their greatest currency in the 17th and 18th centuries and are ...(100 of 1121 words)