In the modern context, a Social Compact is an implicit understanding between the government and the people and between individuals on the roles and responsibilities each plays. The aim is to ensure they can live successfully and safely together and shape the orderly and mutually fulfilling growth of society in both the present and the future.
Implicit in the social compact is the notion that differences of opinion, ideas, and styles of living can happily coexist. The belief that individuals and the government can rationally discuss and defend their ideas and proposals between each other without conflict and rancour. Except, that is, in the case of deliberate intention to cause harm.
