Rewriting the Social Contract: Technology, Ecology, Extremism

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This project aims to develop a new approach to understanding the purpose and power of social contracts: implicit agreements among members of a society to cooperate for mutual benefit. Australia’s post-war prosperity has relied on a robust social contract, but it is under increasing strain today from new technological, environmental and socio-political realities. Using techniques from philosophy and social theory, this project seeks to examine the main pressures on the social contract today, and to propose how it can be reinforced. Intended benefits include strengthening social cohesion through better understanding the causes of reduced wellbeing, social fragmentation and unrest, and through proposing ways to mitigate their costly effects.