Social contract

Social contract, in political philosophy, concept of the formation of society in which people agree to surrender part of their “natural” freedom to enjoy the security of the organized state. The idea, though of ancient origin, was first fully formulated in the 17th and 18th centuries by Thomas Hobbes (in Leviathan, 1651), John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, and was then controversial because it suggested that heads of state ruled only by their subjects' consent.