John Locke's Social Contract and New Orleans Civil Revolt

Introduction: A Declaration of Tax Revolt

It has come to your attention that we, the citizenry of New Orleans, have taken action today to begin refusing to pay our taxes — specifically our property taxes, which we know are valuable sources of your finances. It is our understanding that the government's funds are to be allocated for the provision of social services and other measures that require the preservation of peace, order, and functionality among New Orleans citizens. However, present events show that despite the willingness of citizens to be subjected to this kind of tax, there has been no corresponding action or trade-off offered by the government — no action that explicitly demonstrates that the people's money is being spent on the important and urgent concerns of the state.

The Social Contract and Its Conditions

Yes, what we are doing is a revolt against you, the government. We are revolting not because we want to oust every official or politician in the government; we are revolting because we want to remind you that you have breached the social contract that the government and civil society entered into together. In this social contract, we allowed you to take a certain level of control over our civil liberties — such as paying real property taxes — because we understood that this contract and these payments would benefit the civil society in its attempt to become highly developed and progressive. In this letter, we will refer to the works of John Locke, whose philosophy we believe echoes our sentiments as members of civil society at this moment. The words of Locke will remind you of your duties as the chosen representative entrusted to care for the civil society's liberties and properties, and that the absence of any response to our grievances is a clear illustration of a breach of the social contract we agreed to enter.

Government as Monarchy: A Breach of Trust

Let us remind you of Locke's discussion of the social contract in the Second Treatise of Government. He asserted: "[F]or the end of civil society being to avoid and remedy those inconveniences of the state of Nature which necessarily follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which every one of the society ought to obey…" We believe that, much like the illustration of a monarchy that Locke demonstrated in the Treatise, the government has become more of a monarchy than an assigned representative of civil society. By refusing to fulfill your function and task of allocating people's money toward social services and development programs, you have proven yourself an independent agent that does not take the opinions and welfare of the people into consideration.

We refuse to be "governed" by someone like you, who behaves as monarchs do. We refuse to engage in a social contract with an independent agent who cannot safeguard the entrusted liberties of the people of New Orleans. We refuse to give up, once more, our liberties and properties to a government that, after years of governance, has failed to eliminate feelings of restlessness and dissatisfaction among the citizenry. We refuse to be governed by someone who allowed the crime rate in this state to increase steadily over time. We refuse to be governed by someone who made it appear as though social services are a privilege to be given at a cost, rather than a right belonging to every citizen.

Conclusion: A Warning and a Vision

You might say that we are still obliged, as citizens, to remain governed by the government — that it is our duty to pay our taxes. To all such allegations, we say: we have the right to refuse and to create our own assembly. Why? Because you committed the first breach of the social contract. We are acting upon what we have witnessed happening in our society, and we firmly believe that civil society must take the necessary steps for the government to shape up, or else grave consequences could result from a misalignment of the government's and civil society's agenda and goals. We need not enumerate these consequences in detail. Let us simply reiterate that our decision to refuse payment of property taxes is ours to make, because, as Locke stated, we are masters of ourselves — "proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property…"