Social Contract

⚖️

Social Contract Simulator

Start in the state of nature, sign a contract, and watch a century of little cartoon people living under your choices.

Year: 0 / 100
Panel 1 shows a loose “state of nature” camp. As you hit “Play 100 years”, each new scene fades in, showing your people building a society—or tearing it apart.

1. Set your society’s clauses

Each slider is a line in your unwritten social contract. Push them hard left or right to see how both extremes can hurt the people living in your world.

Taxes & redistribution

How high are taxes and how aggressively are they used to redistribute wealth?

70

Social safety net

How generous are public services (health, education, housing, unemployment)?

80

Market freedom vs regulation

How much room do corporations and markets have, versus rules and oversight?

60

Freedom of speech & dissent

How protected is it to criticize leaders, symbols, and majority opinions?

85

Security, policing & surveillance

How far can the state go with police, data, and force in the name of safety?

55

State-enforced culture

0 = progressive orthodoxy, 50 = live and let live, 100 = nationalist orthodoxy.

50

Democratic participation

How often do ordinary people meaningfully shape laws and leaders?

80

Minority & individual rights

How strongly are courts and laws able to protect unpopular people and views?

85

Push everything to one extreme—hard left or hard right—and hit “Play 100 years” to see how quickly your smiling citizens end up protesting, fleeing, or living under emergency rule.

Philosophical alignment & constitutionality
Most aligned with Locke · Constitutionality: 78%
Rights-based liberal democracy
Taxes and safety nets are strong, speech is broadly free, and courts protect individuals. The state is strong enough to govern but weak enough that citizens can still replace it.
Locke: People form governments not to surrender their rights, but to secure them more effectively than they could alone.
Happiness & quality of life 80
Very rough blend of liberty, fairness, stability, and moderation.
Liberty experienced 80
How free daily life feels for real people, not just on paper.
Stability & order 72
Risk of coups, collapse, civil war, or chronic chaos.
Fairness & equality 65
Whether people feel the rules apply equally to rich and poor, majority and minority.
Rebellion risk 28
How tempting it is to tear up the contract rather than reform it.
Watch for: If taxes and regulation climb while speech and minority rights shrink, a well-meaning contract can harden into an authoritarian project—left or right.
Closest real-world echoes (very rough)

This is a toy model. It’s influenced by real-world patterns (like high happiness in Nordic-style democracies and lower scores in many authoritarian or failing states), but it isn’t claiming any one country or ideology is “best.”