Social Contract Theory

by Michael Lessnoff (Editor)

While newly arrived immigrants are often the focus of public concern and debate, many Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans have resided in the United States for generations. Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, and their racial identities change with each generation. While the attainment of education and middle class occupations signals a decline in cultural attachment for some, socioeconomic mobility is not a cultural death-knell, as others are highly ethnically identified. There are a variety of ways that middle class Mexican Americans relate to their ethnic heritage, and racialization despite assimilation among a segment of the second and third generations reveals the continuing role of race even among the U.S.-born."Mexican Americans Across Generations" investigates racial identity and assimilation in three-generation Mexican American families living in California. Through rich interviews with three generations of middle class Mexican American families, Vasquez focuses on the family as a key site for racial and gender identity formation, knowledge transmission, and incorporation processes, exploring how the racial identities of Mexican Americans both change and persist generationally in families. She illustrates how gender, physical appearance, parental teaching, historical era and discrimination influence Mexican Americans' racial identity and incorporation patterns, ultimately arguing that neither racial identity nor assimilation are straightforward progressions but, instead, develop unevenly and are influenced by family, society, and historical social movements.

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A VERY HELPFUL COLLECTION OF WRITINGS FROM 1700s TO NOW

At the time this book was published in 1990, Michael Lessnoff was in the Department of Politics at the University of Glasgow. He has written a number of other books such as 'Political Philosophers of the Twentieth Century,' 'Political Culture of Contemporary Britain: People and Politicians, Principles and Practice,' 'The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic: An Enquiry into the Weber Thesis,' etc.

This book is a collection of readings from the "giants" of Social Contract theory, including Thomas Hobbes; John Locke; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Immanuel Kant; John Rawls, and others.

Lessnoff wrote a very helpful Introduction to the book---which previews and summarizes the writers included, as well as some others (including Robert Nozick, author of Anarchy, State, and Utopia), which begins by saying, "The concept of the social contract is a familiar and well-established element of our thinking about politics... More recently, social contract theory has been explicitly and self-consciously revived by the leading political philosopher of our day, John Rawls... social contract theory is now again a major focus of systematic and original political thought."

Noting that many theorists never used the term "contract," Lessnoff argues that "What matters is the CONCEPT, which is that of a binding agreement or exchange of promises. THAT concept in no way presupposed either law or political authority." (Pg. 4)

This collection is an excellent introduction to the major writings of social contract theory.