This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues that we must imagine the social contract as if we do not know what role in society we would have. This, claims Rawls, ensures that “the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain”.
Alas, Nick, 30, knows his place all too well — and he isn’t sure how he got here. Social contract theory is a subtle, complex field of thought, full of nuanced attempts to reconcile liberty and equality — but for Nick it is painfully simple.
Nick lives in London. On paper, he is in his prime. He’s a white collar worker earning more than most of his peers, living in a dynamic global capital in one of the wealthiest societies in history.
But all is not as it appears. A visitor to Nick’s flat would be astonished to learn he was looking at the home of a top 5 per cent income earner. Nick rents a cramped two-bedroom flat in a subdivided Victorian house — a flat he shares with Lawrence, 32, whose bicycle dominates the narrow hallway.
After an especially bad-tempered argument about Tottenham Hotspur, an ex-girlfriend and a broken plate, Nick and Lawrence have tended to stick to their respective rooms, largely communicating via the “Zone 4 Mafia🍻” WhatsApp chat created two years ago in happier times. Hardly anyone visits except Deliveroo riders and the landlord, who is into his third year of pretending to fix the toilets. Nick hasn’t used the word “home” in seven months.
What remains is just enough to cover his rent, bills, Netflix subs and smoking habit
Nick’s seemingly impressive income arrives in his pocket after council tax, income tax, National Insurance and his student loan repayments have all been accounted for. What remains is just enough to cover Nick’s rent, bills, Netflix subscription and smoking habit. (He is about to quit for the 72nd time.) He never feels poor, exactly, but he feels a lot poorer than he feels rich.
But where do all those taxes go? Answers lie closer than you might imagine. Karim, 25, grew up on an estate near Nick’s home. He lives in a council flat and receives universal credit. Karim arrived in the UK as a child and soon integrated himself in the local community. He supplements his benefit payments by selling cannabis and pursuing a rap career under the name “Young Stabba”. (Last month, he earned £27 from Spotify.)
Not only do Nick’s taxes support Karim’s low rent, benefits and occasional holidays with His Majesty’s Prison Service, they also contribute to global justice. Showing a sense of duty to add to his industriousness and creative flair, Karim sends a generous amount of his cash back to relatives in Somalia via Wise.
One day, perhaps, his younger relatives will join the British social contract, too. Karim’s family back home also appreciate the UK’s “Unlocking Prosperity in the Horn of Africa” programme, which has done wonders for local businesses, as well as UK Aid-funded workshops about empowering agender people.
But Nick’s contributions don’t stop there. A spectre is haunting his South London flat — the spectre of Simon and Linda, 70. Though an invisible presence in Nick’s life, the Essex-based couple are as significant a part of it as his own dear mum and dad. Daily, Nick hears the clinking of their Prosecco glasses.
Simon was a moderately successful car salesman, and Linda was a teacher. Simon and Linda didn’t go to a fancy university like Nick, and they were never rich, but they did have the good fortune to buy an extremely average terraced house in London in 1977, which now, divided into flats and rented out through an agent, amply pays for their retirement.
The couple also enjoy a generous, triple-locked state pension, but they aren’t completely happy. The Daily Mail regularly informs Simon that his pension is at risk — “even though I paid in all my life!” Linda meanwhile is a WASPI woman, and rails against the government in regular, unconventionally spelt Facebook posts, claiming that she and women like her weren’t warned about pension changes.
Nick’s rent payments, thankfully, are enough to ease the couple’s nerves. Whenever life in their palatial Essex home gets them down, they hop in the BMW and drive to Southampton, to embark on one of their twice-yearly round-the-world cruises.
There was a health scare a few years ago, after Simon’s third heart attack, but thanks to an exhausted Nathan, 34, being flattened by an illegal minicab and an £800,000 NHS transplant operation, Simon now has a strong new heart and a new lease on life. He and Linda are utterly convinced that Nick and others like him could afford their own houses — and cruises — if they stopped buying avocado toast.
There is a balance and an order to all this, although Nick may miss it as he tries to catch the barman’s eye after work, forks over £7.50 for a lukewarm IPA and waits to see if his Hinge date will show up. (She doesn’t. Nicola, 31, pleads tiredness and goes back to her flatshare to watch Netflix and repost cartoons about mental health.)
Every now and then, he sits on his bed, puts his head in his hands and wonders what is happening to him. Perhaps he sees an article about expats in Dubai and asks himself if there are greener pastures abroad. Perhaps he browses X on his anonymous account and is briefly absorbed by anti-establishment polemics on strange outlets like Pimlico Journal and J’Accuse.
But he can’t quite bring himself to do anything that would breach the social contract. Nick, Karim, Simon and Linda are all joined by invisible chords of fate, expertly woven by an unseen but beneficent mind. If Nick must suffer in order for young Karim’s ambitions to be realised and so that Simon and Linda can enjoy the retirement they deserve, it is not for him to question why.
Behind the veil of ignorance, you don’t know who you’ll be. Yes, an unlucky few must be Nicks bearing society’s burdens like Girardian sin-eaters, but most will be happy Karims or carefree Simon and Lindas. If you didn’t know what your place in society would be ahead of time, any rational individual would choose the social contract that gave them the greatest odds of being a recipient of Nickian largesse.
Where will Nick’s story end? Nicks can’t go on forever — and they certainly can’t end up with pensions as large and efficiently delivered as Simon and Linda’s. But the social contract has an answer to everything, if you look carefully enough.
Karim’s cousin Abdul, 23, has some strong views about religion and foreign policy and is currently applying for a British visa. Could he be the answer to Nick’s suffering — finally putting a merciful end to the poor man’s labours as he stumbles towards an ever-receding state pension age?
Or perhaps Nick will end up being sent to fight to protect the Donbas. Simon certainly thinks that he should be. It’s about time he repaid his debt to Britain.
