How to Use social contract in a Sentence

social contract

noun
  • To forge a new social contract is one thing.
    — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 9 Apr. 2026
  • But what form should a social contract take?
    — George G. Szpiro, Big Think, 9 Apr. 2026
  • And the whole social contract around the work of art is part of the experience.
    — Andrew Marantz, New Yorker, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Europe needs a new social contract, at least for future pensions.
    — Renaud Foucart, Time, 28 Sep. 2025
  • Read the memo on the need for a new social contract here and the memo outlining their 12 ideas here.
    — James Hohmann, Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2018
  • The old social contract assumed life began where work ended.
    — Nirit Cohen, Forbes.com, 8 Aug. 2025
  • For decades, work was governed by an unspoken social contract.
    — Nirit Cohen, Forbes, 20 Oct. 2024
  • British attitudes to breaking rules, notably rules that are seen as part of a social contract, can be stern.
    — Jennifer Hassan, Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2023
  • The region’s social contract, which promised a decent job to anybody who wanted one, has been ripped up.
    — New York Times, 8 May 2018
  • When humans speak, our words commit us in an implicit social contract.
    — Deb Roy, The Atlantic, 15 Feb. 2026
  • Tax is one lever to rebuild social trust and the social contract between a state and its citizens.
    — Malcolm Turnbull, Time, 11 Aug. 2021
  • There’s an implicit social contract to not only enter but to hold the door open for others.
    — Ebony Flake, Essence, 31 Aug. 2024
  • The shift strikes at the party’s longstanding social contract with its people.
    — Vivian Wang, New York Times, 4 Dec. 2022
  • But, this is only actually a win if the new social contract is honored.
    — Ashlee Fowlkes, Forbes, 17 Sep. 2021
  • In countries rich in oil and gas, consumer subsidies are often part of the social contract.
    — Julia Horowitz, CNN, 20 Jan. 2022
  • But the space entrepreneurs emerging in the ’90s had soured on this postwar social contract.
    — Clive Thompson, The New Republic, 3 Dec. 2020
  • The Wuhan conronavirus threatens this social contract in two ways.
    — James Griffiths, CNN, 7 Feb. 2020
  • Crafting your team’s social contract is like stacking hands on the things that really matter.
    — Ann Kowal Smith, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2024
  • Is this a case of a woman being held responsible for the social contracts of a couple?
    — Carolyn Hax, The Mercury News, 27 June 2019
  • The challenge now was to find a procedure that would produce a social contract that would be fair and acceptable to all.
    — George G. Szpiro, Big Think, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The regime must have sensed that something was amiss, that the social contract Batka had relied on for so long was fraying.
    — New York Times, 30 Mar. 2022
  • What ultimately binds people to a city, or to a country, is a social contract that governs their lives.
    — Mina Al-Oraibi, Time, 14 Apr. 2026
  • Drug addiction and suicide are soaring, locals say, as the social contract strains.
    — Max Fisher, Amanda Taub and Dalia MartÍnez, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2018
  • Advertisement But such social contracts are built over time and with much trial and error.
    — Justin Worland, Time, 16 Jan. 2026
  • But there’s a social contract underpinning that danger that says that burners look out for one another.
    — Denver Nicks, Rolling Stone, 14 Sep. 2025
  • In his view, all states, far from being derived from some social contract, arise as protection rackets and largely remain so.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 16 May 2022
  • But Saunders rejected the notion that the Mohawk deal is at odds with the social contract.
    — Sy Mukherjee, Fortune, 9 Sep. 2017
  • But the implications for China’s social contract could be even more profound.
    — Eyck Freymann, WSJ, 28 Apr. 2022
  • These figures and many others call for elections for a fresh constituent assembly that could draw up a new social contract for Iran.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 1 Mar. 2026
  • The social contract that defined the United States in the 1950s is gone.
    — Mark Sappenfield, The Christian Science Monitor, 16 Oct. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'social contract.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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