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must be an absolute authority to ensure the survival of society and so also its individual member turtles. To leave any power with the citizenry, Hobbes argues, is to give those with that power the ability to abuse the contract and their fellow citizens. Given the choice of abiding by the social contract or returning to the state of nature, no rational turtle would choose to abandon the contract and so willingly accepts rule by an absolute sovereign. A proper king, therefore, is necessary to secure and enforce the social contract. But a proper king does so to the benefit of those who created and granted power to the sovereign. If a king only rules for his benefit, if he neglects the welfare of his subjects, then as Bartholomew Cubbins would so elegantly put it, “He’s no king at all” (Oobleck). The contract exists for our benefit, and the king exists to enforce it. And for Hobbes, this seems to work out pretty well.

Brussels Sprouts for All

Imagine turtle life in the state of nature: each turtle at war with every other, no law, no commerce, no public works, no libraries, no Internet, no fun. Suppose that Terri the turtle and her neighbor Arthur both really love Brussels sprouts, but only Terri is doing something about it: she has planted a garden. She tends the young plants for months until they are ready for harvesting. Arthur sees his chance, and late one evening he tiptoes into the field and takes all the yummy green orbs he can carry. Something that—while not very nice—isn’t illegal, there is, after all, no civil society and so no law to violate. When Terri wakes she sees that her months of hard work are for naught and pledges to never commit so much of her time and resources to a project from which she can’t be sure she’ll benefit. Arthur feasts; Terri does not.

Suppose instead that Terri and Arthur have decided to pool their resources to raise the Brussels sprouts garden and to split the harvest between them. As the harvest approaches, can Terri be sure Arthur won’t turn on her and take the whole crop for himself? After all, there is nothing guaranteeing either of them will abide by their agreement. Recognizing the possibility of betrayal, late one night, Terri sneaks into Arthur’s house with a shovel and wallops him until he is dead. Terri feasts; Arthur does not.

Or imagine instead that Terri and Arthur each plant a private Brussels sprouts patch. Arthur is quite muscular and tills the ground extraordinarily well. Terri isn’t quite so strong, so her plot is less well tilled. On the other hand, Terri is very experienced with keeping worms and other creepy-crawlies away from her plants, while Arthur hasn’t a clue about this, so Arthur’s plants are a bit scraggly and sickly. They both recognize that if they could combine their abilities, each would have a much better chance at a garden full of delectable little green cabbages. Each one’s inability to do everything needed to ensure a good harvest fails to maximize the Brussels sprouts yield of either harvest. If only they could trust one another enough to combine their efforts, they’d be wading in a sea of vegetables.

What if they could trust each other? What if there was a mechanism that would punish Terri or Arthur for breaking their agreement to pool their resources? This is the social contract in a nutshell: an agreement between parties regarding how they will interact with one another, and a mechanism—the sovereign—for punishing violators of that agreement. In this case, neither Terri nor Arthur will end up with all of the Brussels sprouts, but also neither turtle will end up with none at all. Instead, they each get some of what they want and without the risk of being killed or hoodwinked in the process. In this way, rationality and self-interest work together to encourage individuals to join together in a social contract.

However, on occasion, the sovereign created by the social contract—King Yertle in the case of Sala-ma-Sond—may overstep his bounds by acting against the citizens’ interests, the protection of which is the whole point of the sovereign’s existence.