Our society tries to be contractrarian, which is to say it asserts the rule of law (law applies to everyone equally and is legislated from everyone equally) but even in the short history of democracy-informed states, signs of disparity are evident, from motorists exceeding speed limits to white collar crime getting sentenced lighter punishment than petty crime even though it causes more cost, destruction and loss of life by multiple orders of magnitude.

All states in the world fail to carry out their side of the social contract. Few even try. And all states exhibit social stratification in which the ownership class is protected but not constrained, and the working class is constrained but not protected.

So while states might pretend to ask for consent to govern, they command obedience, by force. At the botton rungs, weare imprisoned or killed if we dont obey perfectly, and sometimes if we do.

So yes, on the chalkboard, but in reality, no.