In some ways, we\u2019ve come to overly ignore, downplay, or disregard contracts. Across the world, we see grandmaster politicians and planners imposing various \u201csolutions\u201d with the flicks of their wands, paying little attention to core features\u00a0like trust and respect for property rights. Here in America, our government is increasingly bent on diluting or subverting our most fundamental agreements, whether between husband and wife or foreclosed Billy and his bank.<\/p>\n In other ways, however, we are excessively contract-minded, particularly when it enables us to slack off or lead predictable, controllable lives. We want guarantees to ensure the maximum reward for minimum work. We want legislation that protects our jobs and locks in our wages and retirement. We want to put in our 40, return to our couches, grab one from the cooler, and say, \u201cthat\u2019s that.\u201d We want to give our effort insofar as we receive our due, insulating ourselves from risk, sacrifice, and discomfort wherever possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But while\u00a0contracts themselves do play an important role in ordering our affairs, we mustn\u2019t forget that they only take us so far. Surely we need to establish some minimums in our commitment-making, but that needn\u2019t mean that minimum-mindedness should\u00a0overwhelm our actions and imaginations.<\/p>\n As for how we might reach beyond these attitudes, the answer is quite simply\u00a0love<\/em>, a solution that may sound flimsy and unrealistic, but which, in it\u2019s\u00a0purest form<\/a>\u00a0has a remarkable tendency to break down line-item legalisms and self-centeredness. As economist Jennifer Roback Morse argues throughout her book,\u00a0Love & Economics<\/em><\/a>, love \u201cholds society together,\u201d and does so precisely by pushing us beyond our\u00a0pseudo-rationalistic calculus \u2014 on toward deeper and healthier human relationships and a more flourishing society, in turn.<\/p>\n Although love plays a key role across all areas \u2014 business, art, education, politics \u2014 Morse takes her\u00a0basic\u00a0lesson\u00a0from the family, which by its very nature fights against a contractual mindset. \u201cFamilial relationships are not coercive in the usual sense, nor are they voluntary in the usual sense,\u201d argues Morse. Marriage, for instance, may be \u201ccontractual\u201d in certain ways, but it is much better described as a \u201cpartnership\u201d \u2014 one filled with what Morse calls \u201cradical uncertainty.\u201d \u201cWill we both remain healthy?\u201d she asks. \u201cWill we both continue to be employed at our current level of income and status? Will our needs change in ways we cannot fully predict?\u201d<\/p>\n At the most superficial level, a marriage is the sharing of a household by two adults and usually involves exclusive sexual rights. But at a deeper level marriage involves something much more. A successful marriage requires the complete gift of the self to the other person. It is not reasonable to give of the self at the same level unless there is a complete commitment.\u00a0<\/strong>These are the elements of marriage: commitment and self-giving to another person.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once children are woven into that mix, this\u00a0reality becomes all the more clear, with obligation, responsibility, and new levels of love almost irresistibly pressed upon us, from the day these little people\u00a0enter the world through\u00a0those blood-curdling\u00a0cries at the most inopportune hours of the night. For most parents, putting in the \u201cminimum\u201d is neither desirable nor realistic. Most understand\u00a0some\u00a0basic level of duty and obligation (feed them, shelter them, protect them), but we also understand that this \u201ccontract\u201d represents the beginning, not the end. Thus, we learn to love, and love more abundantly.<\/p>\n Taken together, marriage and children aptly\u00a0illuminate this model:<\/p>\n Partnerships feature ongoing, joint decision making during the life of the relationship. In purely contractual relationships by contrast, the parties negotiate most, if not all, of the significant decisions prior to entering into the contract. In a partnership, the partners share responsibilities, decision-making, and risks\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026In a partnership, both partners have enough at stake in the relationship that they have an incentive to do all the unstated but necessary things that can be known on the spot and in the moment. The contract is neither the end of the relationship nor the method for how the parties relate to one another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Showing how this applies elsewhere, and (hopefully) prodding us to set our sights on our own respective spheres,\u00a0Morse examines partnership dynamic in business:<\/p>\n The employer-employee relationship is more productive when people can move beyond a purely contractual arrangement. The combination of collective bargaining, large bureaucratic workplaces, and federal legislation has created the need for ever more detailed job descriptions. These detailed specifications of labor contracts in many cases disrupt the vitality of the workplace. \u201cIt is not in my job description\u201d is an excuse to do the minimum necessary. In this context, the attitude engendered by a contractual mentality is one of minimal compliance rather than maximal cooperation. The attempt to specify every detail of a person\u2019s responsibilities destroys the spontaneity and the sense of partnership and teamwork.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When relationships are formed, trust is cultivated, service is poured out, and ideas are shared openly and freely, God has additional room to guide these \u201clittle platoons\u201d and associations in cultivating communities and society. Once we partner with others not for our\u00a0<\/em>own\u00a0benefit, but out of deep and authentic love for neighbor and God, we open ourselves to risk, but also to new communities, new ideas and innovations, and the type of whole-scale prosperity that\u2019s found through exchange and collaboration with our fellow co-creators.<\/p>\n In all of our relationships and engagements, whether in serving our spouses, children, neighbors, friends, bosses, employees, clients, customers, churches, etc., let\u2019s stop simply \u201cputting in our 40\u201d and start striving for more than the minimum.<\/p>\n Reach beyond the contract. Or, as Morse writes elsewhere: \u201cLive with abandon, not obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally published at the Acton PowerBlog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n![\"6280530600_5923e31489_b\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/448\/2015\/06\/6280530600_5923e31489_b.jpg\")
<\/a>The subject of contracts is not particularly romantic, which is part of the reason I\u2019d like to talk about contracts\u2014and how we might reach beyond them.<\/p>\n