Social Construct In Jefferson's Intergenerational Contract

Jefferson was against the intergenerational contract; he believed that the Earth belonged to the living, his exact words being “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living”. Jefferson however, follows a more Kantian approach in which he appreciates that it is unrealistic to completely dismiss the idea of an intergenerational contract, rather he takes a softer approach than Burke. He accepts there is some need for such a contract, but to fully embrace a Burkean conception of the social contact is to take the contract to its extremes, where it inflicts more harm than good. Jefferson was adamant that the dead had no rights over the living. No man has the natural right to receive the property of their deceased as their own, rather it is passed to the next of kin or creditors through rules created by society. Therefore inheritance is not

The usage of the word unfurstuct is key to understand his perception of the intergenerational contract. Unfustruct in Jefferson’s terms means to hold in condition, specifically to hold in possession without reducing its usefulness. “To exhaust the fertility of the land, to make a desert out of a garden, is to violate natural law and to commit a crime against nature and (what amounts to the same thing) against future generations whose natural needs the land must suffice to satisfy.” (Ball 67) This demonstrates that Jefferson is somewhat in favour of a generational contract, with the purpose of ensuring the dead do not impair the quality of life for the living. This is a less strict view than that of Burke, suggesting that there is some responsibility to ensure future generation can prosper and not be impeded by the action of the