In this lecture video I present a summary of the argument from Charles Mills's The Racial Contract. I also include some of his argument from his article "'Ideal Theory' as Ideology."
One wild thing about this whole conversation is that Native Americans had sophisticated political structures and even multi-tribe alliances with regular meetings of representatives, and introduced some of the founders (Ben Franklin especially) to concepts that were included in American founding ideas. And also that many mammals apparently don’t live in a ‘state of nature’ as they have social contracts- a leader may get preferred mating rights in return for providing protection, or for having knowledge about finding food or choosing shelter sites.
