In the “Discourse on the origin of human inequality”, Rousseau argues that social inequality is caused by the competitions that originated from individualism, through which people only pursue self-interest and put equality in danger. Rousseau believes that the state of nature does not have much inequality, which is worsened along with the development of human civilization and political institutions and leaves a greater gap between the rich and the poor. According to Rousseau, when human faculties are not fully developed in the state of nature, they are able to preserve some natural equality.
“There is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the …show more content…
“But bodies politic, remaining thus in a state of nature among themselves, presently experienced the inconveniences which had obliged individuals to forsake it; for this state became still more fatal to these great bodies than it had been to the individuals of whom they were composed” (429). As seen from the quote, Rousseau argues that it is the political system that caused inequalities and do more harm than the usurpations of the rich. Political institutions divide people into different communities. As people are driven by self-interest, conflicts are created among those communities. The interests of a specific political institution often force people to act in ways that harm others; for example, wars. They need to fight those in another institution in order to gain power to preserve themselves. As what Rousseau states, the conflicts caused by bodies politics shed human blood through wars and murders, which cause bloody troubles to destruct the peaceful nature and therefore diminish
“There is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the …show more content…
“But bodies politic, remaining thus in a state of nature among themselves, presently experienced the inconveniences which had obliged individuals to forsake it; for this state became still more fatal to these great bodies than it had been to the individuals of whom they were composed” (429). As seen from the quote, Rousseau argues that it is the political system that caused inequalities and do more harm than the usurpations of the rich. Political institutions divide people into different communities. As people are driven by self-interest, conflicts are created among those communities. The interests of a specific political institution often force people to act in ways that harm others; for example, wars. They need to fight those in another institution in order to gain power to preserve themselves. As what Rousseau states, the conflicts caused by bodies politics shed human blood through wars and murders, which cause bloody troubles to destruct the peaceful nature and therefore diminish