Jean Jacques Rousseau: The Natural Inequality - Essay Example

Not only have the arts and sciences not been morally beneficial; they have caused a positive corruption in creating the social screen or faade; and to defend this thesis, he proceeds to make his historical 'inductions'. Rousseau stated that the state of nature is disorganized and chaotic, there is still a semblance of order and organization. When a man invades the right of his fellow man, the aggrieved party has the right to punish the aggressor. Rousseau also affirmed that the state of nature refers to a situation where men are living together using their reason without any superior force or authority ruling above them (Curtis, 1961, p. 338). Rousseau also believed that the natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man but only to the law of nature (Curtis, 1961, p. 338). The main effort of argument at this stage is to set up the antithesis of nature and artifice in relation to manners; to suggest that manners have become a substitute for morals; and to point out that a collection of men going through the motions of social behaviour is not necessarily a society, but is more likely to be a herd.

Rousseau is, in fact, developing the paradox that in existing conditions, the more men are together, the less they are together, because the real social tie involves what he calls a 'reciprocal penetration', which is rendered impossible by the uniform smoothness of men's artificially-created social faade (Gourevitch, 2001). This passage has little direct reference to the arts and sciences as such, but it is worth quoting as one of his earliest and most succinct protests against existing society; and as an explanation of the main tendencies of his subsequent moral and political thought.

Although man enjoys his freedom in the state of nature he has to give up some his rights and privileges to be under the dominion and control of a superior power. He cannot truly enjoy these rights with certainty since he is exposed to the invasion of other men. His life, property and health are therefore uncertain, unsure and undefined. To be able to enjoy these rights, men should band together and form society surrendering and delegating some of his rights to the government that they would form.

By entering this society man must abide and submit to the rule of the majority. Rousseau also had a portion of the First Discourse devoted to the nature and disposition of properties. Because he believes that inequality is connected to property. Rousseau defined property as the labor of man's body and the works of his hand but he clearly stated that a man's labor could not subdue or subordinate another man's work (Curtis, 1961, p. 338). This means that a man cannot infringe and violate his neighbor's rights or acquire any properties that would prove disadvantageous to his fellow man.

Furthermore Rousseau stated that gold and other precious metals are not important but they become significant when people agreed that these precious metals would become a medium of exchange. When people agreed to form and enter a society, one's property should be regulated and controlled by the community while the society perseveres to protect the life, liberty and estate of its members (Curtis, 1961, p. 345).Rousseau also expounded the term representative government