Discourse On The Origin Of Inequality Summary

What is the cause of inequality in humans, according to Rousseau? Jean Jacques Rousseau’s book, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, talks about the inequality among men and includes all of his ideas on how inequality started among civil men. Rousseau discusses the topic of man in his state of nature and how there was not much inequality when man was in that state. However, he continues to tell the readers that once society was created and civil man began to exist, inequality started. The idea of public esteem leads to inequality. The idea of public esteem leads to the importance of the differences among men, which leads to the differences among men to cause jealousy, which leads to inequality. The idea of public esteem leads to the importance of the

This was something that lead to inequality because the people with the greater abilities were treated differently and were able to be benefited from their abilities by getting more advantages. Eventually, men had to pretend to be something they were not. This shows how the importance in the differences among men created inequality because in order to get better opportunities, man had to become something else. They had to pretend they were stronger or more intelligent in order to benefit themselves and be able to get the things that they wanted. Rousseau continues to explain how the idea of public esteem conveyed these differences even more. This was also something that contributed to inequality because “the strongest did the most work…the most ingenious found ways to shorten their labor. ..one earned a great deal while the other barely had enough to live” (53). This interprets how public esteem was able to show the abilities and talents of some men and shows how some men, like the ingenious, had different talents and were able to take advantage of