Rousseau's Expansion Of Wealth Essay

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an Enlightenment thinker during the eighteenth century and is most noted for his work The Social Contract. The Social Contract published in 1762 and is a philosophical document that expresses the ideas of popular sovereignty. Popular Sovereignty is a form of government in which “the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people and that those chosen to govern, as trustees of such power, must exercise it in conformity with the general will.” This is basically a fancy way of saying that the people have the power of authority of their government and the people should decide how they are governed. Like The Social Contract, the Declaration of Independence is a document that sets out to explain the relationship between a government and its people based on an an understanding of that relationship. The Declaration of Independence was composed by Thomas Jefferson in 1766, and shares many of the same ideals as The Social Contract. The Social Contract and the Declaration of Independence are more similar than different because Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced John Locke, whose Social Contract Theories directly influenced Thomas Jefferson during the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

John Locke and Karl Marx, two of the most renowned political philosophers, had many contrasting views when it came the field of political philosophy. Most notably, private property rights ranked high among the plethora of disparities between these two individuals. The main issue at hand was whether or not private property was a natural right. Locke firmly believed that private property was an inherent right, whereas Marx argued otherwise. This essay will examine the views of both Locke and Marx on the subject of private property and will render insight on whose principles appear more credible.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss-born French Enlightenment thinker most famous for the 1762, “The Social Contract.” “The Social Contract” is Rousseau’s most valued work due to its ties within the French Revolution.

Karl Marx and John Locke both formulated philosophical theories that worked to convince people of their rights to freedom and power; however, they had conflicting viewpoints on the idea of private property. Locke felt that property belonged to whoever put their labor into it, and one could accumulate as much property as he or she wants (692). Marx, however, considered the private property of the select few who possessed it to be the product of the exploitation of the working class (1118). Personally, I believe that Locke’s conception of private property is more convincing than Marx’s point of view.

Rousseau describes democracy as a form of government that “has never existed and never will” ; yet twenty-six countries in the world are considered to be full democracies. How can this be possible? Rousseau’s concept of democracy supports the most fundamental and basic premise of democracy – one in which all citizens directly participate. While his idea of democracy cannot be considered an effective indictment of what passes for democracy today, it is not Rousseau’s account which is flawed but that in modern society is would be practically impossible to achieve this idea of democracy.

Locke begins his explanation of private property by establishing how individuals come to possess property separate from the common resources of mankind. The defining feature of a piece of private property is labor, as the individual who performs the “labour that removes [the good] out of that common state nature left it in” makes the property his own (V. 30). According to Locke, the common resources of nature are open to all mankind, but a good becomes an individual’s own when a person performs some sort of labor on it. This stems from his idea that industry is an extension of self-ownership – people have natural rights of their own being, and extending these personal rights through work is how people come to own other things. Labor is what establishes ownership of a good, and as long as the amount of property taken is within a reasonable and modest amount, people are free to take what resources they must from the Earth. Although Locke argues in favor of the possession of private property, he emphasizes the point that it is “dishonest” for a man “to hoard up more than he could make use of” (V. 46). When people take property in excess, perishable

John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, two philosophers with differing opinions concerning the concept of private property. Rousseau believes that from the state of nature, private property came about, naturally transcending the human situation into a civil society and at the same time acting as the starting point of inequality amongst individuals. Locke on the other hand argues that private property acts as one of the fundamental, inalienable moral rights that all humans are entitled to. Their arguments clearly differ on this basic issue. This essay will discuss how the further differences between Locke and Rousseau lead from this basic fundamental difference focusing on the acquisition of property and human rights.

99). Rousseau viewed property as a right “which is different from the right deducible from the law of nature” (Rousseau, p. 94). Consequently, “the establishment of one community made that of all the rest necessary…societies soon multiplied and spread over the face of the earth” (Rousseau, p. 99). Many political societies were developed in order for the rich to preserve their property and resources. Rousseau argues that these societies “owe their origin to the differing degrees of inequality which existed between individuals at the time of their institution,” (Rousseau, p. 108). Overall, the progress of inequality could be constructed into three phases. First, “the establishment of laws and of the right of property” (Rousseau, p. 109) developed stratification between the rich and poor. Then, “the institution of magistracy” and subsequently “the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power” (Rousseau, p. 109) created a dichotomy between the week and powerful, which ultimately begot the power struggle between slave and master. According to Rousseau, “there are two kinds of inequality among the human species…natural or physical, because it is established by nature…and another, which may be called moral or political inequality, because it… is established…by the consent of men,” (Rousseau, p. 49).

Having established his state of nature, Locke begins his description of the formation and transition to society, and appropriately starts with a discussion of property. “God, who hath given the World to Men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and convenience.” (Locke, Second Treatise, V.26). Here, Locke does little more than apply natural law (self preservation) to what he sees around him (land), but in doing so, makes a groundbreaking shift. He reveals that, following from natural law, men have a right to use what they have around them to further their own preservation and lives. In addition, man has an inherent, and obvious, possession of himself and all that comes with it, including, and most importantly, labor. “The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” (Locke, Second Treatise,

According to Rousseau 's “Discourse on Inequality”, there are four stages to the social evolution in humans; it 's natural state, family, nation, and civil society. There are two types of inequalities, natural (or physical) and moral. Natural inequality stems from differences in age, health, or other physical characteristics. Moral inequality is established by convention or consent of men. One of the first and most important questions Rousseau asks is "For how is it possible to know the source of the inequality among men, without knowing men themselves?” (Rousseau, Preface) To answer this question, man cannot be considered as he is now, deformed by society, but as he was in nature. The problem is that as knowledge increases man’s ignorance. This essay, using Rousseau’s “Discourse on Inequality” as a backbone will try and identify the origins of inequality within race, class, gender and sexuality, and establish how these inequalities were brought out and maintained.

It was the land, when mixed with man’s labour offered the means of turning that outcome into money. Since land ownership is a prerequisite to making money and money is a pre-condition to owning land, the two became inexorably linked. In short, the introduction of money led to unlimited accumulation, scarcity and, ultimately, conflict. Although the sufficiency limitation remained intact, there was no longer “as much and as good” land for everyone and, as a result, a visible disparity between “owners” and the “wage makers” appeared and conflict between them arose. Locke commented on the problems inherent in accumulation of property in the state of nature;

Rousseau’s state of nature differs greatly from Locke’s. The human in Rousseau’s state of nature exists purely as an instinctual and solitary creature, not as a Lockean rational individual. Accordingly, Rousseau’s human has very few needs, and besides sex, is able to satisfy them all independently. This human does not contemplate appropriating property, and certainly does not deliberate rationally as to the best method for securing it. For Rousseau, this simplicity characterizes the human as perfectly free, and because it does not socialize with others, it does not have any notion of inequality; thus, all humans are perfectly equal in the state of nature. Nonetheless, Rousseau accounts for humanity’s contemporary condition in civil society speculating that a series of coincidences and discoveries, such as the development of the family and the advent of agriculture, gradually propelled the human away from a solitary, instinctual life towards a social and rationally contemplative

Political philosopher John Locke ideas and theories serve as a foundation in our democratic world. In the Second Treatise of Government sovereignty is placed in the hands of the people. Locke argues that everyone is born equal and has natural rights in the state of nature. He also argues that men have inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. The central argument around the creation of a civil society was with the protection of property. In this essay I will explain Locke's theory of property and how it is not anything other than a "thinly disguised defense of bourgeois commercial capitalism." This statement is defended through Locke's personal background and his justifications for the inequalities of wealth.

Rousseau and Marx both argue in their works that men seek to control property, as a way to control others. Rousseau argues in his work, discourse on the origin of inequality, that man is not equal due to the greed and selfishness of individuals who control the government. Charles Bertram argues that, “ Rousseau believes that a system of individual rights of private property and self-ownership that is accompanied by massive disparities of wealth and income inevitably leads to distortion and deformation of the will as the people seek to curry favour or seek advantage”, Bertram (2004) . Bertram points out Rousseau’s idea that the idea of owning property purely to survive off of does not work, as others seek to reap the wealth and rewards from the land, through tariffs or quotas etc. Today this is obvious in western society. Karl Marx believes that all property should be owned by the state, as he lists in the Communist Manifesto. According to Lowith (2003), he also believed working men become property themselves through the work they put in. This is common in England during the industrial revolution, as workers were easily replaced. Lowith (2003) also finds that Marx compared man in bourgeois society with the commodity as a product of simple labor. I support this statement strongly. In Mexico, due to

1. The quote was made by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) in his creation “On Social Contract (1762)” (Rousseau, Social Contract, 4). Rousseau’s discourse on private property can be understood as a response to John Locke’s theories regarding property – and especially to Locke’s labor theory and the government’s role in it (assumption based on the similarity of their discourse). According to Locke’s labor theory, a man’s labor defines his right to own something (Locke, Second Treatise Government, 16) and that one of the government’s top priorities is to guarantee inheritance of private property for those who have and own something (Locke, Second Treatise Government, 37). The theory also contains the aspect that one can own something if he improves it (Locke, Second Treatise Government, 15).