A Discourse on Inequality

by Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (Author); Cranston, Maurice (Translator); Cranston, Maurice (Introduction by)

• ISBN13: 9780140444391
• ISBN10: 0140444394
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1985-02-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

'How can we know the source of inequality among men if we do not first have knowledge of men themselves?' In A Discourse on Inequality Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man's natural happiness and freedom by creating artificial inequalities of wealth, power and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to his fellows, Rousseau believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members of the community gain an unnatural advantage over their weaker brethren, and that constitutions set up to rectify these imbalances through peace and justice only perpetuate them. Rousseau's Discourse was a hugely influential denunciation of the social conditions of his time and one of the most revolutionary documents of the eighteenth-century.

Table of Contents

Foreword	7	(2)
Introduction	9	(46)
Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men	55	(84)
Rousseau's Notes	139	(34)
Abbreviations used in Editor's Introduction and Notes	173	(2)
Editor's Notes	175