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Impact Of Rousseau's Discourse On The Origin Of Inequality

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Impact Of Rousseau's Discourse On The Origin Of Inequality
The establishment of a civil society in a political contract also does not protect an individual from domination, but instead lead to social inequality. Locke claimed “The only way whereby anyone divests himself of his natural liberty, and put on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it” (Locke 52) Locke claimed a person can be protected from domination when they consensually give up their perfect freedom and the right to judge and execute the laws of nature in order to form a civil society. The loss of some of their rights will be compensated by the benefits …show more content…
He wrote “From the cultivation of land, there is necessarily followed the division of land; and from property once recognized, the first rules of justice” (Rousseau 52) and that inequality “derives its force and growth from the development of our faculties and the progress of the human mind, and eventually becomes stable and legitimate through the establishment of property and laws” (Rousseau 70). Rousseau believed that it is the establishment of a civil society that produced moral inequality, where there are differences in wealth, power, status or class. While the creation and the implementation of law is meant to secure the rights of the people and protect them from political domination, it can be exploited entirely and resulted in the subjugation of the people who are not in power. This is apparent in the current judicial system of the United States, where African Americans and Latinos are unjustly targeted and incarcerated just for belonging to certain demographics that is stereotyped as violent, criminal and

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