Hello everyone, here is a small broadcast of reading, today we continue to share, the famous 18th century Enlightenment thinker, The philosophical thought of Rousseau. Today we continue to talk about the book "The Origin and Foundation of Human Inequality". In the previous issue, we talked about primitive people living in the jungle, they live by their natural nature, Rousseau painted us an ideal world without class, without good and evil, without inequality, and at ease. However, all this was shattered with the arrival of one thing. This is: private property. Rousseau believed that the idea of private property was the starting point of human inequality.
Rousseau said that who was the first to put up a sign on a piece of land and say, "This is mine", and the naïve and simple people around him actually believed his words, this person is the founder of civilized society, and this is the beginning of human inequality.
Rousseau believed that the development of human inequality went through three stages, the first stage was the emergence of private property, the emergence of inequality between the rich and the poor, the second stage was the establishment of institutions of power through contracts, the affirmation of the rule of the strong over the weak, the creation of inequality between the oppressor and the oppressed, and the third stage was the corruption of government power, into an authoritarian dictatorship, the emergence of inequality between masters and slaves. How has the road to human inequality evolved step by step, and today we will talk about it.
In the long evolutionary period, humans spent most of their time alone as nomadic, living without a place to live, hunting and eating on the same day, rarely helping others for the common good, and very little interaction between people. But as the number of humans slowly increased, there were some primitive people who came together, and at first they just had some simple conventions, such as division of labor and sharing. When hunting large prey, one person cannot complete it, they will do a good job of division of labor before, and once the predation is successful, they will share the food together. In addition, some primitive people after hunting a large animal, the part that cannot be eaten can be left to eat later, or share a part of the food with the same kind, at first these behaviors are accidental, but people gradually find the value of doing so, such as when they have no food, or when they are sick and injured, they can also get the food necessary for survival. Over time, people began to have some simple agreements and trust.
Primitive humans got the initial accumulation in this state of cooperation, after a period of time, human beings acquired such wisdom and knowledge as delayed gratification, cooperative division of labor, and soon after, humans did not inhabit caves or tree holes, they began to build villages, and used branches and sharp stones as tools, and at this time, human beings ushered in the first major change: the establishment of families. The establishment of the family has given mankind the idea of private property, and has begun to divide yours and mine, your family, our family, and they have begun to fight for protection and intake of more wealth and resources. Rousseau believed that the first family must have been established by the strong, because only the strong have the ability to protect the family. With the emergence of the concept of private property in human beings, the first stage of inequality began to emerge, beginning with the inequality of the strong over the weak, followed by the inequality of the possession of wealth by the strong and the inequality of the weak. As the British philosopher Locke said: Before private property existed, there would be no injustice in this world.
With the frequent interaction of human beings, people spend more and more time communicating and living together, people unconsciously have aesthetic concepts, and began to have a preference for the special opposite sex, of course, also brought the evil of human nature, such as jealousy, shame, anger, vanity and contempt and other emotions, such as the person you admire falls in love with others, will be because of love and hate, conflict will occur. The evil of human nature began to gradually enlarge, but Rousseau believed that because of the constraints of human nature's natural compassion, the evil of human nature did not deteriorate on a large scale, and primitive people rarely appeared to fight for eyes and for teeth.
Before the advent of money, land and livestock were the only ways to calculate wealth, and during this period, the status of human beings was determined by the wealth and social status under his control. And as the gap between the rich and the poor widens, the conflict between people becomes more and more intense, and the rich, in order to better protect their property from plunder, under their leadership, reach a contract with the poor, let the strong and the weak abide by it together, and assume corresponding obligations, under this contract, establish a higher authority, and make laws to protect everyone, society and the birth of the law, the rich gain new power, establish the inequality of the rich to the poor. Rousseau believed that when the protection of private property became an eternal and unchangeable system, the natural equality and freedom of mankind was permanently destroyed. Thus human inequality enters the second stage, which is to establish institutions of power through contracts, to confirm the domination of the strong over the weak, and to create inequality between the oppressor and the oppressed.
In the initial formation of society, when every official was democratically elected, wealth was not yet the main factor in their statistic class, and then over time, the evil of human nature rekindled the struggle between people, thus evolving into a struggle between parties and even bloody conflicts and wars, and in this process, power gradually began to concentrate on a small number of people. And those who work hard will let their own family members occupy an important position for a long time, and this system will gradually evolve into hereditary despotism, under which a country becomes the property of a family, and the inequality of society develops to the third stage, because of the corruption of government power, it becomes an authoritarian dictatorship, and there is inequality between masters and slaves.
Rousseau believed that the differences between people, although diverse, were mainly four categories: wealth, power, status, and talent. Inequality of status is the root cause of inequality in wealth, power, and talent, and all inequality is ultimately manifested as inequality of wealth.
How to solve these problems, Rousseau believed that the creation of an ideal republic is the fundamental solution to human inequality. This republic achieves a balance of wealth, power, status and talents in the closest way to nature, and exists in a way that is most beneficial to society and the people. In this republic, the land area does not need to be too large, people are very familiar with each other, there is a good social custom, any good deeds can be remembered, everyone in the country can rely on their own talents and strength, can do their own work, without the help of others, everyone can live in peace and harmony.
Rousseau said that the ideal society depicted is very similar to the ideal world of "small countries and widows" proposed by the ancient thinker Lao Tzu in China, and Lao Tzu said in the Tao Te Ching that the ideal country is like this, the land is very small, the people are not many, but they have sweet diets, beautiful clothes, comfortable residences, and happy customs. Because they are all small countries, the people of all countries can see each other, and the sound of chickens and dogs barking can also be heard, but everyone lives in peace and stability, does not communicate with each other too much, and coexists peacefully and harmoniously with each other. In short, Lao Tzu's ideal world of "small countries and widows" is very similar to the "ideal republic" proposed by Rousseau. But can such an ideal world solve real problems? How did Rousseau systematically expound his political philosophy? Let's talk about it in the next article.
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