Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Study Guide

Rousseau’s mother died shortly after his birth, and his father raised him until he fled Geneva to avoid imprisonment when Rousseau was 10 years old. Rousseau was left in the care of relatives and later apprenticed to an engraver, a period he described as miserable and oppressive. At 16, Rousseau ran away from Geneva and began a life of wandering. He found refuge with Françoise-Louise de Warens, a Catholic noblewoman who became his mentor and lover. Under her influence, Rousseau converted to Catholicism, though he later returned to Protestantism. Rousseau eventually moved to Paris, where he became involved with the intellectual circles of the Enlightenment, meeting figures like Denis Diderot and contributing articles on music to Diderot’s Encyclopédie. Rousseau’s fame began with his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), in which he argued that civilization corrupts human morality. This work won an essay contest and established Rousseau as a major thinker. Rousseau followed this success with Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755), where he elaborated on his belief that modern society, particularly private property, led to social and moral decay. In 1762, he published two of his most influential works: The Social Contract and Émile, or On Education. The Social Contract presented his vision of a political system based on collective sovereignty, while Émile proposed a radical new approach to education that emphasized natural development. These works were condemned by authorities, and Rousseau was forced to flee France. His later years were marked by paranoia and estrangement from many of his former friends, including Diderot. While in exile, Rousseau wrote his autobiographical work, Confessions, which offers a candid and often controversial account of his life. Rousseau died on July 2, 1778, in Ermenonville, France, leaving behind a legacy that helped shape modern philosophy, politics, and education.

Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality was written during the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that dominated 18th-century Europe. This period emphasized reason, science, and individual rights, challenging traditional authority and religious dogma. Thinkers like Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Diderot questioned the legitimacy of monarchy, the role of the Church, and the social inequalities that marked European societies. Rousseau’s critique of private property and inequality aligned with and, in many ways, countered the Enlightenment’s optimism about progress, focusing instead on the moral costs of civilization and modernity. The work also reflects growing tensions in pre-revolutionary France, where economic disparities and political oppression created a fertile ground for revolutionary ideas. Rousseau’s arguments about the corrupting influence of private property and the origins of inequality anticipated the ideological underpinnings of the French Revolution (1789–1799). Revolutionary leaders, including Robespierre and the Jacobins, drew heavily on Rousseau’s ideas, particularly his vision of collective sovereignty and the critique of aristocratic privilege. Additionally, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality can be viewed against the backdrop of colonial expansion and the transatlantic slave trade. During this time, European powers justified colonization and slavery by portraying indigenous peoples through the racist stereotype of “savages” in need of civilization. Rousseau challenged these notions, presenting an alternative vision of the “noble savage” who lived in harmony with nature before the corrupting influence of European civilization.

Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality engages with and critiques the ideas of earlier and contemporary philosophers, particularly those who wrote about the state of nature and the foundations of society. Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) famously argued that life in the state of nature was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” and advocated for strong central authority to maintain order. In contrast, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689) depicted a more cooperative state of nature where individuals formed societies to protect property and liberty. Rousseau diverged from both, idealizing the state of nature as a period of equality and harmony and critiquing society as the source of inequality and corruption. Rousseau’s work also prefigures Karl Marx’s critique of private property and class struggle in The Communist Manifesto (1848). Like Marx, Rousseau saw private property as a root cause of social inequality and alienation, although Marx focused on the dynamics of capitalism rather than the philosophical origins of inequality. In literary terms, Rousseau’s ideas about the “noble savage” influenced Romantic writers like William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, whose works often emphasized individual freedom and the corrupting influence of society. For instance, Wordsworth’s poetry, particularly in Lyrical Ballads (1798), reflects a Romantic return to nature and simplicity, themes inspired by Rousseau.