Locke and Rousseau on Inequality: Nature vs. Civil Society

Introduction: Natural Freedom and the State of Nature

John Locke's Second Treatise of Government argues that "men are naturally free" (55). In other words, Locke believed that humans, in their natural state and prior to the creation of civil society, would have been a kind of sovereign entity, possessing a set of natural rights prescribed by God and nature. Those rights would have afforded individuals the opportunity to protect themselves against the transgressions of others. Societies, for their part, were set up in order to avoid civil, interpersonal, or foreign wars — wars that might have occurred over a dispute about property, for example. Locke believed that in the early stages of human evolution, humans would have lived with one another as co-owners of the earth and its resources, and given this type of communal existence, humans were all equal. In the natural world, a natural set of laws took precedence — a "law of the jungle," as it were — and individuals would have had the absolute right to protect themselves from those who might have wished to take liberties with their natural rights.

In comparison, Rousseau, in "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality" (hereafter "Discourse"), argued that modern systems of morality and law were at the heart of economic, social, and political inequality, whereas Locke saw such systems as the basis of civil society and as the protector of individual rights. In humanity's natural state, and prior to the imposition of moral laws forged through governmental bodies, Rousseau hypothesized that humans would have been motivated by certain instincts, such as pity and self-preservation. At this stage, humans would also have had only a few needs and no real understanding of the difference between good and evil — a difference only intelligible inside modern political or social orders. As humans came progressively into contact with one another, societies developed and humans began to adapt to new systems by developing new needs and qualities. One of the negative consequences of these evolving social and political orders was the impulse among people to compare themselves to one another, to envy others, and to attempt to gain power and economic control over others. Rousseau described this impulse in part as amour propre. While savages cared only about survival, modern man learned to care about what others thought of him; the modern individual became keenly aware of the difference between simply being in the moment and appearing to be a certain way in the eyes of others. For Rousseau, this was a harmful psychological condition linked to the evolution of human reason and political society.

Rousseau on Labor, Property, and the Origins of Inequality

In general, Rousseau believed that the creation of both labor and personal property marked the beginning of inequality among people, as well as the desire among humans to dominate or exploit one another. Rousseau argued that in a state of nature, humans had certain natural inequalities — for example, differences in strength, age, and sex — and those inequalities allowed some individuals to take more personal, self-serving liberties than others. In line with Locke's thinking, Rousseau asked, "for what can a man add but his labor to things which he has not made, in order to acquire a property in them?" (223). But Rousseau goes on to show that the man who had the most strength performed the most labor; the most dexterous turned his labor to best account; the most ingenious found methods of lessening his labor; the husbandman required more iron, or the smith more grain, and while both worked equally, one earned a great deal by his labor while the other could scarcely live by his. "Thus natural inequality unfolds itself..." (223).

For Rousseau, the beginnings of labor brought with them the beginnings of inequality and the destruction of natural liberties. Civil society "fixed for ever the laws of property and inequality...and for the benefit of a few ambitious individuals subjected the rest of mankind to perpetual labor, servitude, and misery" (228). In Rousseau's system, inequalities would never be remedied through social systems in the way they would be for Locke; such inequalities would only be compounded and would culminate in a kind of despotic rule where wealth would become the sole standard by which people are measured. Inequality, for Rousseau, is certainly natural when considering physical differences, but in societies, economic inequality is the inevitable result of an intellectual and social evolution that begins in nature and becomes progressively more corrupt and unjust as it evolves into organized society. In other terms, moral and economic inequalities are the result of an unnatural and unhealthy social contract between humans that leads to discrepancies in power, status, and wealth. What started as a wholly acceptable and natural inequality resulted in destructive moral and economic inequalities in society.

Works Cited

Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Ed. C. B. Macpherson. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. "Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind." In The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Ed. Lester G. Croker. New York: Washington Square, 1974. 149–258.