Status Updates From Rousseau's Critique of Ineq...

"From the cultivation of land, its division necessarily; and from property, once recognized, the first rules of justice necessarily followed."

"all our labors are directed at only two objects: the comforts of life for oneself and consideration among others"

Rousseau's view implies that philosophy, broadly constructed, has an important role to play in progressive social change.

Asymmetric power relations between men and women seldom depend entirely on men's having superior power at their disposal; they depend also on the belief of those who pariticipate in those relations, including many women, that patriarchal rule is natural or appropriate.

Adam Smith's claim that "commercial society" (capitalism) is natural is logically inseparable from his judgment that is a fitting economic system for humans, given their nature.

in 2007 one-third of the US's wealth was owned by just 1 percent of the country's population; in the period between 2002 and 2007 more than 65 percent of the gain in total national income went to those who were already in the wealthiest 1 percent; and in 2010 the average CEO earned 243 times as much as the typical wage earner!