In reading "Part tTwo" of Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality I was struck by how applicable his work is to contemporary American discourse on issues of politics and income inequality. In his American History (post 1865) course, Dr. Pete Kuryla does lots of work disassembling and inspecting the American Dream Myth. This refers to the idea that if a citizen works hard enough, he or she will be met with success in the land of the free, and if an individual fails, it is due to some lack of virtue or work ethic on his or her part. This is an argument that we hear often in our discourse as relates to women's rights, the rights of racial and ethnic minorities, incarcerated persons, those living in poverty, etc... As a society we reject the notions that larger systems are at play which keep those on top and at the bottom static, and we embrace Horatio Alger underdog stories in lieu of encountering reality. This idea makes it impossible to critique the "self-made" man (who is literally most often a man) and it encourages people who occupy oppressed statuses to play at a game which is rigged for their demise.
All that is to say I think that Rousseau cuts right at the joints of this discourse in his opening paragraph of "Part Two" and, most specifically, when he states "a rich man, pressed by necessity, finally conceived the most thought-out project that ever entered the human mind" (79). How is one to subvert the masses of common people and paupers as they "perish or suffer from need of what you have in excess" (78)? You make them believe that they don't deserve what you have in the first place. As Rousseau would put it, the humans on top can subvert those below by calling for a fight which "repulses common enemies, and maintains us in an eternal concord" (79). For lack of a better phrase, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
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