Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the son of a Genevan watchmaker who became one of the foremost French writers and political theorists of the Enlightenment penning such classics as The Social Contract and Emile. His Discourse on the Origin of Inequality was written some eight years earlier and takes as its theme the degradation of humanity through the corrupting influences of civilisation. Rousseau traces the origins of inequality and its increasing prominence over the historical period. His wide-rangi