If the summary below and posted earlier is accurate, then Rousseau does have a bourgeois anthropological concept , as Caudwell claims. The earliest humans are characterized by the opposite of isolation. They are characterized by increased sociality, elaborate kinship systems, based on tracing relationships with living other humans through the relationships to dead ancestors. They are not differentiated from apes by individual free will, but rather greater freedom for individuals because of their elaborate kinship and culture.
It was not population growth the forced greater association, but rather greater association with each other ( kinship and culture) that allowed adaptive success , and thereby population growth. Charles ^^^^^^ His subsequent Discourse on Inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Inequality> , tracked the progress and degeneration of mankind from a primitive state of nature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature> to modern society. He suggested that the earliest human beings were isolated semi-apes who were differentiated from animals by their capacity for free will and their perfectibility. He also argued that these primitive humans were possessed of a basic drive to care for themselves and a natural disposition to compassion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion> or pity. As humans were forced to associate together more closely, by the pressure of population growth, they underwent a psychological transformation and came to value the good opinion of others as an essential component of their own well being. Rousseau associated this new self-awareness with a golden age of human flourishing. However, the development of agriculture and metallurgy, private property and the division of labour <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour> led to increased interdependence and inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality> . _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
