Rousseau: Second Discourse

This piece by Rousseau was originally written for an essay competition, the question for which was "What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by the natural law?"

As you probably remember, we had quite the debate about this piece during class at Shila's house. In this discourse, Rousseau gives the title of founder of society to the first person who claimed some property as their own. Rousseau says it was this person, who played on the gullibility of people, who first gave society some sort of structure.

Rousseau points out the basic needs of humans- food, sleep, sex, some sort of shelter; all of these needs are solely for self- preservation. He then begins to explain that the root of change was man fighting for self preservation, needing to feel superior in order to survive. Survival was different in different circumstances, and people who needed similar things began to group together, in which case a very skeletal language system would have been made. In groups, human progression increased rapidly: tools, villages, and languages were made. This knowledge allowed for the idea of property to further develop with homes and families. Sex roles developed as man struggled to become superior and continue to flourish.

With all of these changes, Rousseau states that emotions, specifically love and jealousy developed which lead to the creation of the idea of inequality.

One of the statements near the end of this discourse says something along the lines of, if every man were applying themselves to only one man tasks then all men would be free and healthy. He says that is is only the need of help from others that oppression developed.

When Rousseau is stating all of this, I think that he means it in a much larger scale. Obviously, now, society can not go back to its original ways as cavemen, but we can all learn to mind our own business. If people didn't mingle around and just worried about themselves then many oppression problems today would not exist (cough marriage equality and racism and religious oppression and sexism cough cough cough). This being said, if people only worried about themselves then there would not be any charity or anything to help those in need.
What would make for a better world? One where everyone is on their own but modern oppression wasn't as prominent, or a world where no one helped each other out? I know its not that simple, but if it was... would you rather...?