The upper class is opposed to the lower class, i.e., it is ‘closed’ to the outside world insofar as it ‘excludes or restricts admission or attaches conditions to it’. It denies the lower class access to the ‘monopolized opportunities’ granted to it by positive law, ‘opportunities for the satisfaction of internal or external interests’. When appropriated, these opportunities are called ‘rights’, and when appropriated hereditarily, they are called ‘property’. In other words, the concept of domination includes not only legal inequality, but also economic exploitation based on ‘monopolized’ property rights.
Tag: Oppression
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If one sees a handful of powerful and rich people at the pinnacle of opulence and fortune, while the crowd below grovels in obscurity and wretchedness, it is because the former valued the things they enjoy only because others are deprived of them and even without changing their condition, they would cease to rejoice if the people ceased to suffer.