For the working poor, however, Locke had great respect, and he believed it was the government’s repsonsibility to create a climate wherein workers had every opportunity to improve their income. In the first stage before the introduction of money, he notes the potential limitations to the ownership of property remarked on earlier, the spoilage limitation (“as much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils; so much he may by his labor fix a property in”), the sufficiency limitation (“For labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.”), and he tentatively adds a third, the labor limitation (“Whatsoever he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, he hath mixed his labour with, and rained to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property”). He claims that Locke was a mercantilist who believed the sole purpose of investment is to “beget further investment,” and that the primary function of money is to serve as capital. One further note on the idea of labor, as put forth by scholar David Russell: labor can be defined as an activity with the goal to turn some material that could meet our needs into something that actually does. On Macpherson’s interpretation, Locke is thoughtto have set three restrictions o… Was it peaceful or chaotic, poverty stricken or comfortable? This analysis fails as a reading of Locke primarily because it takes a very narrow view of the meaning of property as every other Locke scholar has commented. He shows that Locke makes the assumption that the standard of living of everyone will increase regardless of who owns the property (“a king of a large and fruitful territory there [in America] feeds, lodges and is clad worse than a day laborer in England”), yet MacPherson still believes that Locke assumed landowners would gain at the expense of the landless masses who will be forced to alienate their labor in return for a subsistence income. Seliger is unique among Locke scholars in that he sees no problem with Locke’s assumption that men would want to enlarge their possessions. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Ho at His theory of government, as laid out in his 1690 Second Treatise , is equally important. However, by far the most complete and convincing refutation of the whole Strauss‐Cox‐MacPherson reading of Locke as Hobbesian and Marx‐style capitalist is presented by Martin Seliger in the context of his investigation of The Liberal Politics of John Locke (1969). All Locke scholars have remarked on Locke’s extreme caution with regard to political matters. Why would Locke assume that mixing what one owns with what owns result in his gaining of what he did not own? Unfortunately, the invention of money made this impossible. Further MacPherson sees Locke’s justification of unequal ownership leading to the reprehensible conclusion that only property owners were full members of society, while the propertyless had fewer rights and an inherent incapacity to make the judgments and acquire the information necessary to function fully in political society. Despite the familiarity which even casual students of the history of political theory have with this much discussed and quoted work, there is little about it that has not aroused controversy among Locke scholars. While Locke argues that men have a right to create and enjoy their property, he also argues that there are limits to that right in the state of nature. He correctly points out that the spoilage limit was the most important (and confining) in Locke’s system. In fact, we can take this one step farther. The Question and Answer section for Second Treatise of Government is a great There were still open tracts of land where communities had not formed, but this was impossible in communities that adopted the idea of money (e.g., gold, silver, and diamonds). His father, also named John, was a legal clerk and served with the Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War. It certainly is stretching the passage beyond the breaking point to argue that it shows Locke’s concern for preventing too great a concentration of capital for the sake of the public interest. He says, “Labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough and as good left in common for others.” The implication is that one’s right to property is only clear and exclusive so long as it doesn’t jeopardize anyone else’s ability to create equivalent kinds of property for himself. In 1962, MacPherson published one of the most original and provocative studies of Locke’s political philosophy. In fact, we have already seen that population growth is as much responsible for the end of sufficiency in land as money, but certainly the introduction of money is a contributing factor. It is unquestionable that Locke believed property ownership would always benefit society as a whole, but the justification was not one of expediency. It describes how autonomous individuals with the desire for ease, comfort, and enjoyment operate within the constraints set by nature to overcome the limitations of the economic environment. The physical labor one exerts in appropriating and harvesting nature’s bounty, in Locke’s view, gives one the right of ownership of whatever they harvest from nature. Because of' the limited nature 01' this paper, on11 a brier discusslon 01' Locke'. Locke built on this concept of self‐ownership when he used it to explain how one derives a right to possess objects outside of one’s self, his famous (or infamous) labor theory of property: … everyman has a property in his own Person. Locke argued that private property was not only moral, but useful, because “’tis labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing; and let any one consider, what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco, or sugar, sown with wheat or barley; and an acre of the same land lying in common, without husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value.” The implication is that unassisted nature really provides very little that is useful to mankind. If the state of nature is really as mean and miserable as Cox believes, any government is better than no government, even for a short period of time, and Locke clearly did not believe that to be the case. Locke's theory still holds great appeal for those who puzzle over the mysteries of personal identity. Once men form states, the government is expected to rule in the public good and not for its own good, and one of the ways it fulfills this charge is by regulating property so as to make it secure. What is the basis of this right? But to the bourgeois observer this appeared to be a difference in men’s ability to order their lives by moral rules as such.” Hence Locke was forced to conclude that even in the state of nature, some men were moral and rational and created property, and others were immoral and irrational and made the enjoyment of property “unsafe and insecure.” Hence, according to MacPherson, differences in property, not only reflected differences in ability, but also differences in morality and in rationality. This is a particularly important problem since Locke explicitly stated that labor gives title to property in the state of nature, but “in governments the laws regulate the right of property.” Obviously, Locke means by this that ownership rights are subject to the protection of the laws of civil society, but Seliger also takes Locke to mean by the regulation of property, regulation of economic activity per se. Money, however, placed value in a piece of gold or silver that did not rot. He was understood as a constitutionalist liberal who provided a mediocre defense of private property. Claiming that a piece of gold had intrinsic value and could buy food or people or land meant that men desired more. It is generally taken to refer to the lustful greed of selfish men and used to argue Locke’s aversion to acquisitive behavior. Thus, although nature puts both a moral and an effective limit on the amount of property anyone can accumulate, the amount he can use without allowing anything to spoil, the limit is not defined by the amount of anything a person owns, but by the consequences of ownership. There may still be an argument to be made for Locke as a majority rule democrat within government where governments regulate the right to property, but the case cannot be supported with Locke’s theory of property in the state of nature. the aspect of Locke that gave Kendall cause for complaint. In his attempt to counter MacPherson’s characterization of Locke as a partisan of an evil, unlimited, oppressive capitalism, Seliger has taken the tack of showing how Locke really believed in a limited, restrained form of welfare statism. Locke’s Treatises, like his economics contain both normative and descriptive passages. Even more importantly, where political writings were concerned, controversial doctrines were frequently held to be seditious doctrines and could lead the author straight to the gallows. Strauss’s interpretation would not even be mentioned here did it not raise some interesting questions for Locke scholarship addressed by later writers. 7) It has been suggested too that this is a factor which distinguishes Locke’s view from the (p.142) superficially similar account of property … His labor subsequently is at his employer’s direction and is a result of his employer’s initiative, and the property which emerges from their productive efforts belong to the employer. The difference was in fact a difference in their ability or willingness to order their own lives according to the bourgeois moral code. The use of this body is called labor and its product is called property. His reading exactly captures the essence of Locke’s understanding of the relationship between freedom and law, and it brings Locke once again into the tradition of placing constitutional limits on the ability of governments to control the property of its citizens. Law, according to Seliger’s Locke, is a formalization of the public will, which itself is a resolution of the conflict among private wills. In a state of nature, men did not fall prey to excess because they were only entitled to what their labor yielded. Locke uses other examples to reinforce this point- an Indian who kills a deer is entitled to that deer, a man who catches a fish is entitled to that fish, and a hunter who chases and captures a hare is entitled to that hare. Get Help With Your Essay predeoeasors in the tield 01' property theory is included in this work.2 Similarl, only those implioations which immediatel, 1'01-low trom the logic ot Looke's own theoP,y are considered. As much property “as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils; so much he may by his labour fix a property in. Seliger’s attempt to show the moral supremacy of the political over the economic sphere misses the point of Locke’s writing. In fact, all the evidence presented so far in this essay supports exactly the opposite view. The social benefits Locke describes are dividends of property ownership which he points out to quiet any grumblings from the “quarrelsome and contentious” who might be apt to challenge the natural right to property. The outline of Locke’s theory of property in the Second Treatise is well‐known. Locke does not give a specific reason why a freeman would want to sell his labor to someone else when he could work for himself and acquire his own property. The goal of accumulation, according to MacPherson, is wealth and power, and hence Locke “justified the specifically capitalist appropriation of land and money” as a natural right in the state of nature. Strauss’s reading of Locke as a Hobbesian individualist is impressionistic at best. Obviously, a servant (or wage‐earner) chooses to give up his right to the property he creates in return for a guaranteed wage. MacPherson correctly points out that Locke took the existence of wage labor for granted even in the state of nature and hence never meant to describe strict labor limitation to property ownership. Osborne, Kristen. However, when the reference is taken in context, it clearly refers to the greed not of productive property owners, but to the greed of princes who lust after the wealth of their subjects and who need to be restrained by the wary public. The fruits of the Earth, including animals, land, and vegetation, are to be enjoyed by all men because, as Locke points out in Chapter II, no one man is born with dominion over another. To claim that Locke believed in accumulation for its own sake is bad enough, but to further make him guilty of believing that money alone constituted wealth is to attribute to him an absurdity unfound in the history of economic thought. In an age accustomed to claims of absolute monarchs, this contractual theory of government was a revolutionary statement. Seliger supports his contention by showing that Locke always describes freedom as bounded by law, either natural law in the state of nature, or conventional law within civil society. The labor theory of property is a theory of natural law that holds that property originally comes about by the exertion of labor upon natural resources. In other words, the two dominant property rights theories were both incompatible with what Locke believes was individuals’ natural right of self-preservation—our ownership of ourselves. It may even be true that he thought the laboring poor to be on the whole less intelligent and less industrious than those who are well off, although there is no direct evidence for this. MacPherson argued persuasively not only that Locke’s political philosophy reflected the “spirit of capitalism” as had Strauss, but he claimed even more strongly that Locke consciously designed his theory of property to provide a rationale for the developing capitalist society of seventeenth century England. Willmoore Kendall’s study, John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule (1941) was intended to illuminate the general problem of the status of the principle of majority rule in societies. Where this is no longer the case, perfectly honorable men could be unable to settle disputes about property ownership when each is judge in his own case. Once men assigned value to some agreed-upon method of currency, larger possessions became de rigueur. This is the overriding message of the Two Treatises of Government and the relationship between government and the citizen’s property rights. Simple day laborers may be poorer than other groups in society, but they are better off than they would be without a “capitalist” economy, and they have the possibility through diligence, to pull away from the pack and make their way in the world, an alternative they would not have under a more feudalistic social structure. The most important source for understanding Locke’s justification of private property is the celebrated chapter “Of Property,” which comprises Chapter V of The Second Treatise of Government. The works of Willmoore Kendall, Leo Strauss, and C.B. He saw Locke as one of the first apologists for capitalist appropriation and an advocate of the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.”. Locke the economist would have recognized the absurdity of much of the bureaucratic maze that controls current economic life, and would have railed against the foolish and inefficient forms of economic regulation to which the individuals within the modern welfare state are subject. The Lockean proviso is a feature of John Locke 's labour theory of property which states that whilst individuals have a right to homestead private property from nature by working on it, they can do so only "at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others". He was only to look that he used them before they spoiled; else he took more than his share, and robbed others.… If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not uselessly in his possession, these he also made use of. The same can be said about his views on religion which were suspected of being heterodox in the extreme. Yet Seliger claims that Locke favored “not only legislation that removes encumbrances to all private initiative but… also [favored] limiting some for the benefit of others.” His only example of a direct control favored by Locke is the statement that it may be necessary to set legal rates of interest when “a kind of monopoly, by consent, has put this general commodity [money] into a few hands.”Here, Locke was conjecturing that previous legal interest rates had been set below market and had fostered a monopoly of loanable funds among London bankers which he then thought might justify setting a legal rate of interest below the monopoly rate. Read More. Seliger supports his view by once again going back to property in the state of nature. Evidence of the inferior status of the landless MacPherson finds in Locke’s discussion of wage labor. s theory 01' property. Locke nevertheless continued vehemently to deny his authorship of theTreatises until he was on his death bed and had nothing further to lose by disclosure. He did not relish open debate, and neither would he have been willing to lose his political influence as a result of being embroiled in too much public controversy. MacPherson goes on to discuss the sufficiency limit and again points out that it is overcome by the introduction of money into the state of nature. His family was well-to-do, but not of particularly high social or economic standing. the commercial property belonging to the important merchant class) clearly Locke was not describing the principles of government which protect the few at the expense of the many. IV. It is true that Locke believed workers would generally live at subsistence, that they would be poorer than merchants, farmers and landowners. He pleaded for a constitutionally limited government. The fact that there are limits to the right to property does not make it less individualistic, however. Heralding the new interest in Locke were three studies that challenged Locke’s credentials as a classical liberal and all based their challenge on a reading of Locke’s theory of property. Chapter VI: Of Paternal Power Summary and Analysis, Chapter IV: Of Slavery Summary and Analysis. Initially this was not problematic because there was plenty of land for everyone. Locke did favor capital accumulation as a means of increasing wealth, and he did have a definite preference for an increasing money supply because he though it would be an aid to capital accumulation and increased wealth, but he never confused one with another in any meaningful sense. Seliger takes for granted that the advantage of the public will necessitate such measures. Locke disagrees and writes that he will spend the rest of this chapter demonstrating how God provided for mankind in common to have property, even if they do not form a compact. In this state of nature, according to Locke, men were born free and equal: free to do what they wished without being required to seek permission from any other man, and equal in the sense of there being no natural political authority of one man over another. It is true that Locke never specifically described the upward mobile process, yet his economics is full of examples of changing fortunes. John Locke’s major political analysis, The Two Treatises of Government (1690), has long been hailed as a seminal work in the history of political liberalism. MacPherson also correctly discerns that the introduction of money transforms the character of the limits to property ownership. Property, its origin and protection, are also central to England's colonial settlements in America and, by extension, to the Earl of Shaftesbury's Carolina. John Locke is the philosopher of the issue on natural rights.In the Treatise on Government, Locke wonders what is the role of government. Human beings were commanded to labor; this is the condition of life. In what follows, I will argue that considering Locke’s ideas on both property and government leads to conclusions that justify even … The creation of property and its preservation constitute the foundation of the state of nature and civil society, respectively. From passages such as these, Kendall concludes that Locke means to justify property ownership by the social benefits it confers, that the expediency arguments take precedence over the natural right arguments for property. Property is the linchpin of Locke╆s argument for the social contract and civil government because it is the protection of their property, including their property in their own bodies, that Men agree to form a compact and invest power in an... Second Treatise of Government study guide contains a biography of John Locke, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. When government tramples on the rights of individuals, especially when it confiscates the property it was organized to protect, men might very well reason that they would be better off with another government. First, that “reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it,” and second, that it teaches primarily that “being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life liberty or possessions.” Hence, right from the beginning of the essay, Locke places the right to possessions on the same level as the right to life, health, and liberty. It was a definition of personality—that which constituted the individual, and it included one’s body, actions, thoughts, and beliefs. After having established an individual’s right to own property in the state of nature, Locke goes on to define the right to property broadly enough to include both “the fruits of the earth and the earth itself,” both the goods one creates and the land one cultivates. MacPherson, however, accuses Locke not only of believing in a totally nonsensical view of accumulation, he also claims that Locke believed this to be the only true form of rationality. Locke’s(accounthas(sometimes(figured(into(contemporary(political(theory(as(a(basis(for(libertarianism.(However,(establishing(a(basis(for(control(rights(over(thingsisdifferent(thanestablishingthestrengthofthoserights. Locke believed that not all men are equally capable, so he might have believed also that a less capable man would prefer working for another rather than taking the risk of having to live on what he could make for himself. Cox, as does Strauss implicitly, raises an interesting question. Furthermore, the growing accumulation of physical property and land puts pressure on natural resources and makes it increasingly less likely that any individual could find “enough and as good” land left over after appropriation by others. If we have the inalienable right to pursue our own happiness, … However, the cost to mankind of the use of money is the increasing dissension brought about by increasing resource scarcity and greater inequality of income. He points out that the Bible says God gave man the Earth to enjoy, and that when man first walked upon it he was so scarce and nature so vast, that there was never any problem with rapaciousness or conflict. Virtually no Locke scholar believes that Locke thought individuals could persist in the state of nature for very long. This was the sad fate of Algernon Sidney, another writer of controversial political doctrine resembling Locke’s. "Second Treatise of Government Chapter V: Of Property Summary and Analysis". He sees the importance of the original contract to involve the limitations on the arbitrary exercise of government power, but he does not stress, as Locke did, the limitations on the moral authority of government over at least one large area of social life: property creation and enjoyment. It contains the same theme of personal liberty found throughout the Second Treatise. Furthermore, perhaps to justify this strange doctrine to his readers, that “the property of labour should be able to over‐balance the community of land,” Locke goes on to claim that the right to private property worked to the advantage of the population as a whole. MacPherson all argued that Locke was not at all what he was supposed to be, and they thereby opened up a new investigation of the meaning and importance of Locke’s theory of property in his political thought. No one can write about Locke after MacPherson without carefully considering his position. One interpretation, advanced byC.B. He used the example of mixing tomato juice that he owned with the ocean- does he now own the ocean? History reveals that men were initially content to use of nature only what they needed. The first is the natural rights argument where self‐ownership implies ownership of those goods created by men through labor. Locke begins his discussion of property by alluding to Filmer’s theory of patriarchalism, which suggested that only an absolute monarch descended from Adam would have any right to property because God gave Adam dominion over all the land. Although the nature of its influence on subsequent ideas is debated among scholars, few question its powerful influence on French, American, and, to a lesser extent, Spanish revolutionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The question of how much of Locke to take seriously in assessing his theory of property arises again in the work of C.B. Men’s voluntary consent to this system began the inequality of private possessions and the right of the government to regulate the right of property. This no body has any right to but himself. While men knew it was unwise to hoard things like fruit and nuts, which would rot and expire, it was definitely possible to hoard money because it would not spoil. What were the characteristics of the state of nature where men were presumed to live without government? because this labor of gathering is what legitimates their possession. All the rhetoric in MacPherson’s examination of Locke’s theory of property aside, he shows a fine understanding of the mechanics of Locke’s system. And if he also bartered away plumbs that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury, he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselessly in his hands. All full members of society would thus agree on the content of individual rights, the foremost of which would be the right to property. Cox’s substantive evidence for the Hobbesian nature of Locke’s thought depends upon a careful attempt to sort out the inconsistencies in the Two Treatises in order to break Locke’s code. t . There are several grave errors in MacPherson’s interpretation. This labor thus gives men private possessions. Locke’s individualist, private property stance was not always admired or believed to be without flaw, but criticism was leveled within the context of Locke’s claim to a place as a liberal philosopher. Each person has been given a body, with certain abilities and potentials, to use by God. By reading Locke this way, of course, Strauss ignores or discounts all those passages which drove Kendall to see Locke as a collectivist in individualist clothing.
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