Page 112 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Sukanya Das, Lovely Professional University
Western Political Thought Amandeep Singh, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 7: John Locke

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
7.1 Life Sketch
7.2 Locke and the Glorious Revolution
7.3 Locke’s Political Theory
7.4 Summary
7.5 Key-Words
7.6 Review Questions
7.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Discuss the limitations of ownership of property.
• Explain ideas on consent, resistance and toleration.
• Understand the views on sovereignty.
• Evaluate Locke’s social contract theory.

Introduction

Liberalism as a political creed began with John Locke (1632-1704). This was a unique achievement,
as there were no liberals before Locke, though there were many socialists before Marx. The origins
and detailed delineation of the liberal order, both in the political and societal dimensions, was the
singular achievement of Locke. The breadth of vision that Locke espoused by offering a theory
which combined constitutionalism, stability, freedom, consent, property and tolerance has played
a crucial and pivotal role in an orderly development of Western democracies. The seminal
importance of Locke in the evolution of political institutions and theory is accepted by all
commentators, but there are wide areas of disagreement about their meaning and implications.
Locke has been interpreted very differently by Laslett (1960), Macpherson (1973) and Ashcraft
(1980, 1986 and 1987). Laslett convincingly demonstrated that Locke was neither a spokesman of
Whig orthodoxy nor a defender of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Macpherson (1973), in contrast,
analyzed Locke as an apologist and a theorist of bourgeois society. Ashcraft drew attention to
Locke’s radicalism by his active involvement in the revolutionary process. Ashcraft interprets
Locke as revolutionary and that has created problems for both the left and right. All along, the left
and the Marxists interpreted Locke as an apologist of bourgeois society. The right found it equally
discomfiting to accept that the Glorious Revolution had a revolutionary side to it. All along, they
projected it as a symbol of the incremental and evolutionary process of change.
Locke’s concepts of constitutionalism, toleration, natural rights, limited consensual and law-based
authority; pluralism and property had a significant impact beyond the English settlement of 1688
in establishing and nurturing a liberal society in England, and in inspiring similar traditions in
America, France and Holland. The American and the French Revolutions and the constitutional
edifice in the United States were Lockeian in spirit and letter. Locke’s ideas, especially his doctrine

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