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Western Political Thought

Notes total order could provide for commodious living. It did not seem credible that people who did not
trust one another would entrust an all-powerful sovereign to safeguard their interests. He found
it objectionable that there were no safety measures against potential violence and oppression of
this absolute ruler. “This is to think that Men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what
Mischiefs may be done them by Pole-cats, or Foxes, but are content, nay think it Safety, to be
devoured by Lions”.
Through a contract, individuals consented to submit to majority rule and organize themselves as
a community or civil society. They surrendered their powers partially, namely the three specific
rights that constituted the natural right to enforce the laws of nature. Once a civil society was
established, the individuals established a government to act as a judge in the nature of a “fiduciary
power” for promoting certain ends. Locke described the stages as follows:
Whosoever therefore out of a state of Nature unite into a Community must be
understood to give up all the power necessary to the ends for which they unite into
Society ... . And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one Political Society,
which is all the Compact that is, or needs be, between the Individuals that enter into
or make up a commonwealth. And thus that which begins and actually constitutes any
Political Society is nothing but the consent of any number of Freemen capable of a
majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only,
which did or could give beginning to any lawful Government in the world.
The community’s decisions were by majority rule, unless they specifically agreed to a number
greater than the majority, which Locke realized would be more difficult to muster. Though the
community appointed a legislative power, it continued to retain supreme power, meaning that the
people had the right to assess and evaluate the performance of the legislature. The legislature was
the supreme power with a sacred duty to preserve the society. If people found the performance
unsatisfactory, they could take steps to change or alter the existing body. “The Legislative being
only a Fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the People a Supreme Power
to remove or alter the Legislative, when they find the Legislative act contrary to the trust reposed
in them”.
Within the government, the legislative power was supreme since it was the representative of the
people, having the power to make laws. Besides the legislature there was an executive, usually
one person, with the power to enforce the law. The executive, which included the judicial power,
had to be always in session. It enjoyed prerogatives and was subordinate and accountable to the
legislature. The legislative and executive power had to be separate, thus pre-empting Montesquieu’s
theory of separation of powers. The third wing of the government was the federative power, the
power to make treatises and conduct external relations. With Locke came the eclipse of the political
and the identification of the political in a narrow sense with the government. Society became
distinct from political arrangements and came to symbolize the whole gamut of human activities.
This Lockean position is visible in the writings of the classical economists, the French Liberals and
the English Utilitarians.
Locke thus advocated a limited sovereign state, for reason and experience established political
absolutism as untenable. Describing the characteristics of a good state, Locke said it existed for the
people who formed it, and not the vice versa. It had to be based on the consent of the people
subject to the constitution and the rule of law. It would be limited, since its powers were derived
from the people and were held in trust. It was also limited by natural laws and individual rights.
Locke argued that the state dealt with matters strictly political in nature, and had no warrant to
interfere in domains strictly outside the political. Nor could it demand more powers on the pretext
of public safety and welfare. Locke categorically asserted that supreme power resided in the
people, and the people as a community had the inalienable right to institute and dismiss a
government. If a government was dismissed, this did not signify a return to the state of nature, as

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