Page 128 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes Property
The theory of property was an important theme in Locke’s political philosophy. Like Grotius and
Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694), he pointed out that by human reason and by revelation it was
apparent that the earth and its fruits belonged to God, and that God had given them to the human
inhabitants in common to enjoy. He tried to answer Filmer’s critique of Grotius regarding how
individuals could have a private right to any part of a common heritage. He dismissed Filmer’s
argument that God had given the earth and its fruits “to Adam and his heirs exclusively. More
than this, he also argued that it was human labour which distinguished what was privately
owned from what was commonly held. Labour was the unquestioned property of the labourer,
and by mixing his labour with a piece of land, an individual acquired the right to whatever he had
made of that material. The stress was on what human beings made of the earth, how and what
they left for posterity. He insisted God had given human beings the earth to make it a better place,
full of conveniences of life by entrepreneurship, hard work and reason. It was for “fancy,
covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious”. Here also, Locke emphasized that human
beings were trustees, stewards who could appropriate and consume by being industrious and
creative without wasting, squandering, spoiling or destroying. The philosophy of Puritan ethics
pervaded the entire thought of Locke.
In the state of nature, individuals had initially a right to appropriation which was limited to three
things. An individual could appropriate only that much for which one had a need, and provided
enough and good was left for others. An individual had a right only to that much for which he had
mixed the labour of his body and the work of his hand. Labour not only created property but also
determined its value. It was labour that made the world different by creating conveniences and
increasing productivity. For instance, America, a land of plenty, did not have the conveniences
that the seventeenth-century England enjoyed. Locke assumed that scarcity was not a problem, for
there was enough for all to find satisfaction, thereby, setting aside the problem of limited means
and unlimited human desires.
Locke spoke of individuals in the state of nature having perfect freedom to dispose of their
possessions, and persons, as they thought fit. He emphatically clarified that since property was a
natural right derived from natural law, it was therefore prior to the government. He emphasized
that individuals had rights to do as they pleased within the bounds of the laws of nature. Rights
were limited to the extent that they did not harm themselves or others.
The limited right of appropriation and equality of possessions in the state of nature was distorted
with the introduction of money. This was because one could possess more regardless of the use of
the product, and hoard without injuring anyone. Money also divorced right from convenience.
Locke’s attitude to the emerging commercial society was ambivalent. He did not reconcile the
injunctions within natural law which emphasized equality of property with the inequality of
unlimited accumulation which was made possible because of the introduction of money.
Locke assumed the existence of a vibrant economy and civil society prior to the creation of any
government. This was to emphasize, which later became the cornerstone of the liberal argument,
that civil society was independent of political authority, that economic activity as opposed to politics
was more important and that there was a need to separate the private from the public sphere:
... Locke initiated a way of thinking in which society, rather than the political order,
was the predominant influence. Instead of asking the traditional question: what type
of political order is required if society is to be maintained? Locke turned the question
around to read, what social arrangements will insure the continuity of government?
Locke launched his attack against the traditional model of society, wherein ordered
social relationships and institutions were sustained by the direction imparted from a
political centre, by substituting a conception of society as a self-activating unity capable
of generating a common will.

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