Neal Wood on Locke on Property
These selections are from Neal
Wood's 1984 John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism.
In them, he addresses some of the logic and implications of Locke's philosophy
of property and of the "state of nature". Notice the importance of increase
in "productivity", the constant concern of the "neoliberal" press of the
present day. Locke lives. I hope this selection from Wood's reading will
help you in making sense of Locke's own text, from which you've read only
a few pieces. See original
for notes and citations.
Locke was the first classic
political theorist to place such great emphasis on labor, making it the
cornerstone of his edifice of political ideas. Thus his thought must be
distinguished from the aristocratic predilections of predecessors like
Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Cicero; from the medieval outlook; and
from the views of previous early modern thinkers like Machiavelli, Bodin,
and Hobbes....
...One of Locke's dearest
beliefs was that without private property injustice could not exist. The
infringement of what rightfully belonged to an individual was a threat
because the object that was his was an extension of his moral being or
person through his labor. An individual's life as an animate being, a moral
person, characterized by labor, was his own property, held in trust from
God, and any attempt to damage or destroy without right what belonged to
God would be unjust. Self-preservation, by definition, entailing the perservation
of one's property as well as one's life, was a fundamental law of nature.
Therefore, one had the right to all things, within reason, for the maintenance
of himself and his possessions. These were his and his alone by the law
of nature.
Locke made two fundamental
points about the natural right of property in political society as distinguished
from the state of nature. First, private property was defined and regulated
by civil law. Man, of course, created political society to secure and protect
what was his own by the right of nature. Any violation of his natural right
to property contravened the law of nature and was morally illicit. Second,
the natural right to property in political society, however, was not an
absolute right, for it was subject to the common good, the preservation
of society being the first and fundamental law of nature, taking priority
over self-preservation. Normally, government should not concern itself
or interfere with men's souls and opinions; with their sinning in the sense
of being avaricious, uncharitable, or idle; or with their domestic affairs,
occupations, estates, and health. Nevertheless, the lives and properties
of men in political society were definitely subject to governmental control
for the public good, providing certain conditions were met....
In the state of nature, the
natural right to property was likewise conditional, at least initially,
in that it was subject to the moral limitations of the law of nature on
individual appropriation from the common storehouse of nature. The first
of these was the "labour limitation," that one was entitled to appropriate
only what he could acquire by his labor. Man's life, central to which was
his moral being or person, was God's property and could not be voluntarily
surrendered or sold, although one could forfeit his freedom, that is, be
legitimately enslaved as a result of participation in an unjust war. A
man could also indenture himself. If a man's life was not alienable, his
labor was. The master-servant relationship was as old as history, existing
in the state of nature. By means of a free contract an individual could
agree to labor for another in exchange for wages (money, produce, service).
Under the terms of such a labor agreement, whatever the servant in the
course of his contracted duties acquired through his labor became the property
of his master. While Locke originally states that labor was the foundation
of property, such labor need not be one's own. Instead, it could be that
of another who was employed for the purpose, thereby overcoming the labor
limitation on appropriation. The "sufficiency limitation" meant that in
the appropriation of the bounties of nature the individual was morally
obligated to leave what was as good as he himself had taken and sufficient
for the subsistence of others. This is no real problem in the first stages
of the state of nature where only a very small scattered population existed
in proportion to the abundance of nature. However, with the growth of population
and the concentration of human settlement, the sufficiency limitation could
be overcome because labor, industry, and improvement could so increase
the productivity of land as to multiply substantially the fruits of the
earth, thereby providing a plentiful supply for all. Money, furthermore,
and the enhanced possibility of wage labor resulting from the introduction
of money, which enabled people to live without land, were also of aid in
surmounting the sufficiency limitation. Finally, the "spoilage limitation"
of the law of nature restricted individual appropriation to what one could
use for his own preservation and prohibited the spoilage of any surplus.
This limitation was eventually transcended, first by barter and then by
the introduction of the convention of money prior to the creation of political
society.
The institution of money in
the state of nature (following compacts for barter) and tacit agreement
as to its value meant that it was possible for men to enlarge their possessions
and establish a natural right to them without violating the spoilage limitation.
Once this moral prohibition was legitimately overcome, men could accumulate
as much property as they desired, commensurate, of course, with the dictates
of reason and the common good, with the consequence of an increase in property
differentials. Money greatly accelerated the tendency (existing before
its introduction) for the industrious to acquire more than the less industrious....
The use of money accounted for the increase of people and "stock" in some
parts of the world and rendered land --unlike America with its vast empty
tracts-- scarce and valuable. Money also, or so Locke implied, facilitated
the use of the labor of others through the payment of wages. Another result
of money was the beginning in the state of nature of a division among mankind
between property-owning, economically independent heads of households and
those who must exchange their labor for wages in order to survive. All
of these tendencies in the state of nature developed hand in hand with
the impetus given by money to exchange and trade. In some parts of the
world, therefore, use production gradually gave way to production for exchange
and profit due to money. Initially the whole world was like America, a
world of use production without money and trade. Once money had been instituted
in certain regions, Locke suggested, men were able to enlarge their possessions
and trade with other regions, thereby hoping to draw in money through establishing
a favorable balance of trade. In turn, such commerce stimulated industry
and effort, increased productivity, enlarged the possessions of some, and
enabled the population and labor force to expand. Because of their tacit
agreement setting the value of money, men before the establishment of political
society consented to the existence of property differentials. Political
society was founded in order to secure and protect these differentials
arising in the state of nature because no one could be supposed to enter
political society with the intention of worsening his condition.
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