Locke
asserts that all men are born a set of natural rights. Locke also argues
that property can be legitimate and individually owned despite God giving the
earth to all men in common because of the effect of man’s labor in producing
goods or creating a better environment for himself. He argues that all men are
born with the ownership of their own person and ownership of the fruits of
their labor, as through our labor we invest a part of our person into our work
and as a result this becomes our property. Locke justifies private property through
arguing that what man “removes out of the state that Nature hath provided
and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined to it something
that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed
from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labor something
annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this ‘labor
being the unquestionable property of the laborer, 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.’
Locke’s
justification of private property within a world given in common to all
humanity rests on his argument that man through his labor excludes the natural
rights of all other men over that which he has labored. Some individuals
are physically or mentally capable of performing more, and therefore have the
right to more than others. Locke does, however, puts limits on the amount of
property a man may appropriate arguing that a man has a right to as much as he
needs but should not appropriate so much that it would spoil, stating that man
has a right to "as much as any one can make use of to any advantage of
life before it spoils, so much he may by his labor fix a property in. Whatever
is beyond this is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made
by God for man to spoil or destroy."
Other
philosophers, like Machiavelli, argue that it is human nature to want to acquire
to want to acquire and control as much land as possible. Is it feasible to
simultaneously argue for both the innate potential to harvest a certain amount
of property and limit the amount of property someone can have to its effective
use?
Locke's constraint on how much property one should acquire, as you said, is very ambiguous. At what point is one taking away too much from society? The lack of a sound answer to this question indicates the problem with utilitarianism. The whole idea behind utilitarianism is that we ought to maximize the pleasure-pain. However, it is very hard to perform this calculation. In what units can pleasure and pain be measured? It is the same case with the idea of utility in economics. Because we lack ways to perform calculations like these, we lack answers to these questions, a major complication when applying a tenant that may sound good in theory to reality.
ReplyDeleteThe question of constraining the acquisition of property is plagued by several factors however, the ambiguity in calculating the contribution of an individual to society and the amount of property man needs is unnecessary. Since abstractly property ownership is a zero-sum game (we discount the notion of destruction of property), it is the role of the masses to manage the distribution of property. If man thought rationally property would be sold to whoever offered the most money, thus under the assumption that wealth was proportional to merit (which is quite debatable), the distribution of property would be naturally regulated. Thus a system that prevents corruption and ensures that wealth is proportional to societal contribution would allow Locke’s theory to come to fruition.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you wrote. I would add at the end of the discussion of property Locke discusses the introduction of fiat money. Locke realizes there is now a world where fruit is perishable and it is also not. Through the introduction of precious metals which Locke adds have no inherent value. Locke argues that man can over consume. Locke's discussion of this rather, in modern terms libertarian, idea does not take into the account the introduction of fiat money. Specifically the store of value that money now has in the discussion of the accumulation of property. Unfortunately Locke doesn't elaborate on his labor theory of value or the accumulation of property in the context of fiat money. Locke only discusses property which countradicts his gender egalitarian ideals because the husband has all say of how his inheritance is distributed among his offspring.
ReplyDeleteIn response to George I would say that the modern notion that governmental services helped contribute to acquisition of private property didn't exist. Since these services didn't exist it was considered a liberal idea that man earned what he worked for. The step toward merit and away from political connection was a liberal idea this has now shifted to inheritance. This was the first step in this progression.
Locke infers that as long as men heed the injunction not to allow anything to go to waste uselessly in their possession, there will (in this early state of nature) be plenty of land and resources to go around for everyone. Yes, he is very vague when he makes this claim but he’s vague because didn’t believe that there was any incentive for someone to garner more property than he could use since most goods were perishable. During his time, this nebulous description was probably not as questioned. In fact, Locke seems to describe an early state of existence in which populations were small and resources abundant although the general level of wealth was probably very low. There was no accumulation of wealth and relatively little land ownership in a basically nomadic population. This is very clearly a much different society compared to the one we currently live in.
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