Locke’s Theory of Property Rights
Locke’s discussion of property begins with the assertion that the world and its resources were not exclusively allocated to any particular individual, but rather was given to ‘Adam and his posterity in common’ (II. 25). The feature of society that Locke must account for then, is the manner in which there can be legitimate holdings of private property. The answer to this is given by Locke’s theory of property rights; labour is the indisputable property of the labourer, and through mixing said labour with physical goods the labourer acquires a property right thereof. To this end, Locke writes:
‘He that is nourished by the Acorns he pickt up under an Oak, or the Apples he gathered from the Trees in the Wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No Body can deny but the nourishment is his’. (II. 28)
Locke’s intention with statements such as these [also hunting (II. 30) and cultivating the ground (II 32-40)] is to show that private property can exist in a state of nature without government or positive law. Furthermore, there is a natural right to property which is entirely independent of government. Locke argues that the function of government is to protect the property-holdings of its citizens. In the instance of a government attempting to interfere or redistribute this property, Locke advocates a right of resistance, the famous ‘appeal to heaven’.
In the state of nature, one of the conditions that Locke imposes on the acquisition of private property is that each individual must consume all that which he appropriates, that is, individuals have no right to waste. Locke comments that ‘Nothing was made by God for Man to spoil or destroy’ (II. 31). After the invention of money however, individuals were able to store value which ‘being little useful to the Life of Man in proportion to Food, Rayment and Carriage, has its value only from the consent of men’ (II. 50). This leads to gross economic inequalities, which are in turn responsible for men seeking out and being willing to join civil societies. Property rights in the state of nature neither required regulation by governments nor permitted redistribution. As Locke understands it, natural man finds it easier to behave in accordance with natural reason than with the counter-intuitive principles of municipal law. After the invention of money, however, disputes arose concerning ownership which governments were required to resolve. For Locke, the preservation of property is the sole end of government, and this alone provides the impetus for individuals leaving the state of nature to join civil societies.
Since the preservation of property is what motivates individuals to enter into society, Locke perceives the supposition that anything other than the preservation of property could be the purpose of government as unreasonable:
‘For the preservation of Property being the end of Government, and that for which Men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the People should have Property, without which they must be suppos’d to lose that by entring into Society, which was the end for which they entered into it, too gross an absurdity for any man to own.’ (II. 138)
In order to illuminate Locke’s position, let us take a closer look at how the term “Property” could be construed.
Definition of ‘Property’
Locke asserts that one of the conditions on the legitimacy of the laws of a given community is that the legislature ‘cannot take from any Man any part of his Property without his own consent’ (II. 138-40). Yet in what manner should we interpret ‘Property’? Locke uses a very broad definition – at times he refers to personal rights of ‘Life, Liberty and Estate’, whilst at other points in the treatises he is clearly referring to rights in relation to resources, simply ‘Estate’. John Dunn suggests a possible solution to this ambiguity by suggesting that Locke is always referring to human entitlements, that is, ‘Life, Liberty and Estate’ and that the role of government in the treatises is to protect human entitlements. The reason that Locke focuses on material possessions, under Dunn’s reading, is that:
‘Every human being is certainly entitled to his own life and his own liberty, unless he forfeits these by violent assaults upon the lives and liberties of others. Entitlement to material possessions, however, was a more delicate matter’.
Dunn asserts that whilst governments are responsible for the protection of all human entitlements, Locke did not have cause to focus his arguments on anything other than the protection of material possessions, since the right to protection of other human entitlements is self-evident. Whilst this is an interesting attempt to resolve the ambiguity surrounding Locke’s use of the term, at no point in the treatises does Locke give any evidence supporting such an interpretation; indeed, on occasion such an interpretation is completely inapt. For instance, when Locke refers to ‘a title of Property in the common things of Nature’ (II. 51) in his discussion of the state of nature, he is certainly referring to material possessions – to understand ‘Property’ in any other way is to confound the issue at hand.
Waldron offers a further attempt at resolution by proposing: ‘The sense of Locke’s term ‘property’ is always the same: its nature is ‘that without a Man’s own consent it cannot be taken from him’ (II. 193). This definition may be applied quite consistently and unambiguously to all imprescriptible individual rights’. Waldron’s claim may be sound, but it is hard to see how it could be of any instrumental worth in assessing the boundaries of Locke’s discussions. By defining ‘Property’ recursively, Waldron allows a number of positions to be attributed to Locke which are contextually at odds with Locke’s investigation.
I suggest that the most illuminating manner in which to interpret ‘Property’ will be context specific. It will be useful to develop a distinction I made at an earlier point in this paper concerning Locke’s motivations for writing the ‘Two Treatises of Government’, which I shall distinguish as either practical or theoretical. I shall consider practical motivations as responding to issues which are prevalent in a specific political environment and theoretical motivations as being universally applicable. By and large, in the treatises practical motivations correspond to ‘Property’ as material possessions whilst theoretical motivations correspond to ‘Property’ as ‘Life, Liberty and Estate’. Both types of motivations give rise to legislature with prescriptive content.
The impetus for Locke’s discussions of entitlement to material possessions stems from his desire to refute the reigning monarch’s absolute right to the property of his subjects; a practical motivation. One of the precipitating factors for the English Civil War was the implementation of said right by Charles I in order to claim the material possessions of his subjects without their consent. In the midst of the Exclusion controversy, the threat of the revival of this right by James I was a major political concern to the Whigs. The political situation of Locke’s patron, the Earl of Shaftesbury, would have lent these arguments concerning material possessions an immediacy which is foreign to the more theoretical arguments concerning property as ‘Life, Liberty and Estate’. These arguments are also those that Locke utilizes to refute Filmer’s ‘Patriarcha’, which staunchly supports the divine right of kings.
A certain degree of speculation is required in detecting Locke’s theoretical motivations in the ‘Two Treatises of Government’. By referring to ‘Property’ as ‘Life, Liberty and Estate’, Locke attempts to capture the intuition that citizens may have a right to resist government rule if their personal liberties are infringed upon. I propose that ‘Property’ should be interpreted contextually as either personal rights or material possessions, depending on the practical and theoretical motivations for the argument.
Critical Interpretations
Locke believed that the actions of both governments and individuals are constrained by a general right which each person has to the material necessities of survival. Locke describes this fundamental obligation of governments and individuals as charity:
‘Charity gives every Man a Title to so much out of another’s Plenty, as will keep him from Extream want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise; and a Man can no more justly make use of another’s necessity, to force him to become his Vassal, by withholding that Relief, God requires him to afford to the wants of his Brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his Obedience, and with a Dagger at his Throat offer him Death or Slavery’. (I. 42)
This passage on the entitlements of charity has been interpreted as ascribing some positive obligation to governments, above and beyond mere ‘preservation of property’. Since the general right to the material necessities of survival restrict the actions of governments, its consequence can be construed as broadening the constraints placed on legitimate state action. Indeed, such a line of reasoning can be given in support of economic redistribution schemes.
Such an interpretation would contrast with Robert Nozick’s libertarian reading of Locke’s position in ‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’, in which Nozick understands Locke as proposing a minimal night-watchman state. Yet Locke is not, in fact, supporting either active economic redistribution of property or Nozick’s extreme libertarian position. Locke, as with Thomas Aquinas, purports that all men have a right to physical subsistence which supplants the property rights of other individuals. But, crucially, after each individual’s survival is ensured it is of no moral concern whether or not he has any material resources in his possession. It would be inconsistent with the rest of the treatises to interpret Locke’s reference to ‘Charity’ in this passage as extending the set of legitimate functions of government. The general right is not concerned with property, but merely the means to subsist.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have introduced Locke’s theory of property in relation to the controversy between Hugo Grotius and Robert Filmer. I have explicated Locke’s theory, discussing the manner in which property rights in the state of nature are transferred into civil society. I have explained how the ‘preservation of property’ is the motivating factor behind natural man leaving the state of nature, and how as a result Locke perceives this to be the sole end of government. I have addressed the manner in which ‘Property’ is to be construed, making reference to interpretations by Dunn and Waldron. I have distinguished between the practical and theoretical motivations for Locke’s arguments, and stated my own position, that the ‘interpretation’ of ‘Property’ should be context-specific. Finally I have discussed the possibility of an extension to the realm of legitimate state functions stemming from Locke’s comments on ‘Charity’.
I do not believe Locke was misguided in trying to account for all the legitimate functions of government in terms of the “preservation of property”. Locke’s characterization of the term ‘Property’ varies during the course of the ‘Two Treatises of Government’ - the potency of his theoretical position fluctuates accordingly.
Bibliography
John Dunn, ‘Locke’ (Oxford University Press, 1984)
John Locke, ‘Two Treatises of Government’, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge University Press, 1967)
Alex Tuckness, ‘Locke’s Political Philosophy’ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005)
Jeremy Waldron, ‘Political Thinkers ch.11: John Locke’ (Oxford University Press, 2003)
Jeremy Waldron, ‘The Right to Private Property’ (Clarendon Paperbacks, 1988)
Jeremy Waldron, ‘The Right to Private Property’, Clarendon Paperbacks, 1988, p.148
John Dunn, ‘Locke’, Oxford University Press, 1984, p.47
Jeremy Waldron, ‘The Right to Private Property’, Clarendon Paperbacks, 1988, p.158
