John Locke’s Views on Property and Liberty, as Outlined...

John Locke’s Views on Property and Liberty, as Outlined in His Second Treatise of Government John Locke’s views on property and liberty, as outlined in his Second Treatise of Government (1690), have had varying interpretations and treatments by subsequent generations of authors. At one extreme, Locke has been claimed as one of the early originators of Western liberalism, who had sought to lay the foundations for civil government, based on universal consent and the natural rights of individuals. [1] Others have charged that what Locke had really done, whether intentionally or unintentionally, was to provide a justification for the entrenched inequality and privileges of the bourgeoisie, in the emerging capitalist society of seventeenth†¦show more content†¦To achieve this, in the state of nature, Locke argues that all one must do is to remove that which is to be appropriated from the common stock, for â€Å"[w]hatever then he removes out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his o wn, and thereby makes it his property.† [6] Having once â€Å"mixed his labor† with something and made it his own, others are hence excluded from all ownership. But Locke asks: â€Å"Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common?† [7] For, if all is held in common, then surely such private appropriation would require the explicit consent of each and every owner before it is to be a legitimate action. However, Locke does not believe so, â€Å"[i]f such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, not withstanding the plenty God had given him.† [8] Locke does, though, believe that there are some limitations to how much one individual may appropriate in the state of nature. Since he has already assumed as a natural law that all individuals have the right to their self-preservation, then the private appropriation of one individual must leave â€Å"enough and asShow MoreRelatedCompare and Contrast Hobbes’s and Locke’s Views of the State of Nature and the Fundamental Purpose of Political Society. Whose View Is the More Plausible? 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