How Does Locke Explain The Creation Value And Protection Of Property

Locke’s thought on having a king, laws, and a civil society under a social contract was so all men can enjoy and protect their rights. Where all men obtain the right to life, all humans have the right to live and life shouldn't be taken away from another human being. The right to liberty, protecting an individual's freedom and unreasonable detention. The right to property, a citizen in which Locke thought a human's labour was his own, anything created or made should remain that individuals as well and the right to rebel against unjust rulers and laws.

In his Second Treatise on Government Locke focus’ on liberalism & capitalism, defending the claim that men are by nature free and equal against the idea that God had made all people subject to a king. He argued that people have ‘natural rights’, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that hold the foundation for the major laws of a society. He says, “…we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit.” (2nd Treatise, Chapter 2, sec 4). John Locke used this claim, that all men were naturally free and equal, for understanding the idea of a government as a result of a social contract. This is where people in the state of nature transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better guarantee the steady and comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property.

John Locke defends the right to private property in Second Treatise of Government by transforming Biblical principles into Capitalist principles. Locke explores nine steps that stem from the Book of Genesis to explain “in a positive way how men could come to own various particular parts of something that God gave to mankind in common” (Locke 11). Locke believes that the unnatural inequality is perfectly acceptable. because he notes that some people work harder than others so they deserve more. The only way to ensure his argument is to guarantee that private property is secured by divinity, otherwise men can give and take away property freely, which includes the sovereign.

“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property”. “From all which it is evident, that though the things of Nature are given in common, man (by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it) has still in himself the great foundation of property;...” (Locke, 1978

Locke argues that since money has little value besides for the value that men give it, men, by accepting the use of money, have “agreed to a disproportionate and unequal passion of the earth, they have, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of” (698). Locke places high value on property. He says that human beings are born with a natural right to preserve their own property, that is, their life, liberty, and estate. He also says that the preservation of property is the number one reason people enter into a civil society. A civil society is there to protect the natural rights of humans, which is the preservation of their private property (707).

In the Second Treatise of Government by John Locke, he writes about the right to private property. In the chapter which is titled “Of Property” he tells how the right to private property originated, the role it plays in the state of nature, the limitations that are set on the rights of private property, the role the invention of money played in property rights and the role property rights play after the establishment of government.. In this chapter Locke makes significant points about private property. In this paper I will summarize his analysis of the right to private property, and I will give my opinion on some of the points Locke makes in his book. According to Locke, the right to private property originated when God gave the world to

When looking at the Declaration of Independence and the justifications which Jefferson used in order to encourage the dissolve of the ties between the United Colonies and Great Britain, it becomes apparent how much of the theories of John Locke that Jefferson used as the basis for his argument. Focusing particularly on the second paragraph of the Declaration, the arguments for the equality of each man and the formation and destruction of governments come almost directly from Locke's Second Treatise of Government. The other arguments in the Declaration of Independence deal primarily with each citizen's rights and the natural freedoms of all men, two areas that Locke also spent

Locke begins his explanation of private property by establishing how individuals come to possess property separate from the common resources of mankind. The defining feature of a piece of private property is labor, as the individual who performs the “labour that removes [the good] out of that common state nature left it in” makes the property his own (V. 30). According to Locke, the common resources of nature are open to all mankind, but a good becomes an individual’s own when a person performs some sort of labor on it. This stems from his idea that industry is an extension of self-ownership – people have natural rights of their own being, and extending these personal rights through work is how people come to own other things. Labor is what establishes ownership of a good, and as long as the amount of property taken is within a reasonable and modest amount, people are free to take what resources they must from the Earth. Although Locke argues in favor of the possession of private property, he emphasizes the point that it is “dishonest” for a man “to hoard up more than he could make use of” (V. 46). When people take property in excess, perishable

Locke argues that chaos the within the state of nature leads humans to merge into commonwealths. Locke believes without government, men live like beasts. In this society. strength is the strongest quality and the strongest can cause chaos. Locke quotes Genesis 9:6, “Whose sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”(The Bible, Genesis 9:6) He believes that within the state of nature there is some order. This is because naturally humans create order and will punish offenders. Locke notes that the laws of nature are what unify men into political bodies. He argues this because living alone, people are unable to procure their civil interests. Therefore, naturally we seek communion and fellowship for mutual benefit. The personal consent of each individual to join the political body unifies them into a political society or commonwealth. Locke identifies a commonwealth as a “society of men constituted only for procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests.” (78) He argues that this civil interest is in protecting the wellbeing, liberty, and possession of external goods. Locke argues that god gave the world to men in common for their best advantage in life. Therefore, every man has right to self preservation and acquisition of goods. The means in which parts of the earth can be appropriated to an individual are if: there is a necessity for the good to be allocated or the labour of the individual cultivates the possessions. Within the commonwealth, Locke believes all people should have equal access to freedom and civil interests. Children should be educated with reason by parents and then deemed responsible when they reach adulthood. Political power resembles the right of making and enforcing the laws. The laws in

Locke disagrees with this greedy situation as according to his theory, there would be no competition amongst men. Men, by the law of nature are only be allowed to appropriate and own as much as he could use because those resources would end up rotting and being wasted, leading to a liable punishment. Consequently there is never any excessive ownership of land or resources. Therefore other people still have plenty resources to appropriate and thus there is no need for quarrelling. Locke’s argument for appropriating labour is based on the principle that each person is free to appropriate land in the same way as the previous person.

	One of Locke’s central themes is the distribution of property. In a state of natural abundance "all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common" (page 18). In this situation the only thing man naturally owns is "his own person. This no body has any right to but himself" (page 18). Therefore, man is in a way equal, however it is an imperfect equality. "Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property" (page 18). Therefore, everything belongs to mankind in general, until a man decides to take it upon himself to acquire something from its pure state in nature, and since he has to work to achieve this, the fruits of the labor are his.

Having established his state of nature, Locke begins his description of the formation and transition to society, and appropriately starts with a discussion of property. “God, who hath given the World to Men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and convenience.” (Locke, Second Treatise, V.26). Here, Locke does little more than apply natural law (self preservation) to what he sees around him (land), but in doing so, makes a groundbreaking shift. He reveals that, following from natural law, men have a right to use what they have around them to further their own preservation and lives. In addition, man has an inherent, and obvious, possession of himself and all that comes with it, including, and most importantly, labor. “The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” (Locke, Second Treatise,

Next, under Locke’s state of nature, he also places a heavy emphasis on extensive rights, including property rights. He believed that self-determination implied private property rights and that human life without property is not free. In refutation to this

It was the land, when mixed with man’s labour offered the means of turning that outcome into money. Since land ownership is a prerequisite to making money and money is a pre-condition to owning land, the two became inexorably linked. In short, the introduction of money led to unlimited accumulation, scarcity and, ultimately, conflict. Although the sufficiency limitation remained intact, there was no longer “as much and as good” land for everyone and, as a result, a visible disparity between “owners” and the “wage makers” appeared and conflict between them arose. Locke commented on the problems inherent in accumulation of property in the state of nature;

Also, if one person sells his labour to another he becomes property of that person, "…the turfs my servant has cut… become my property" (Locke §20).