1
Locke and Property: Differential Protection
In his Second Treatise on Government, Locke’s description of the transition from a state of nature to civil or political society rests upon certain concepts assumed to be necessarily existent from the state of nature onward; one of these concepts is that of property. Property already exists in the state of nature, but when society transitions to a civil/political society there is a tacit consent to inequality in possession based on monetary value. The protection of the individual’s property under law is the main reason that Locke sees the creation of government as necessary. However, government that exists in order to protect property in Locke’s civil/political society must also be protecting the agreed upon “disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth.” (Locke 463). Giving government the sole purpose of protecting property means that a Lockean government exists to protect this inequality both inside and outside the bounds of its own society.
I will first go over Locke’s state of nature, description of property in the state of nature, and how property transitions from the state of nature into society. From this overview, I will critique his set up of property within the framework of a Lockean government’s own society. Finally, I will look at the implications of governmentally protected inequality of property when it is applied to societies outside the Lockean government’s own society.
Locke begins his description of property by wondering how individuals are said to have property if the world was given “to mankind in common” (457). He explains that individuals have ways of making land and the products of that land their own property; this is done by using their labor in order to appropriate the land. An individual’s body is their own, and therefore so is the use of their body, which is labor. Locke states that once someone has made use of what is in nature, “he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.” (457). This labor is the key to taking what belongs to the commons and appropriating it for the ownership and use by the individual, according to Locke. There are conditions placed on this rule of appropriation, which are that an individual can only appropriate as much from the commons as they will make use of and subsist on and that there must be enough left for others to subsist on. If an individual takes more out of the common possession than they can use, then it will spoil and go to waste: “He has only to look, that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others” (Locke 462).
However, these conditions change when there is a shift to the civil and political society. The introduction of money makes it possible to transfer the value of perishable products of nature and labor combined into gold and silver. Locke explains that “the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them” (Locke 459). When this value is placed in something that will not spoil, it does not harm to the commons for an individual to possess more than they can subsist on. With the introduction of money, Locke finds a way to explain the obvious inequality of possessions that exists in society despite the principles of property he discusses. In this explanation, he also finds the purpose of government. Within society, “the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitution” whereas in the state of nature, “right and conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make use of. This left not room for controversy about title…” (Locke 463). Within the state of nature, there was no reason for governmental protection of property because nobody would desire another’s property; each person only had as much as they would need. Once there was the ability and the right to take more than what was necessary to subsist on and hold its value in money, there was reason to desire another’s property and act upon that desire; therefore, a reason also existed for governmental protection of property.
It is important to clarify that Locke does not fully defend this development of inequality in possessions through the valuation of money. This can be seen in the conditions that he places on the appropriation of property in the state of nature: “no man but he can have a right to what [his labor] is once joined to, at least where there is enough and as good left in common for others” (Locke 134). His explanation of the use of money is to show that these conditions are no longer followed in society. Despite this apparent criticism of money creating inequality, a Lockean government would still preserve and perpetuate this inequality by protecting the large differences in possession that money creates. Locke envisions government as protecting individuals from the inequality produced by money, but in fact it protects and preserves this very inequality.
The explanation that Locke provides for inequality in possession is the key difference between property in the state of nature and property as it exists in society. If “government has no other end but the preservation of property” (Locke 475) and inequality in property ownership is justified by the preservation of value in money, then it would seem that government is supposed to preserve the differing levels of possession through protecting individual property from the desire of others. The government will protect all property, but through its “preservation of property” (475) it will preserve the differences in possession that exist in society, which implies that greater amounts of property require more protection.
To be clear, by criticizing Locke’s justification of inequality, I do not mean to argue for total equality in possessions within society, but instead to argue for equality in protection by pointing out that a Lockean government protects and perpetuates established inequalities instead of allowing maximal freedom for individuals. The flaw in Locke’s argument is not that justifying inequality is inherently wrong, but in the inconsistency of this justification with his view of government as providing protection for all through “settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties” (473). This inconsistency between ideals and practical concerns is my main concern in this paper and in my criticism of Locke.
Of course, Locke does argue for government to protect subjects against each other when one subject does harm to another. Government exists “with authority to determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth…and wherever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of nature” (Locke 473). However, the difference between offering to redress harm done to individuals and the differential protection that I argue Locke’s governmental protection of property provides, is that differential protection is not focused on individual cases. Instead, it creates a systemic inequality in protection based on the inequality in possessions that Locke justifies through the introduction of money during the transition from state of nature to civil society. Therefore, instead of providing “a common established law and judicature to appeal to” through having powers to create and enforce laws “all…for the preservation of the property of all the members of that society” (Locke 473), government actually exists to provide varying protection of the law based on property ownership. Inequality in protection from government means that the social contract that individuals give tacit consent to does not give equal provisions to all in return for the freedoms they give up from the state of nature.
I have now addressed the problems with differential protection based on levels of possession within the context of Locke’s own society, but it is also important to look at how differential protection based on property ownership applies when dealing with cross-cultural interaction. Locke explicitly talks about the Americas in his writing and classifies them as still in the state of nature and as having not developed property. When speaking about cultivating land by appropriating it as property through labor, Locke compares England and America and describes the “wild woods and uncultivated waste of America” (Locke 460). When Locke first justifies unequal possessions with the introduction of money and then concludes that native populations in America have made no use of this uncultivated land, he then has grounds to justify colonialism on the part of Europeans; those who have moved into the civil/political society and have subsequently enshrined the value of property in money have a right to appropriate and cultivate the lands that native populations have left in “uncultivated waste” because it belongs to the commons until it is appropriated. In a Lockean system, this land is either a part of the commons or, if it is said to belong to the indigenous people, those who possess the property are in violation of one of Locke’s conditions: that individuals cannot appropriate more than they can use.
Without the introduction of money as a non-perishable value holder, European colonizers would not have a reason to desire the land of America, according to Locke, because they would still be in the state of nature where wanting more than you could use was pointless. He explains that “where there is not something, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land” (463). This colonialism then has to be a government-backed colonialism because, as previously stated, it is government’s job to protect property and therefore preserve the unequal amounts of property between different members of society. In this case, instead of protecting those with more property from those with less within the society, the government is protecting the right of the society in the civil/political state to appropriate land from the natives in the state of nature and make it their property.
Although this apparent justification is provided by Locke, it is once again inconsistent with his criticism of the valuation of money. He even favors the Americas at one point, stating that:
The greatest part of things really useful to the Life of Man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first Commoners of the World look after, as it doth the Americans now, are generally things of short duration; such as, if they are not consumed by use, will decay and perish of themselves: Gold, Silver, and Diamonds, are things, that Fancy or Agreement hath put the Value on, more then real Use, and the necessary Support of Life. (299-300)
Again, despite his criticism of the valuation of money as placing value on things that do not have a real utility in the preservation of life, Locke’s conception of government only serves to perpetuate the present system, which is inequality in possessions based on the permanence of value placed on money. While the ideal he sees may be that government protects property as he wants it to exist, he acknowledges that property exists under a monetary system of value; this means that government is protecting property under this system. My criticism is not that Locke justifies colonial movements or inequality in possessions directly, but that he justifies them indirectly through his understanding of the relationship between property and government.
Further inconsistency can be found in Locke’s description of conquest. He writes that conquest often sets up new governments and new societies, but that “without the Consent of the people, can never erect a new one” (385). He further distinguishes between smaller forces of conquest, such as a robber, and larger ones, such as governments themselves. The only difference between the two is that “Great Robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their Obedience, but the great ones are rewarded with Laurels and Triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of Justice in this World” (386). Those who have suffered conquest by those great powers who control the processes of redress do not have any appeal to power, although Locke does allow for an eventual appeal to redress from God: “If God has taken away all means of seeking remedy, there is nothing left but patience” (386). Here, Locke is defending the rights of the conquered.
However, Locke allows for the existence of just war and is concerned with the rights of the conqueror in this just war. Locke explains that although the conqueror“has an absolute power over the Lives of those, who by putting themselves in a State of War, have forfeited them” that the he “has not thereby a Right and Title to their possessions” (388). This restriction of the rights of the conqueror is in line with Locke’s concern with property; however, his earlier argument that land in the Americas lay in waste because it had not been appropriated from the commons can here be used to argue that the conquered did not have any property in the case of the colonization of the Americas. The only property they would have in this case would be their own bodies, something that Locke considers property. Due to his earlier claim about land in the Americas, Locke’s protection of the conquered is applied unevenly because it rests upon the assumption that the conquered are seen as possessing property. In the case of Native Americans, whom Locke does not see as possessing property, differential protection is at its worst: those who have no property other than their bodies receive little to no protection.
There are several ways in which Locke’s ideals are not consistent with how his concepts of government and property can be carried out. He wants equal protection under the law, but his conception of government provides differential protection; he promotes the protection of the conquered, but provides for just war in which the greater power is justified in their conquest of the lesser. Furthermore, Locke’s conceptions of property, government, and conquest can be used as a justification of aspects of colonization, namely the appropriation of land that is not seen as the property of those that have historically inhabited that land. These issues in his argument arise from his focus on property as the primary reason for the existence of government. A Lockean government based on property protection leads to differential protection under law within a society despite the ideal of fair protection and protection of land appropriated from colonized peoples. Although modern social contract theory has developed quite a bit since Locke, it is still important to critique work such as Locke’s Second Treatise because of the role it has played in shaping some of the fundamental values of our country. This is not to say that theorists such as Locke should be dismissed as being too idealistic and therefore useless in any practical way. Not only can they be used to show shortcomings in values held as ideals in our culture, but there can be a constant striving to improve upon these ideals so that they become actual ideals worth striving for.
Works Cited
Locke, John. "Second Treatise of Government."Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy,
edited by Steven M. Cahn, Oxford University Press, 2012, 450-517.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge University Press,
2015.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Thomas I. Cook. Hafner Publishing
Company, 1947.