Locke: Property

Natural resources, especially land, play an important role in many economic problems society faces today, including the climate crisis, housing shortages and severe inequality. Yet, land has been either entirely neglected or seriously misunderstood by contemporary theorists of distributive justice. I aim to correct that in this paper. In his theory of original acquisition, Locke did not carefully distinguish between the value of natural resources and the value that we add by laboring upon them. This oversight led him to the (...) mistaken conclusion that labor mixing gives the laborer an entitlement to both the improvement and the resource. I explain how Locke's false belief that the proviso was satisfied in his time was the fundamental cause of this error. -/- Instead, we should think, following Henry George, that the community is entitled to the economic value of natural resources, because the community created the value of resources, not the individual improver. I discuss an argument from George's "Progress and Poverty" that selfownership is actually inconsistent with (rather than the ground for, as Locke thought) private appropriation of natural resources. I present George's argument that private appropriation of natural resources is akin to forced labor, which is remarkably similar to Nozick's infamous argument that taxation is akin to forced labor. -/- I then develop my own view of original acquisition, inspired by George. The selfownership of improvers gives them an entitlement to improvements that they generate. But the self-ownership of everyone else precludes an entitlement to natural resources value. Natural resource rents should not be enjoyed only by those who improve the resource, but rather, by all community members in proportion to the share of demand for natural resources they are responsible for. In the last section, I consider and refute an objection from the luck egalitarian claiming that natural talents are relevantly similar to land. (shrink)

This paper offers a conditional defence of a minimalist theory of appropriation. The conclusion of its main argument is that, if people do enjoy a natural right to appropriate unappropriated resources, then that right is best understood as a derivative right that stems from a more fundamental natural right to self-preservation. If this conclusion is correct, then insofar as people have a natural right to appropriation, it is much more limited than it is usually assumed, as the minimalist theory places (...) very stringent restrictions on both the amount of unappropriated resources each person has a right to appropriate and the use they can make of those appropriated resources. The conclusion of my argument can be either used as a premise in a modus tollens argument to be used against natural-right theories of property rights or as a premise in a modus ponens argument in favour of a broadly left-libertarian theory. (shrink)

Locke’s property rights are now usually understood to be both fundamental and strictly negative. Fundamental because they are thought to be basic constraints on what we may do, unconstrained by anything deeper. Negative because they are thought to only protect a property holder against the claims of others. Here, I argue that this widespread interpretation is mistaken. For Locke, property rights are constrained by the deeper ‘fundamental law of nature,’ which involves positive obligations to those in need and confines the (...) right to excess property within circumstances where it is not needed to preserve human life. (shrink)

Intellectual property regimes necessarily create artificial scarcity leading to wastage, both by blocking follow-up research and hindering access to those who are only able to pay less then the actual retail price. After revising the traditional arguments to hinder access to people’s intellectual labour we will examine why we should be more open to allow free-riding of inventive efforts, especially in cases where innovators have not secured the widest access to the fruits of their research and failed to cooperate with (...) follow-up innovators. We will do so by questioning the voluntariness involved in consumption of objects of innovation, restating the positive social externalities that arise when wider access to the fruits of innovation is assured, and examining the eventual harms innovators face. (shrink)

According to Locke, appropriation is a precondition for moral responsibility and thus we can expect that it plays a distinctive role in his theory. Yet it is rare to find an interpretation of Locke’s account of appropriation that does not associate it with serious problems. To make room for a more satisfying understanding of Locke’s account of appropriation we have to analyse why it was so widely misunderstood. The aim of this paper is fourfold: First, I will show that Mackie’s (...) and Winkler’s interpretations that have shaped the subsequent discussion contain serious flaws. Second, I will argue that the so-called appropriation interpretation —that is the view that appropriation is meant to provide alternative persistence conditions for persons—lacks support. Third, I will re-examine Locke’s texts and argue that we can come to a better understanding of his notion of appropriation in the Essay if we interpret it in analogy to his account of appropriation in Two Treatises. Fourth, I will offer a more fine-grained interpretation of the role of appropriation in relation to persistence conditions for persons. I conclude by showing that the advantage of this proposal is that it reconciles interpretations that have commonly been thought to be inconsistent. (shrink)

O presente artigo analisa a propriedade privada a partir da teoria de John Locke no que se refere à aquisição originária. São discutidos o princípio da apropriação pelo trabalho, os limites à propriedade privada pelo deixar em comum para apropriação pelos demais 'o suficiente e de mesma qualidade' - o que Nozick nomeia como 'cláusula lockeana' –, bem como a possibilidade de acumulação. Para isso serão analisados os argumentos apresentados por Locke, acompanhado das críticas elaboradas por Robert Nozick.

The objective of this article is to compare and contrast the influential notion of natural and property rights created by John Locke in his "Second Treatise on Government" (1689) to the posterior notion of abstract right expressed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in his "Elements of the Philosophy of Right". Said analysis is particularly pertinent given the complexity of Hegel’s political philosophy, and, perhaps more importantly, seeing as Hegel’s abstract right was (allegedly and in part) intended to point out the (...) shortcomings of Locke’s theory of natural and property rights, in order to further the human understanding of the world. More specifically, this article will examine the two rights theories in terms of their respective amounts of emphasis on individualism, or lack thereof. It will reveal three areas in which Lockean rights are more geared towards the primacy of the individual than Hegelian rights: (1) in their respective understandings of what it means to be a person, (2) in their conduciveness to individual wellbeing through the obligations each theory entails, and (3) in the extent of the rights themselves in relation to the state. (shrink)

Does intellectual property satisfy the requirements of the Lockean proviso, that the appropriator leave “enough and as good” or that he at least not “deprive others”? If an author's appropriation of a work he has just created is analogous to a drinker “taking a good draught” in the flow of an inexhaustible river, or to someone magically “causing springs of water to flow in the desert,” how could it not satisfy the Lockean proviso?

Locke’s Second Treatise of Government lays the foundation for a fully liberal order that includes representative and limited government, and that guarantees basic civil liberties. Though future thinkers filled in some gaps left in his doctrine, such as division of powers between executive and judicial branch of government, as well as fuller exposition of economic freedom and human rights, it is Locke, who paves the way for others. The article reviews the Treatise, paying particular attention to his ingenious way to (...) render absolute power illegitimate and to create an order that breeds citizens, not subject. In this, the article claims, Locke is a Whig rather than a continental liberal. He worries about state omnipotence and the threat it poses for citizens. Though resorting to an abstract construct—state of nature—he still is a common sense, English thinker, far from a continental reformer who would thoroughly redesign the existing order. (shrink)

A private property account is central to a liberal theory of justice. Much of the appeal of the Lockean theory stems from its account of the so-called `enough-and-as-good' proviso, a principle which aims to specify each employable person's fair share of the earth's material resources. I argue that to date Lockeans have failed to show how the proviso can be applied without thereby undermining a guiding intuition in Lockean theory. This guiding intuition is that by interacting in accordance with the (...) proviso persons interact as free and equal, or as reciprocally subject to the `laws of nature' rather than as subject to one another's arbitrary will. Because Locke's own and contemporary Lockean conceptions of the proviso subject some persons to some other persons' arbitrary will, the proviso so conceived cannot function as it should, namely as a principle that restricts interacting persons' actions reciprocally and thereby enables Lockean freedom under law. (shrink)

This paper is an evaluation of John Locke's labour theory of property. Section I sets out Locke's labour view. Section II addresses several possible objections, including against the conceptual coherence of Locke's argument, against the metaphysical implications of his view, as well as foundational criticisms of the moral significance of labour and of my relations with objects that are grounded in labour under certain conditions and circumstances. I attempt to address each of these criticisms in a Lockian spirit, which will (...) require strange metaphysical moves. The final Section raises further objections that are more significant because they cannot be squared with the labour view. (shrink)

The purpose of my paper is to show the derivation of what is sometimes called the ‘new liberalism’ (or ‘progressive liberalism’) from the basic principles of classical liberalism, through a reading of John Locke’s treatment of the right to property in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke’s work sharply distinguishes between the natural right to property in the ‘state of nature’ and the societal right to property as established in a socio-economic political system. Whereas the former does not depend on (...) the consent of others, it is qualified by strict limits on the amount of property that may be rightly acquired. The societal right to property lifts these limits but is justified only under the principle of universal consent. This principle, I argue, implies the Rawlsian difference principle; i.e., that the regulation and distribution of property must be such as would elicit the freely proffered consent of society’s least advantaged members. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a conflict between two principles informing Locke’s political philosophy, namely his waste restriction and his strong voluntarism. Locke’s waste restriction is proposed as a necessary, enforceable restriction upon rightful private property holdings and it yields arguments to preserve and redistribute natural resources. Locke’s strong voluntarism is proposed as the liberal ideal of political obligations. It expresses Locke’s view that each individual has a natural political power, which can only be transferred to a political body (...) through the individual’s voluntary, actual consent. On this view, the legitimacy of a political power is dependent upon its subjects’ actual consent to its authority. After briefly outlining these two ideas informing Locke’s conception, I argue that we cannot maintain both at the same time. Therefore, contemporary Lockeans must either derive restrictions upon private property concerned with preserving natural resources from other aspects of Locke’s theory or they must accept weak voluntarism as the ideal of political obligations. I argue that both alternatives pose significant problems for the Lockean project. (shrink)

The thesis that an analysis of property rights is essential to an adequate analysis of the state is a mainstay of political philosophy. The contours of the type of government a society has are shaped by the system regulating the property rights prevailing in that society. Views of this sort are widespread. They range from Locke to Nozick and encompass pretty much everything else in between. Defenders of this sort of view accord to property rights supreme importance. A state that (...) does not sufficiently respect property rights is likely to be a totalitarian state, and will also be likely to fail to respect rights of other sorts. (shrink)

THE SUBJECT MATTER of this essay is Locke's well-known discussion of consent in sections 116-122 of the Second Treatise of Government.' I will not be concerned to discuss the place of consent in Locke's political philosophy 2 My concerns are somewhat narrower than this. I will simply be concerned to show that in important respects several recent discussions of Locke's political philosophy have misrepresented Locke's views on the subject of express and tacit consent. At theheart of these misinterpretations lie misunderstandings (...) about the way in which landownership and the inheritance of land are related to express and tacit consent. I will show that these misinterpretations of Locke's views are, to a certain extent, indicative of internal strains that can bediscovered in Locke's arguments. My discussion will fall into four sections. In the first I will try toclarify Locke's views on the nature of express consent. I will show that Locke's views on this matter, when examined in their historical context, are not as obscure as some critics have suggested. In the second section I will examine Locke's views on the nature of tacit consent. I will be especially concerned to examine the relationship between landownership and express and tacit consent. In the third section I will look at Locke's views on the inheritance of land and how it relates to express and tacit consent. I will show that his views on this matter are not entirely consistent. In one passage Locke suggests that inheritance of land requires only tacit consent whereas, in another passage, he suggests that inheritance of land requires full membership of society and express consent. In the fourth and final section I will summarize the salient features of my interpretation of Locke's views on the subject of express and tacit consent. I will also briefly note interpretations of Locke's views that have been rejected in the course of this essay. . -/- . (shrink)