Locke On Capitalist Appropriation

Abstract

ALTHOUGH John Locke's theory of property has always been recognized as an essential part of his theory of civil society and government, its full importance seems scarcely to have been realized. Nor has the attention given it been as careful as it deserves. Locke's writings, of course, invite one to read between the lines; indeed, this is unavoidable if one is to make sense of the Second Treatise. But in doing so it is dangerously easy to neglect the plain statements and implications of the lines themselves in favor of some attractive theory which a careful reading of the lines would forbid. In nothing has this been more apparent than in the readings of Locke's theory of property. The view presented here cannot claim to be exempt from this danger, but a fresh examination of what Locke wrote about property rights may support a rather different view of the purpose, and hence the importance, of Locke's theory of property, from that which has found favor recently. The purpose of this article is to suggest a consistent construction of Locke's theory of property right, and to show that the assumptions involved were the assumptions made by Locke. The implications of his theory of property, and of its implicit assumptions, for his theory of the state, must be left mainly for later examination.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 30 citations exist upstream.