John Locke's Authoritarian Rule

How far does this majoritarian rule extend? It has been argued that when men enter into political society, the chief end is to protect their individual property rights; the things which they have appropriated from the commons. As Locke states, since every man has a property in his own person, whatsoever he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. Moreover, once having entered into political society, the property which every man had obtained in the state of nature ought to be protected by positive law. Locke himself states that the chief end of uniting into a commonwealth is for the preservation of individuals’

In order to protect men from having their lives threatened (by being drafted), or their liberties jeopardized (by not being able to worship freely) by a tyrannical government, then universal (or near universal) suffrage is required (Locke would have advocated universal male suffrage, but the principle is the same). The implications of man’s natural equality and freedom infer that, if Locke had intended to protect the property of men’s things, then he would have explicitly forwarded a position of limited suffrage where an upper-class of proprietary owners would emerge and form a government that would reflect their interests. Individual possession would be viewed as inseparable from a person as their life. However, Locke’s political apparatus acts as a counterfactual to this exact interpretation. Should a great disproportion of social and material standing occur, where an unequal distribution of wealth and power exist within society, then, an enfranchised populace through majoritarian democratic practices as expressed by Locke could dissolve such a government. It has lost the consent of the people and serves a distinct interest apart from the commonwealth. The will and the body of the commonwealth would not be united if Locke had intended this position of property to

The legislature is to be made up of representatives chosen by the people and they are to act as the supreme power in the commonwealth. The legislature cannot take from any man, any part of his property without his own consent. Hence it is a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. This is not to be feared in governments where the legislative consists in assemblies, where members of the assembly are subject under the common laws of the country, equally with the rest. If however, the government be that of one assembly, lasting in perpetuity, or an absolute monarch, then they will act on their own distinct interests in order to increase their own riches and power by taking what they think fit from the