Second Treatise By John Locke

In John Locke’s most famous publication, Book II: Second Treatise, Locke advances his theory of how political authority is derived, and the manner in which humankind has escaped the state of nature to form a civilized society. In Book II, Locke makes the case for man’s natural right to private property, describing how God gave humans the Earth for humankind to share. However, when man removes objects from the state of nature and invests “the labour of his body, and the work of his hands”, these objects become private property (Locke 111-112).

Locke also places limits on the amount of private property that any person can accumulate, since “nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy”, and thus he argues that overconsumption of private

Locke writes that God gave the world and common goods to men in common, but also gave them the right to invest labor and utilize it to make a good life (111). Locke is entirely focused on the issue of labor, and believes that “it is labour indeed that put the difference of value on every thing”, and that labor differentiates and adds value to the common goods that God has given to humankind (117). He illustrates this idea by pointing out the different value of an acre of land if it has tobacco, sugar, wheat, barley, or nothing, and emphasizes that labor is the only differentiator of land value (117). Although Locke believes that man has a natural right to property that he puts labor into, he also believes in limits to property ownership. He writes that man has right to “as much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils”, and that anything beyond that limitation “is more than his share, and belongs to others” (113). Along these lines, Locke sees little reason for people to have disputes over private property ownership, since he believes claiming land as private property is not “any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left”

Locke’s stance seems inherently self-serving when considering his place in society, and questions of who is able and unable to perform labor. Under Locke’s interpretation of natural rights, people who are physically unable to collect fruit, hunt, or invest labor into land are entitled to nothing. His framework of labor is deeply exclusionary towards people that lack the physical ability to lay claim to property, and does not offer alternative paths to property ownership. During the time period that Locke was active, women and poor people likely did not have had the prerequisite knowledge, access to tools, education, or experience necessary to claim property through Locke’s framework. Regardless of whether Locke intended to exclude certain groups of people from property ownership, people who are not wealthy, well-educated, physically strong, white men would likely face many barriers to property