Property Theory In John Locke's Second Treatise On Government

John Locke’s Property Theory

In Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, he takes the view that human nature is a property acquiring creature and claims that in the state of nature humankind has property in his person and nobody has any right to but himself. Furthermore, Locke states that all property derives from our labour, the work that we put in to property and in return we gain title to that property. As a result, labour bestows value and essentially labour is the source of all values. Also Locke asserts that once title is obtained man can acquire unlimited property. In particular, Locke claims that the state of nature is given to all mankind in common and that property only becomes private property when we add our labour to it. In this
‘Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.’ Locke argues that we come into the world with private property, which is our body, in our person which nobody has a right to. It seems that Locke is stating that mankind has a natural right to private property. For example, if mankind is born with this right and nobody has a right to take it away, consequently, the property right is inalienable and therefore man has an inalienable right to property? This seems to be conflicting with Locke’s theory relating to title of property, particularly, as he states that for man to acquire private property, labour needs to be added to obtain full private ownership of the property and only then will ownership become a private right. Nonetheless, the latter is subject to Locke’s assumption that nobody is made worse off by acquiring private property. Conversely, Locke does not restrict the accumulation of property by introducing the concept of coinage into his theory which subsequently makes the poor dependant on the