John Locke, throughout his Second Treatise, discusses the need for good government to protect individual property rights. He believes private ownership of property is what makes both government and society function best. Related to property, Locke also believed that whatever a man put his labor towards was to be his personal property. Because of this, for Locke, government arose, through a social contract, to protect people's hard earned private property. In my opinion, Locke's idea of government (or sovereign, the term Locke uses) appears to be fairly limited to the protection of private property and little else. It seems to me that he is interested in letting the free market do its own thing without government interference, which in many ways sounds of the beginnings of his version of capitalism. (see Chapter 5, section 27)
Do you believe Locke's idea's are capitalist in nature, or do you think his idea's have nothing in common with capitalism? On the same token, with what you know about Karl Marx's idea's, what are some of the similarities and differences in the idea's and writings of Locke and Marx as it pertains to property ownership?
I agree Locke is motioning toward capitalism with his ideas of property rights and the rights after labor. First Locke's goal was to define what private property is and how labor applies to ownership of goods. It is true, Locke's ideas of property and the market working with private owners for trade, is the basic definition of capitalism. Pressing further with capitalism it is more obvious that Locke is advocating for capitalism with his explanation of money. Locke explains how private property can be transferred with the exchange of money. The government in this case only exists in order to facilitate the exchange.
ReplyDeleteMy only quarrel is the relation to Marxism. Karl Marx believed, through the exchange of labor for good and services, eventually there would be no classes. Locke is not parallel with this ideology. Locke is only setting up the possibility of exchange, or capitalism, without the hope for this utopia where everyone is equal that Karl Marx hoped for.