John Locke is at once one of the strongest defenders of freedom and at the same time an unwitting enemy of that very freedom. His Essay Concerning The True Original Extent And End Of Civil Government expounds the foundation of capitalist property ownership, describes a theory of state that heavily influenced the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Basically, John Locke’s social contractarian theory of government supposes that men are born free into the state of Nature, and the only legitimate government is one consented to by the governed. When a government acts outside the boundary of consent, it is a war with the people and they have the right to overthrow the government.

Two major flaws to this theory are accepted and continued to this day. The first, that “Natural Rights” exist. Insofar as “rights” are the product of contracts, natural rights cannot exist outside of the social contract.

The second is his taking for granted the legitimacy of democracy. While expounding the legitimacy of individualist society, and defending the individual rights from impeachment, he suicidally accepts for granted that democracy will guarantee those rights.

Some could argue that democracy (i.e., majority rule) is no more legitimate than monarchy. What right does the monarch have to order me? None. And what right does the majority have to order me? None. In that respect, they are identical in their absence of legitimate authority. Not to mention that democracy tends to devolve inevitably into socialism or communism or some other form of collectivism.

He does address collectivism (”Liberalism” in modern America). In addressing the ability of democracy to legislate minutia:

Chap.IV. 22.

Nobody can give more power than he has himself.

In other words, “nobody can forfeit the rights of others because those rights do not belong to others to forfeit”.

Of course, he should have foreseen that democracy would arrogate to themselves all rights of all men to forfeit as they please. After all, Hobbes defense of totalitarianism (i.e., Leviathan) was published in 1651, 38 years before Locke’s Essay Concerning The True Original Extent And End Of Civil Government.

Selected Quotes

I’ve selected a few passages in hopes of whetting your appetite for more.

Chap.II. Of the State of Nature :

4. To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.

6. The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another’s pleasure.

Chap.III. Of the State of War :

17. He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belong to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.

Chap.IV. Of the Slavery :

22. Nobody can give more power than he has himself.

Chap.V. Of Property :

29. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian’s who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though, before, it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted the civilised part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of Nature for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place, and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind; or what ambergris any one takes up here is by the labour that removes is out of that common state Nature left it in, made his property who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting is thought his who pursues her during the chase. For being a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man’s private possession, whoever has employed so much labour about any of that kind as to find and pursue her has thereby removed her from the state of Nature wherein she was common, and hath begun a property.

31. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common.

32. Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same.

46. And if he also bartered away plums that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselessly in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour, or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded not the right of others; he might heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of anything uselessly in it.

Chap.VIII. Of the Beginning of Political Societies :

95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature all free equal, and independent. no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.

96. For, when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. For that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being one body, must move one way, it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority, or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into it agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see that in assemblies empowered to act by positive laws where no number is set by that positive law which empowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines as having, by the law of Nature and reason, the power of the whole.

98. For where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again.

116. It is true that whatever engagements or promises any one made for himself, he is under the obligation of them, but cannot by any compact whatsoever bind his children or posterity.

119. Every man being, as has been showed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent, it is to be considered what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man’s consent to make him subject to the laws of any government.

Chap.X. Of the Forms of a Commonwealth :

132. THE Majority having, as has been showed, upon men’s first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing, and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy;

135. For it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person or assembly which is legislator, it can be no more than those persons had in a state of Nature before they entered into society, and gave it up to the community. For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the arbitrary power of another; and having, in the state of Nature, no arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of Nature gave him for the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind, this is all he doth , or cab give up to the commonwealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative can have no more than this.

138. And, therefore, whatever form the commonwealth is under, the ruling power ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not by extemporary dictates and undertermined resolutions, for then mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the state of Nature if they shall have armed one or a few men with the joint power of a multitude, to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited decrees of their sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and till that moment, unknown wills, without having any measures set down which may guide and justify their actions.

140. It is true governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent – i.e., the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them; for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government. For what property have I in that which another may by right take when he pleases to himself?

Chap.XIII. Of the Subordinations of the Powers of the Commonwealth.:

155. The use of force without authority always puts him that uses it into a state of war as the aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly.

158. Whatsoever shall be done manifestly for the good of the people, and establishing the government upon its true foundation is, and always will be, just prerogative. The power of erecting new corporations, and therewith new representatives, carries with it a supposition that in time the measures of representation might vary, and those

Chap.XVI. Of Conquest.:

176. That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man’s right, can by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master, or that men are bound by promises which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain.

What is my remedy against a robber that so broke into my house? Appeal to the law for justice.

182. For it is the brutal force the aggressor has used that gives his adversary a right to take away his life and destroy him, if he pleases, as a noxious creature; but it is damage sustained that alone gives him title to another man’s goods; for though I may kill a thief that sets on me in the highway, yet I may not(which seems less) take away his money and let him go; this would be robbery on my side.

Chap.XIX. Of the Dissolution of Government.:

220. This is, in effect, no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of their liberty, and, when their chains are on, tell them they may act like free men.

222. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative(such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.

228. If the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has for peace sake to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of a peace there will be in the world which consists only in violence and rapine, and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf?

 

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