The Symbol & Reality of Property for Locke
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John Locke wrote at a time of social unrest and questioning, at a time when the long-standing sovereignty of kings as ordained by God was being questioned. Locke did not see the power of kings as derived from the will of God but rather as developing as the result of some social condition. Locke asked first what state man would be in if there were no government, and he found that human beings originated in the state of nature, the state that existed before human beings came together to form a society and a government. Locke saw this state of nature is placing the individual into a state of perfect freedom, with no necessity to ask any other person before determining his or her own actions or disposing of their own property. Property was an essential element in Locke's thinking, with the relationship of the individual to his property as being of paramount importance. The ownership of property was seen as a fundamental right, meaning that it was a right born in the state of nature. For Locke, the defense of individual liberty is inseparable from the defense of private property. The individual in society does not have absolute freedom, showing that something has been lost from the state of nature. Locke sees human beings as having agreed to give up certain rights and powers through some form of agreement. Society is thus formed when men cede certain powers to a central authority. Private property rights are to be protected by this state that has been created--human bein
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rty makes property and rights essentially the same sort of thing. An incursion into one is an incursion into the other. Property as defined by Locke is linked to the physical person because it is a product of the labor of that physical person. Property in the external world is thus brought into being through the labor of the essential property of the body. The exercise of rights is to allow such labor and to protect the right of the individual to labor and thus to create property. Both rights and property depend first on the gift of God and second on the consent of others in society, and this is where the social contract enters in as individuals band together and accept the concept of private property, the concept that their labor produces private property which can then be protected from others.
For this reason, property is essential to Locke's conception of rights as something that can be protected, and he says that property gives the political quality to personality. One problem here is that Locke does not always make it clear which definition of property he is using in a given context. It is clear, however, that he was prepared to allow material property to stand for many or all the abstract rights of the individual,
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Approximate Word count = 2156
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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