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John Locke was the son of a wealthy family who sought to maintain and justify his family's wealth in the chapter “Of Property” in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke believes that the purpose of government is to protect property and that societies were set up to avoid civil or foreign wars that may occur over the dispute of property. Locke attempts to rationalize the right of men having “unequal possessions of the earth” (Locke 29), but fails because he does not recognize that unequal ownership of property does not allow for the basis of his argument that ownership of property is only justified if there is good and enough for others (Locke, 20).
Locke believes that at the beginning man lived in common ownership of the earth (Locke, 18). Man is blessed with the ownership of property in his own person (Locke, 19). Rousseau argues, the contrary, saying man is not property. When man combines his labour, with land that is common to all men, he appropriates property in the land he tilled (Locke, 20). Ownership of anything was the fruit of man’s labor. The man who picks the apples has ownership in those apples, because he combined his labour with that of nature (Locke, 19). Like Rousseau, Locke discusses the State of Nature. Locke’s State of Nature differs from Rousseau’s. Locke believes man in the State of Nature has the right to:
as much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by god for man to spoil or destroy. (Locke, 20)
Man obtained property through his labour and the availability that there was good and enough for others and that he would not appropriate more than he can use. Locke’s argument so far is sound, but greedy. However, when he tries to use this argument as the foundation of his justification for unequal property he contradicts himself.
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