Week Two – Theresa
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From Locke’s Treatise of Civil Government,
“property” and “labour”
“Every man has a property to his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.” (5.27) Property is something that belongs to a person and cannot belong to anyone else. Locke argues that property should be sufficient to fulfill needs, and no more. Locke does not use “property” quite the way we use it today—property is supposedly something we carve out from nature by applying effort. However, Locke repeatedly emphasizes that the taking of more property than is needed is harmful to others. He implies that the converting of property into the more-permanent money is a bad shift, and allows people to hoard property.
“It is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing.” (5.40) Not only does applying labour create property, it creates value itself. Locke compares untilled land to one that is farmed, and apples on a tree to apples gathered by a person. This is important to his general argument because Locke is trying to say that we should only possess that which we labored upon. This would prevent the problem of hoarding, and in Locke-land of bountiful resources, if everyone was restricted by the amount of labour they could apply, there would always be enough resources for everyone.
Property and labour are two key points in Locke’s text. Property is important because it is the focus of section five, and Locke is explaining his ideal world where there is no conflict over property. Labour is important because it is the way Locke defines property. Regarding what a person owns, Locke writes, “the labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.” (5.27) The entire section five of Locke’s treatise of civil government is trying to define property, and Locke does so by saying labour creates property.
Locke assumes that property is made, rather than bought — and you’re right that that’s a difference that is true through the whole section: even when he’s talking about exchanging gold for goods, he’s assuming that gold is a symbol of property or labor. Reading your post, I was struck by the fact that I don’t think of money in quite that way, but as separate — even though the money that I get and spend is definitely coming from a job, rather than a trust fund or stock dividends or anything like that. The idea of making money by selling something that I have put labor into seems strange and foreign to me (perhaps to you, as well?) You write “Not only does applying labour create property, it creates value itself,” so I’m led to ask: what’s the difference between property and labor? Is there a difference in how they can be used, how they can be owned? Does the way that Locke sees them change over the course of the chapter, and can you point to specific sections where you see his thinking evolve?
I think that it would be really interesting to see you expand upon this idea with the question that Paige asked above. Also, I noticed that you write that Locke uses property in a different manner than we do today, and it got me thinking about whether or not his ideas translate well to our idea of property and even labour today
I like how you incorporated quotes to show us the importance of the two terms. You explained to us the significance of the property and labour in Locke’s essay. Do you believe that you can incorporate his ideology in today’s society or even in your life? If so why or why not? Is this a positive/negative thing? DO you think this ideology on property and labour continue in the future?
Locke seems to progress from “things you work on are yours” to “the space you work on is yours,” as in “But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former.” (5.32)
His ideas seem a little (or a lot) outdated for the way we use money now. How often do you, when buying lunch at Chiptole, think “this is worth one hour of my time”? Or maybe when you are considering whether or not to buy a new pair of pants, or getting tickets for a concert. To us, money is nearly abstract, especially when we start thinking of larger sums. We can’t think of labor and property the same way Locke did because we can sell our work (value added) without gaining possession of what we worked on, there is not an infinite amount of resources, and money doesn’t just represent physical objects.