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Sunday, June 8, 2014

The real right to property is contingent on "reason" -- Locke


I was astounded when I read numerous articles that claimed to found their arguments on John Locke, and then compared them to what he actually said. The difference was astounding and the deception goes back centuries, definitely to Edmund Burke [See the article: "Edmund Burke Versus John Locke"], but probably further back as well. So far reading him carefully I've found that he basically makes a very modern case that:

Related articles:

Rights come from below: John Locke's exegesis and what it tells us.
Folks don't realize that it was John Locke who first translated the concept of "civitis" as "commonwealth."
The Concept of Commonwealth as antidote to Tyranny (and essentially introduced a new refinement to the concept).

Many modern folks don't understand exegesis, mostly because they divide between folks who think that all fictional literature is somehow lies and myths, and those who understand what exegesis is and how folks used to use the bible to reason reasonably, and then proceed to bamboozle congregants with faulty interpretation and sophism. But believe it or not, thinking for oneself doesn't preclude understanding and reasoning. Locke used exegesis to justify his arguments because he lived in a time when religious legalism dominated society. However, he was revolutionary because he, like many protestants of his time, freed it of the chains of authoritarianism and self serving arguments and was able to reveal the legitimate truths contained. In that sense he redeemed protestantism from it's usurpation by generations of unreasoning authority.

The key to the enlightenment is that this use of "reason" moderates the violence and self serving greed and destructiveness of fanaticism and authoritarianism.

Taking property out of the Commons

So indeed Locke's Chapter 5 of book 2 is part of an exegesis taken from Biblical arguments and intended to argue against Aristocratic ownership of land and "Divine Right of Kings"(See above). The word "fence" is less important than the concept of mixing labor with property, and he's originally referring to general property including things like acorns. His core argument about "fencing" the commons actually is about property in general and not only land property:


Like previous passages this is informed by Genesis but not as explicitly. Here he's appealing to reason and saying that people own what they eat, in this case literally:


The next paragraph is nearly directly from the bible. As it is a reference to Leviticus:

"{19:9} And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. {19:10} And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather [every] grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I [am] the LORD your God."

Originally people (Christians and Jews at least) were supposed to leave something for the poor and strangers. Greedy farming violates Leviticus and is highly unKosher. Locke knew this and is referring to both this and new Testament teachings that are even more adamant about not starving and dispossessing people.


Beginning a Property

"It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this “labour” being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others."

Locke is asserting a natural (inalienable/unalienable) right to property in labor here. Righties like to blame Marx for this but it came from Locke, as well as an assertion that people have a right to eat apples from trees in the woods or find something to eat. We have a right to "mix property with labor:"


This is a famous quote, much abused. He's not talking about the aristocrats right to enclose property, take farms for non-payment from broken farmers, and treat people like dirt. But the right of commoners to own their labor, to eat, to sleep, to acquire food and eat it.


And of course modern cons would end this idea and oppressors have enforced just this assertion again and again from enslaving prisoners to making orphans beg for a second helping of gruel (Dickens). But this is an appeal to reason and common sense, as well as an explicit reading out from biblical teachings.


And such is how one has "begun a property"

Within Reason

But he notes that property ownership has to be within reason:


Thus the right to property is always both an inalienable right, and one conditioned on "reason". If folks would read Locke more carefully they'd see he anticipates the arguments of progressives, FDR's "Second Bill of Rights", and efforts to reign in greed and oppression. But of course his writings have been misused by people who are schooled in sophistry and it's sophisticated justifications for authoritarianism and tyranny.

All sources are from my personal copy of John Lockes. In this case all the pages 115 to 117 (read:

Two Treatises of Government,
"In the Former, The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown: The Latter, Is an Essay Concerning the Original, Extent, and End, of Civil Government" by John Locke
from The Works of John Locke.
A New Edition, Corrected.
.In Ten Volumes. Vol. V.
Prepared by Rod Hay for the McMaster University Archive of the History of EconomicThought

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