John Locke on property and price. Of Property, 1 Chapter V of Lockes - PDF document

John Locke on property and price. “Of Property”, 1 Chapter V of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government , has prompted much analysis and debate by political philosophers, particularly among the Cambridge school of intellectual historians such as Dunn, Laslett and Tully. It seems, however, to have left historians of economic theory somewhat underwhelmed (e.g. Viner, 1963, p558). In those of his published works recognised as being economic in subject, specifically those on money, there are only three references to “property” and none in the context of the arguments of Chapter V. Yet, while the principle purpose of this chapter was to expound the origins of property, this also led Locke to an explanation of the very foundation of market exchange. Being an influential book that was read by many of the eighteenth century intelligentsia in Britain and Europe, and particularly by those with a concern for matters political such as the political economists, one hazards that it ought to be of passing interest to historians` of economic theory. 2 This chapter is also notable in an avowedly polemical work 3 , for being entirely an argumentum ad judicium : i.e. by Locke’s lights it is a piece of scientific analysis. Moreover, as Tully has pointed out: ‘It is important to remember that Locke wrote chapter 5 independently of the Two treatises (sic.) and then rather awkwardly spliced it into the text.’ (Tully, 1993, p133).The economics it contains is intentionally scientific, although this warrants some qualification, as will be noted. 1 In the Two Treatises Locke usually employed the term “property” to denote ‘… Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property .’ (Locke, 1988, p350) but as Laslett has stated, the exception was Chapter V, ‘Of Property’, in which it is confined to material possessions (Laslett, 1988, p102) 2 Smith possessed a copy of the Two Treatises (Mizuta, p113). 3 Thus the title page announces that in the First Treatise ‘The False Principles of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers ARE Detected and Overthrown’ (Locke, 1988, p135), the allusion to argumentum ad hominem here is clear. 1

Why Locke should advance his own explanation for the existence of property is clear: it was to refute the justification for the king’s rule by divine right, as propounded by Sir Robert Filmer in his Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings . In essence, Filmer argued that the world was the property of kings inherited from Adam who had received it in gift from the hand of God (Genesis 28). Having demolished Filmer’s argument regarding property in the First Treatise Locke was then obliged to provide an alternative in the Second , one that supported the political position of the Whig critics of the King’s party, while also justifying his replacement by William of Orange. All this Locke had to achieve while simultaneously not providing any avenue down which his opponents could attack him, the author, or his and his associates’ interests by an argumentum ad hominem such as he so effectively employed in the First Treatise . The analysis presented in Chapter 5 is premised upon both revelation and reason: it begins, ‘Whether he consider natural Reason , which tells us, that Men, being once born, have a right to their Preservation, and consequently to Meat and Drink, and such other things, as Nature affords for their Subsistence: Or Revelation , which gives us an account of those Grants God made of the World to Adam , and to Noah , and his sons, ‘tis very clear, that God, as King David says, Psal . CXV. Xvi, has given the Earth to the children of Men , given it to Mankind in common.’ (Locke, 1988, pp285-6). Locke’s argument commences from the natural law imperative of the ‘preservation’ of man, both as a species and individually, and the revealed fact of the gift of the world to mankind in the person of Adam: Not to Adam exclusively, as an individual, as Filmer would have it. 2

Locke continues, ‘That by this Grant God gave him not Private Dominion over the Inferior Creatures, but right in common with all Mankind; so neither was he Monarch, upon the account of the Property here [Gen. I. 28] given him.’ ( ibid ., p157) This original state Locke referred to as the State of Nature which, while it predates civil society, ‘…has a Law of Nature to govern it…’ and under that law all the world was the common property of all men for the purpose of their preservation, for this common property right consisted in‘… a Right to make use of a part of the Earth for the support of themselves and Families …’ ( ibid ., p166). Having, however, thus refuted Filmer’s primary substantiation of royal rule by divine right Locke was left with the problem of how to explain the empirical fact of private property. When Locke composed the bulk of his Two Treatises in the years 1679-83 4 , with some final additions made just before publication in 1689 (Locke, 1988, p65), he had at his disposal an alternative theory of private property provided by the natural law tradition as developed by scholars such as Grotius and Pufendorf, and originating in the Code of Justinian. At his death Locke possessed in his library the Corpus Juris Civilis , two copies of the Institutes of Justinian (Harrison and Laslett, 1971, p164) and two commentaries on civil law ( ibid ., pp 132 & 145); of course, these he may have acquired at any time, being a serious scholar of Latin (Clay, 1990, p74). Whilst still at Oxford, however, and typical of his class, he had been contemplating entering the profession of law, it would seem reasonable to assume, therefore, that he had studied that subject to some extent as an undergraduate: in Oxford the teaching of civil law, as opposed to the common law of the Inns of Court, persisted through to the nineteenth century (Stein, 1999, p124). The Corpus and Institutes were basic texts in the civil law tradition so it is likely that he had read them by about 1680. 4 Laslett has concluded that Locke had not worked out his theory of property as expressed in Chapter V until this period, (Laslett, 1988, p34) 3

According to this tradition, proprietary right could be established over anything not yet claimed, by the first to do so; i.e. the doctrine of res nullius : ‘Wild beasts, birds, fish, and all animals, which live either in the sea, the air, or on the earth, so soon as they are taken by any one, immediately become by the law of nations the property of the captor; for natural reason gives to the first occupant that which had no previous owner.’ (Justinian, 1869, LIB. II TIT. I., D. xli. l. l. 12., p172). Locke argued that in the beginning nothing had been appropriated by any individual, for all was held in common by all of mankind from the hand of God. Yet it was necessary that individuals should be able to appropriate that which was needed for their sustenance: ‘God, who hath given the World to Men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and convenience. The Earth, and all that is therein, is given to Men for the Support and Comfort of their being. … yet being given for the use of Men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular Man.’ (Locke, 1988, pp286-7): Without appropriation individuals would perish, which was contrary to the survival imperative of natural law. In Justinian and the natural law tradition this appropriation was achieved by the consent of all. This, however, Locke could not accept, for the emphasizing of the impracticality of this had been employed by Filmer in his criticism of this natural law explanation of proprietary right ( ibid ., p286n). With this Locke agreed: ‘If such a consent as that was necessary, Man had starved, notwithstanding the Plenty God had given him.’ ( ibid ., p288). Such a perverse contradiction could not be accepted as God’s will. Besides, he was especially concerned to explain the origin of private property in the first days, in the state of 4