Is There A Cogent Defense Of Private Property? Essay - 1,132 words

Is there a cogent defense of private property? When we thoroughly examine Locke and Aristotles views on private property, it is evident that there is indeed a cogent defense of private property. Private property plays an important role in the theory of Locke. Locke answers several questions in his discussion of property. At what point does an item become private property? How does man acquire property? What amount of private property can a person have? How do you measure this amount? Locke also looks at how value and communities emerged from the establishment of property. For Locke, natural law, or law in the state of nature, begins and ends with the natural right of property. (Locke, 1994) Locke believed primitive man existed in a state of nature, which was one of peace, goodwill, and preservation.


In this state, property was common in the sense that everyone had an equal right to draw subsistence from whatever was offered in nature. Man had a natural right to that with which he mixed his labor. The fundamental idea behind this theory on private property was that by expending ones internal energy (owns labor power) upon something, that item became a part of oneself, or ones private property. This theory on property contained a second part, sometimes referred to as the spoilage proviso. The idea behind the spoilage proviso was that one was entitled to take out of the common only as much as one could make use of to ones advantage before it spoiled. (Locke, 1994) Whatever is taken beyond this is considered more than ones share and belonged to others.


As the population increased and as property took on value, there was a need for boundaries between the private properties of different owners. For it is labor indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing (Locke, 1994). What Locke is saying here is that the more labor that is put into harvesting a corn field, the more the corn the proprietor will get out of the land, and the more value the land will have. Locke says of the products of the earth useful to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labor (Locke, 1994). In effect, the increase of land meant an increase in the employment of land, which built the foundations for the cities, industry, and government that emerged. Private property led to bartering, usually trading non-perishable items such as money, for perishable items such as fruit. As Locke states it, man is exceeding the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession (Locke, 1994).


The invention of money, a private property, gave man the opportunity to enlarge his possessions, status, and wealth. Lockes theory of property emerged in the sixteenth century. We need to examine a scenario to understand how Lockes theory applies to the nineteenth century. Lockes theory of property can not incorporate each person into its meaning. The information that Locke wrote applied to the sixteenth century. This is by no means Lockes fault because he could not predict the way of life in the twentieth century.


God gave the world to mankind for everyone to share. God created the world so that everything, including everyone would be equal. We know that the world was useless without labor. What ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: private property, middle class, locke, good life, labor

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