REH asks:
"How far does "property" go and how is it determined? Did
the Colonists truly not ask and discuss this question?
Also what about the Calvinist doctrine of the elect? In
his language "Landowner" is very close to "Godliness" or the
Elect. At one point some of the founding fathers wanted
only the landowners to vote."
SS replies:
It is hard to imagine a historical TEXT more salient to the
future of work than John Locke's "2nd Treatise of
Government" (1690)(3 years after Newton's *Principia*,
1687).
I'm probably recycling material first shared on FW in 1996
or something, but what the hell - this is very relevant to
every sort of trying to think things through *especially*
because unless we *remember* what happened, we're in danger
of not understanding what surrounds us.
So - herwewith some EXCERPTS [with commentary] from locke on
WORK, PROPERTY, and RIGHTS ---->
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FROM:
John Locke (1632-1704), from "The Second Treatise of
Government" [*An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent,
and End of Civil Government*] (1690).
Cap. V Of Property
§25. ... '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. But this being supposed, it
seems to some a very great difficulty, how anyone should
ever come to have a Property in any thing... But I shall
endeavour to shew how Men might come to have a property in
several parts of that which God gave to Mankind in common,
and that without any express Compact of all the Commoners.
[here, then, an argument, not from utility but from 1st
principles (reason) and revelation, as to the nature and
legitimation of private property, or "appropriation" - SS]
§27. Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common
to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person.
This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his
Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly
his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature
hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour
with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and
thereby makes it his Property. It being removed by him from
the common state Nature placed it in, 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 joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as
good left in common for others.
[so, human labour + nature = a new thing: private property.
*Nota bene* the qualifier: as long as there is enough for
others!]
§28. He that is nourished by the Acorns he pickt up under
an Oak, or the Apples he gathered from the trees in the
Wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No Body
can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, When did
they begin to be his? When he digested? Or when he eat? Or
when he boiled? Or when he brought them home? Or when he
pickt them up? And 'tis plain, if the first gathering made
them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a
distinction between them and common. That added something to
them more than Nature, the common Mother of all, had done;
and so they became his private right. And will anyone say he
had no right to those Acorns or Apples he thus appropriated,
because he had not the consent of all Mankind to make them
his? Was it a Robbery thus to assume to himself what
belonged to all in Common? If such a consent as that was
necessary, Man had starved, notwithstanding the Plenty God
had given him. We see in Commons, which remain so by
Compact, that 'tis the taking any part of what is common,
and removing it out of the state Nature leaves it in, which
begins the Property; without which the Common is of no use.
And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the
express consent of all the Commoners. Thus the Grass my
Horse has bit; the Turfs my servant has cut; and the Ore I
have digg'd in any place where I have a right to them in
common with others, become my Property, without the
assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was
mine, removing them out of that common state they were in,
hath fixed my Property in them.
[NB: the famous "turfs" argument here at the end. CB
MacPherson - in his *Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism* - made a proper fuss about this, noting that
Locke here *assumes without argument* that the labour of his
servant is *his labour*!! Therefore Locke is assuming,
without argument, that labour is alienable, like any other
commodity I might own, it can be transferred to another by
exchange.]
§31. ... It will perhaps be objected to this, That if
gathering the Acorns, or other Fruits of the Earth, &c.
makes a right to them, then any one may ingross as much as
he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same Law of Nature,
that does by this means give us Property, does also bound
that Property too. God has given us all things richly, 1
Tim. vi. 17. is the Voice of Reason confirmed by
Inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As
much as anyone 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...
[NB: that for Locke God & Reason have decreed: to each only
according to his needs. This is why, for Locke, this whole
equitable business is *destroyed* by the invention of MONEY,
which, more's the pity, does not rot.]
§40. ... Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before
consideration it may appear, that the Property of Labour
should be able to overballance the Community of Land. For
'tis Labour indeed that puts the difference of value on
every thing; and let anyone consider, what the difference is
between an Acre of Land planted with Tobacco, or Sugar, sown
with Wheat or Barley; and an Acre of the same Land lying in
common, without any Husbandry upon it, and he will find,
that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of
the value. I think it will be but a very modest Computation
to say, that of the Products of the Earth useful to the Life
of Man 9/10 are the effects of labour: nay, if we will
rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up
the several Expenses about them, what in them is purely
owing to Nature, and what to labour, we shall find, that in
most of them 99/100 are wholly to be put on the account of
labour.
[Note here that Locke is enunciating a ("the") famous labour
theory of value which will be taken up both by Adam Smith
and Karl Marx.]
[AND NOW - in what is, for me, the most *remarkable* passage
in the whole text, Locke explains WHY we must recognize that
each of has a god-given, inalienable RIGHT to life, liberty,
and property. It is NOT self-evident that we do.]
Cap. I
§6. ... The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern
it, which obliges every one: And Reason, which is that Law,
teaches all Mankind, who will but consult it, that being all
equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions. For Men being all the
Workmanship of one Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker;
All the Servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the
World by his order and about his business, they are his
Property, whose Workmanship they are, made to last during
his, not one anothers Pleasure.
["THEY ARE *HIS* *PROPERTY*"!! This is why we have
inalienable rights. We are God's property, that special
mixture of *God's Labour* with "nature" (dust), and that is
why each of us is inviolate in our projects. It follows that
without this theological justification, the grounds of our
"rights" disappear. And indeed, in an unpublished ms. Locke
speculated on our situation if god is dead ... he says, I
paraphrase "If men were not beings dependent on their
creator, then each man would be "a god to himself" and his
own wants the sole measure of his actions.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can see how resonant this is with more recent texts and
arguments, how full it is with notions of productive labour
and the bounds on such. It speaks to Ray's questions: who
has property in what?; who is godly (and thus elect)?; who
is a landowner & why is he entitled?.
Most recently, in a BC Supreme Court decision (appealed &
overturned at the Federal level), the Delgamuukw case,
Locke's argument was used to *deny* that the native
inhabitants of BC had a legitimate claim of *property* in
land (except where *cultivated*): wandering about, foraging
and hunting, do *not* establish a property right.
See:
http://www.delgamuukw.org/
the Internet's most extensive collection of resources
relating to the Delgamuukw decision.
Anyway, Locke gave us a text much to conjure with ... as
they do down at the Center for Biblical Law and Economics.
Enuf for now ...
Stephen Straker
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Vancouver, B.C.
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