Private Property: Origins, Outcomes, Justifications

Social contract theorists believed that individuals consented to a legal system that protected that which belonged to them. Be it life, property or power, each theorist had their own conception of what people wanted protected and why they agreed to a system of law. John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau both saw the protection of private property as the primary purpose of government. Similarly, they shared the belief that the concept of private property emerged in the state of nature. Nonetheless, their thoughts diverged when discussing the morality of the inequality which arose because of private property. Locke saw inequality as an acceptable natural consequence of private property. Rousseau held it as an avoidable evil. Locke’s defense of the inequality which private property creates is erroneous because it relies on the legitimacy of the process it derives from. To demonstrate this, this paper will discuss each philosopher’s views on the origin of the right to property and their respective views on the morality of the outcomes of private property. Finally, using Robert Nozick’s account of the relationship between processes and outcomes, I will demonstrate that Locke’s defense of inequality is illegitimate because the legitimacy of Locke’s conception of private property relies on rights which do not exist in nature.

In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke saw private property originating in the state of nature. A fundamental assumption he makes is that “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”[1]. The “common” refers to the resources of Earth, which humans have unlimited access to use to survive. God gave humans reason so that they could utilize the common to increase their quality of life. However, to fully utilize the common, “there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use”[2]. This assumption instils the divine conditions to create a system of private property, since such a system is a “means to appropriate” the God given common to increase comfort and wellbeing.

Locke believes that the first natural source of property was each human’s “property in his own person: this no body has the right to but himself”[3]. A human has a natural claim to themselves, no other can own the property which is one’s body. This includes the utilization of one’s body: “the labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his”[4]. One’s labour naturally belongs to them and no one else. When attempting to improve one’s quality of life, a human must take from the common. When said human utilizes the common by way of their labour, “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”[5]. When an individual increases the value of a good through labour, no other human has the right to benefit from the value added to the good. The right to life, achieved through labour, creates the right to property[6]. Since the right to property is a means to achieving the right to improve one’s condition, it is also a natural right.

Locke distinguishes between owning land and owning a good, but finds their value both derived from labour[7]. “It is the labour then which puts the greatest part of the value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any thing”[8]. In the case of land, it produces little value to humans until they labour over it. Similarly, Locke looks at the value of the goods we enjoy: “For whatever bread is more worth than acorns, wine than water […] that is wholly owing to labour and industry”[9]. Since the person owns their labour, they must own the output of their labour, that is the value of their creation. If a baker bakes a loaf of bread, no one else has a claim to the value which their labour diffused when they transformed flour to bread. Locke argues that the need for a protective mechanism to ensure one benefits from the value they create “necessarily introduces private possessions”[10]. This exclusive right gives assurance that the farmer will realize the benefits of their cultivation and the baker will realize the profit of their loaf[11].

Nonetheless, Locke saw limits on the extent to which one could accumulate private property. “As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in”[12]. Michael P. Zuckert labels this the “spoilage limitation”[13]. That is, one can claim ownership of a good insofar as it does not reduce the bounty of the common by spoiling in their possession[14]. The spoilage limitation stems from Locke’s axiom that God gave the common for the use of the betterment of humankind. If humans waste what is in the common, they have wasted the opportunity God gave them to improve their condition. Money served as a solution to the spoilage limitation as it is “some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling”[15]. To avoid the spoilage limitation, humans “by mutual consent”[16] traded perishable goods for non-perishable metals. This allowed them to accumulate excess resources, which enabled boundless appropriation of the common.

This constitutes a brief overview of Locke’s account on the natural right to property. Humans would go on to “divest himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society” in order to “secure enjoyment of their properties”[17]. Since humans had complete natural liberty in the state of nature, one could still lose their private property to a violent act. Thus, civil society placed the necessary limitations on people to encourage respect for the natural right to property.

The outcome of private property was the development of Earth as well the development of inequality between humans. Locke saw how private property led to a “partage of things in an inequality of private possessions”[18]. The introduction of money overrode the spoilage limitation and encouraged greater production, however in turn it enabled the growth of the inequality of possessions. Locke celebrated this: “Where there is not something, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions”[19]. Without property, there is no incentive to fulfil God’s mandate for humankind to develop the Earth. Thus, the outcomes of such a system of organization are merely a necessary evil to all the benefits it derives. Locke argues that “[God] gave [the common] to the use of the industrious and rational, not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious”[20]. Therefore, inequality is a legitimate consequence of the legitimate system of private property in which “the industrious and rational” fulfil the God given mandate to use the Earth to improve their condition more effectively than the “quarrelsome and contentious”.

Rousseau offers his own interpretation on the origins and moral outcomes of inequality. Similar to Locke, in On the Social Contract, Rousseau will begin the search for the origin of private property in the state of nature. “In the state of nature where everything is commonly held, I owe nothing to those to whom I have promised nothing”[21]. Rousseau sees the state of nature as pure anarchy. In this state, no individual’s claim to a parcel of the common has the effect to create an obligation on another human. The only real right which exists in the state of nature is “natural liberty”, which is defined as the “unlimited right to everything that tempts him and that he can acquire”[22]. Rousseau even dismisses the idea of the right of the strongest. “Force is a physical power; I fail to see what morality can result from its effects”[23]. While some say that in a state of nature justice is the will of the strongest, Rousseau dismisses this, demonstrating that he effectively sees no natural rights in the state of nature other than unlimited liberty. This contrasts Locke’s stance that one has a God given natural right to life and property in the state of nature. When commenting on the outcomes of a state, he says “the state is master of all their goods in virtue of the social contract, which serves in the state as the basis of all rights”[24]. Reaffirming his claim that no rights exist in the state of nature, Rousseau argues that rights only come into existence when people consent to them through the social contract.

So how does private property emerge? In the state of nature, Rousseau supposes that humans create property through the “right of first occupant”[25]. The right of first occupant is legitimate when three conditions are met. First, the land can not be occupied; second, no one can occupy more than they need to survive; third, one can only claim possession through labouring over the land[26]. These are the conditions in which property can exist in the state of nature. Departing from Locke’s argument that a natural right emerges through occupancy and labour, Rousseau contends that “the right of first occupant, though more real than the right of the strongest, does not become a true right until after the establishment of the right of property”[27]. Since no real rights exist in the state of nature except unlimited liberty, the right of first occupant imparts no obligation on another human until the social contract converts occupancy into private property.

The Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality provides greater insight into Rousseau’s view on how property emerges as a right. Prior to a social contract being created, “there arose between the right of the strongest and the right of the first occupant a perpetual conflict that ended only in fights and murders”[28]. Those who claimed a stake to a resource by virtue of first occupancy were constantly being challenged by those who had nothing. Those with nothing constantly attacked the property holders and consequently there was no advantage to being a member of either class. Accordingly, the property holders devised a social contract which “destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and of inequality, changed adroit usurpation into an irrevocable right”[29]. The contract codified the right of first occupant which legitimized the inequality that resulted from such a system. This surmises Rousseau’s views on the foundations of private property.

Rousseau is extremely critical of the outcomes of this system. Challenging the wealth of landowners, he asks, “are you unaware that a multitude of your brothers perish or suffer from need of what you have in excess”[30]. Rousseau sees the suffering which results from private property as an unjustified evil outcome. He believes that a social compact should “substitutes a moral and legitimate equality to what ever physical inequality nature may have been able to impose upon men”[31]. Realizing the natural inequality of humans, Rousseau sees a just social contract serving to mitigate natural differences rather than legitimize them.

When comparing the origins of private property Rousseau and Locke agreed on two precepts. First, they both saw private property originating when a first occupant laboured over a resource or land. Second, they agreed that the social contract was a means to protects one’s private property from the brutish outcomes which natural liberty allows for. When comparing the outcomes of private property, they both agreed that it would lead to inequality. The point of contention which arises is on the moral significance of this inequality. Locke believes inequality is a legitimate outcome which stems from the divine right humans have to improve their condition using the common. Rousseau saw inequality as a natural injustice which reason and intelligent organization could overcome. So, who is correct?

The 20th century libertarian Robert Nozick’s views have been described as closest to, and influenced by, Locke’s Second Treatise[32]. Nozick provides an extension to Locke’s justification for inequality through his own views in Anarchy, State and Utopia. When commenting on the equal or unequal outcomes of society he says that:

On the entitlement conception of justice on holdings, one cannot decide whether the state must do something to alter the situation merely by looking at a distributional profile or at facts such as these. It depends upon how the distribution came about. Some processes yielding results would be legitimate, and the various parties would be entitled to their respective holdings. If these distributional facts did arise by a legitimate process, then they themselves are legitimate.[33]

Put simply, if the laws governing a system are legitimate, then it does not matter what the outputs of that system are. This lens of thought would defend Locke’s view that inequality is a reasonable consequence of the right to property. Since private property is a divinely legitimate means to appropriate the common, the outcomes of this system, though less than ideal, are also legitimate.

Yet, the reverse of Nozick’s philosophy implies that if the process was not legitimate then the outcomes are also not legitimate. Hence, if any aspect of Locke’s account of property, ‘the process’, can be deemed illegitimate then one could reasonably say that the inequality which emerges as a result of this system is illegitimate.

The flaw in Locke’s argument, which Rousseau accounts for, is the notion that private property of the common can come into fruition before a social contract. Rousseau reminds us that in the state of nature “you are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one”[34]. Locke relies on the assumption that God gave humans the common to improve their condition and labour was their means to do so. He argues labour instils a natural right to ownership of that laboured part of the common. This is not the case. Just because a farmer grew a field of corn does not mean that land divinely becomes their own. In the state of nature, natural liberty allows any other human to come kill the farmer and claim the corn their own. They killer didn’t labour over the land, but can now benefit from the corn until someone else tries to challenge their claim. Clearly, natural liberty still takes supremacy to any conception of rights in the state of nature. Thus, since the process which private property came into fruition is not legitimate we can not reasonably say that the inequality which results is legitimate. This demonstrates that Locke can not justify the inequality which emerges in society based on the claim of a legitimate process.

Locke may reply to this argument saying that Lockean private property is the only effective means of encouraging production. When addressing the notion of humans taking from the common without consent from the rest of the humankind Locke contends that “if such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him”[35]. While this fact of inefficiency may be true, and property may be the only realistic method to appropriate the common, this fact of inconvenience does not serve as a moral justification for inequality.

In conclusion, this paper summarized the arguments put forth for the source of property given by Locke and Rousseau. It then discussed each respective philosopher’s views on the morality of the outcomes of private property. Following that, using Robert Nozick’s lens on the relationship between processes and outcomes, the paper demonstrated that Locke can not claim the inequality which stems from private property to be legitimate.

[1] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1689), in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wootton, 2nd edn. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), p.293.

[2] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.293.

[3] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.293.

[4] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.293.

[5] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.293.

[6] Zuckert, Michael P. 1994. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

[7] Zuckert, Michael P. 1994. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

[8] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.297.

[9] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.297.

[10] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.295.

[11] Zuckert, Michael P. 1994. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p.266.

[12] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.294.

[13] Zuckert, Michael P. 1994. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. 266.

[14] Zuckert, Michael P. 1994. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. 266.

[15] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.299.

[16] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.299.

[17] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.312.

[18] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.299.

[19] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.299.

[20] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.295.

[21] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract (1762), in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wootton, 2nd edn. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), p. 441.

[22] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, p.434.

[23] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, p.429.

[24] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, p.434.

[25] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, p.435.

[26] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, p.435.

[27] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, p.435.

[28] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of the Inequality Among Men (1755), in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wootton, 2nd edn. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), p.401.

[29] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.402.

[30] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.401.

[31] Rousseau, On The Social Contract, ed. Wootton, pp.435–436.

[32] 2015. Anarchy, State and Utopia: An Advanced Guide. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, p. 10.

[33] Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books Inc, p. 232.

[34] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.395.

[35] Locke, Second Treatise, in Modern Political Thought, ed. Wootton, p.293.