Getting Past Locke: On Property, Use, and the Assumption of Common Ownership
For centuries, John Locke has cast a long shadow over the political and social development of our society. Locke, perhaps more than anyone else, is responsible for our ideas about private property. Although few of us today would explicitly agree with all of his thoughts on the subject, his assumptions remain unyielding in our conception. But Locke’s assumptions are deeply flawed and must be reexamined — even if we only wish to save private property rights in the long run.
Like his counterparts, Locke was interested in how sovereign authority could be justified to all men. In the 17th century, this manifested in how governance could be justified from a “state of nature.” But philosophers were also interested in a more unusual and anachronistic problem of justification. As Christians, many European philosophers believed that the earth had been given to all of humanity as a universal gift, which implied its existence was, at least at first, entirely common property. However, as loyal subjects of monarchs and landed aristocrats, philosophers were curious about how this common property could become private and how it could stay that way.
Locke neatly outlines his unprecedented innovation to the problem in his Second Treatise of Government:
The earth, and all that is…
