In Locke’s Second Treatise, there is an apparent tension between a citizen’s right to accumulate what “can [be] ma[d]e use of to any advantage of [human] life before it spoils” and the citizen’s responsibility to leave “enough, and as good […] in common for others” (§31; §27). While Leo Strauss argues that Locke justifies “unlimited appropriation without concern for the need of others,” Thomas Dunn argues that Locke allows unlimited appropriation only insofar as it does not hinder the right of citizens to “maintain their capacities at their fullest” to promote the public good (Straus 242; Dunn 252). In this essay, I will show that Locke’s faith in unlimited acquisition of property still concerns itself with the need of others and tends to
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With this invention of money, Strauss argues that “the terrors of natural law no longer strike the covetous, but the waster” (Strauss 237). The producer is allowed to produce goods as long as he can sell them and thus prevent them from spoiling in his care. As a result of money and the creation of civil society, he says that “land” is “scarce” and, through the invention of money, he quotes Locke as saying how “gold and silver” have become “so valuable to be hoarded up” (Strauss 240; Locke §48). Yet, despite a need for “severer restrictions on appropriation…Locke teaches the opposite”; Locke does not impose greater restrictions on appropriations that would force potential appropriators into having a greater “concern for others” (Strauss 240, 242). This absence of a greater restriction on the acquisition of property leads Strauss to conclude that Locke believed unlimited acquisition acts in the public interest; he states, “far from being straitened by the emancipation of acquisitiveness, the poor are enriched by it” (Strauss 242). Citing Locke §41, Strauss goes so far as to say the “day laborer in England has no natural right even to complain about the loss of his natural …show more content…
Dunn quotes a letter from Locke in which Locke states his intention to bind every person to “labor for the common good” (“Some Familiar Letters”). Following Calvinist teachings, when labor is no longer pursued for the common good and becomes “pursued merely for its delights,” it becomes “simply recreation” and fails to ingratiate oneself to God (Dunn 251). Locke thus criticized those who, “through sin, lived their lives in vicious self-indulgence” as living contrary to the “laws of reason” for they would be punished for not fulfilling God’s divine plan to enrich the Earth (Dunn 254). Yet, Thomas Dunn writes, “social inequality became a target only when it entrenched upon” the abilities of individuals to pursue labor for the common good (Dunn 250). When, for example, the “exploiter” of a market leads “another man to starve,” he had no more right to do so than a conqueror does to cause the children of those who he has vanquished “to starve and perish”; in both cases, it is morally wrong for the perpetrator entrenches upon the ability for another to labor at his calling (Dunn 247; Locke §184). Thus, gross social inequality, when it forces people out of jobs, is considered wrong. If one man,
With this invention of money, Strauss argues that “the terrors of natural law no longer strike the covetous, but the waster” (Strauss 237). The producer is allowed to produce goods as long as he can sell them and thus prevent them from spoiling in his care. As a result of money and the creation of civil society, he says that “land” is “scarce” and, through the invention of money, he quotes Locke as saying how “gold and silver” have become “so valuable to be hoarded up” (Strauss 240; Locke §48). Yet, despite a need for “severer restrictions on appropriation…Locke teaches the opposite”; Locke does not impose greater restrictions on appropriations that would force potential appropriators into having a greater “concern for others” (Strauss 240, 242). This absence of a greater restriction on the acquisition of property leads Strauss to conclude that Locke believed unlimited acquisition acts in the public interest; he states, “far from being straitened by the emancipation of acquisitiveness, the poor are enriched by it” (Strauss 242). Citing Locke §41, Strauss goes so far as to say the “day laborer in England has no natural right even to complain about the loss of his natural …show more content…
Dunn quotes a letter from Locke in which Locke states his intention to bind every person to “labor for the common good” (“Some Familiar Letters”). Following Calvinist teachings, when labor is no longer pursued for the common good and becomes “pursued merely for its delights,” it becomes “simply recreation” and fails to ingratiate oneself to God (Dunn 251). Locke thus criticized those who, “through sin, lived their lives in vicious self-indulgence” as living contrary to the “laws of reason” for they would be punished for not fulfilling God’s divine plan to enrich the Earth (Dunn 254). Yet, Thomas Dunn writes, “social inequality became a target only when it entrenched upon” the abilities of individuals to pursue labor for the common good (Dunn 250). When, for example, the “exploiter” of a market leads “another man to starve,” he had no more right to do so than a conqueror does to cause the children of those who he has vanquished “to starve and perish”; in both cases, it is morally wrong for the perpetrator entrenches upon the ability for another to labor at his calling (Dunn 247; Locke §184). Thus, gross social inequality, when it forces people out of jobs, is considered wrong. If one man,