Second Treatise of Government (Hackett Classics)

Whether or not Hegel was right that history is inevitably moving in a positive direction, he was most assuredly right that History is moving a direction that can limelight past social contradictions. When we look at Locke we see Hegel's claim completely vindicated. His Second Treatise is both revolutionary for its time, and conservative for ours. Moreover, Locke, while challenging mainstream Political Theory of his day (e.g., Men are beasts in a state of war, and Kings have divine rights, and Monarchies are good forms of government), simultaneously leads along a path that would have us owning people, abusing animals, and ignoring the concerns of the commons. How does Locke do this? Knowing the answer to this question is paramount, as Locke more than anyone influenced the American founding fathers, and sons of liberty, in their propaganda and political ideals.

Locke begins his Second Treatise with some interesting claims. Man is born into a state of nature, where all he obeys are the laws of nature. These laws of nature are in fact reason, granted to us by a deity who owns us. Reason, without any deep argumentation, convinces us all that we have a right to life, liberty, and property. Unlike Hobbes, Locke does not believe we are born into a state of war; it's only when someone transgresses against the laws of nature, which we find ourselves in a state of war. Being too irrational to defend ourselves, or at least defend ourselves utilizing a proper punishment and retribution, we desire a common and neutral judge. That judge is the state.

In order to defend the notion of protecting property via the state, Locke has to demonstrate how we come to own property. At first the earth is teaming with sustenance, and provisions. As man begins to labor over the earth, so that which he labors over becomes his. After all man owns his laboring appendages, and therefore, he mixes his ownership with the earth's goods, and comes to own them too (but doesn't God own man, and thus his appendages...). Since we are in a state of nature though, where preservation of life is paramount, we cannot take more than we need, or as Locke calls it, let things spoil or go to waste. Then, without the slightest justification, Locke states that therefore the work of our servant belongs to us. How the hell does someone labor over a man for him to become our servant? This is never justified, but given Locke's private affairs, and personal life, it's no doubt he'd have to sneak this line in to his political treatise. Locke for instance sat on the board of many companies that employed children, and enslaved foreigners. He thought children should be put to work at the age of three. But I digress.... Man also somehow can labor over an animal and thus own it too. Odd. Locke is confident that the earth will reap us a greater harvest, the more we work it, therefore, despite the fact the commons, in the state of nature, provides us with plenty, we can have even more plenty by labor. To a degree this is true, but it's increasingly becoming clear that our industrial labors are having the opposite effect on the planet, destroying what once was plentiful.

Now that we have a super abundance, Locke needs to justify why we can step away from his old rule of the taking of no excess, and hoarding to the point of spoilage. For this Locke augments his shoddy labor theory of value. Man comes to agree that money, be it gold, or paper, which cannot spoil, than represent that which we trade it for. Now instead of hoarding my home with 100 apples, 90 of which will rot, I'll keep 100 apples worth of gold on reserve. Of course Locke never actually explained how money came to share an equivalent value with the goods it is exchanged for. Mere agreement does not allow for universal equivalent of value. For this, we must consult Marx. Moreover, it's completely unclear that people did unanimously come together and `consent' to using a common currency. Again, consult Marx.

Oddly this prospering and industrious society has all taken place prior to the erecting of a state. The Marxist truism that bourgeois thinkers read their own society back into history, and implore their own categories of thought - which derive from material circumstances - as timeless tools for analysis, is vindicated when one reads Locke. Man now requires a state to protect his property. No longer does man owe himself to the common lot, but uses the state to augment his own affairs, relying on the state to protect the commons, but the only protection the commons needs is preservation of property, and defense against transgressions. We went from a land of plenty, with our fellow man in mind, to find ourselves in a land of property, where the plenty is sectioned off, people are owned - without justification - and our only duty to our fellow man is to leave him alone. If he cannot make his way in society, it's clearly his own fault. Funny how we all have a right to property, but only extreme minorities actually has it.

Thus Locke is both a revolutionary and a conservative. An enlightener, and a charlatan. A man of liberty and a man who sanctions owning humans. Despite his contradictory nature, he earns a small round of applause for those in favor of democracy. Locke is convinced that legislation can only be consented to when it passed by a majority, and not by a king. A king is literally in the state of war at all times, a man who sets the law, but completely operates outside it.

In regards to the essay on liberation, it's a perfect example of what Zizek refers to as Liberalism's inability to tolerate what it deems extremism. That is, liberals pretend to be for an open society, of tolerance, and religious expression, until you encroach on what they deem to be intolerant, and radical. Locke thinks all religions ought to be tolerated, except Catholics and atheists. The Catholics are beholden to the pope and thus cannot be loyal to the society they live in. And atheists can lie. That's right, the reason you cannot trust atheists, is that they can lie. Stupid. One wonders how Locke didn't instantly realize everyone can lie!

Read Locke, and if you cannot generate a critique, you're long lost to liberal ideology. If you can generate a critique, socialism embraces you.

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