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Two Treatises of Government Reviews

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Summary: LOGICALLY INCORRECT, BUT VERY INSPIRED
Comment: J.L's theories of government and rights gave inspiration to the notion that people are "equal" which is a meaningless concept, but inspires in the same way that a flag may inspire. If the notion is taken too far, it becomes dagerous. Spinoza's concept of rights in his brief work on politics and theology is much more valid logically, though not inspiring in the same way.

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Summary: Not to be trusted
Comment: This guy is a hallucinator. He's had bouts of rage and depression. He head butts people. He thinks the island talks to him. He blows up submarines. Beware of this guy and his crazy woo woo beliefs!

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Summary: The Second Treatise and the American Founding
Comment: John Locke's major work of political philosophy is often referred to as a major source for the Declaration of Independence, The Second Treatise of Civil Government. This work, authored in 1690, is a major statement of liberalism. Like Thomas Hobbes, Locke begins with humans living in a state of nature, a situation before the development of the state and government. The Lockeian state of nature was not an unpleasant place. Human reason led people to tend to leave one another alone in their respective pursuits.

Natural law guides people's actions in the state of nature and their reason allows them to apprehend the essence of these laws. Thus, Locke expressed great confidence in human reason. However, inconveniences did result in the state of nature. If disagreements rose between people, it was not always easy to resolve these. If one person stole something from another, it was up to the victim to redress the injustice. And these shortcomings in the state of nature made individuals ultimately, rationally, decide that they should give up some of their freedom in order to secure order and protection of the fruits of their labor. Locke said: "[T]he enjoyment of the property he has in his state is very unsafe, very unsecure. . . . The great and chief end, therefore, of man's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property."

As a result, people contract with one another to form civil society and government in order to preserve their rights under natural law, with the dominant right being termed property. And what happens if government does not protect rights under natural law? Revolution is thereby allowable. For instance, Locke notes one justification for suspending an existing government: "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. . . .[I]t devolves to the people to have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative, such as they shall think fit, provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society."

Locke's work well illustrates basic tenets of liberalism, among which are:

1. Individualism (and its concomitants of limited government and certain rights, such as the right to property and to certain freedoms, and equality);
2. Materialism (material incentives are important; acquisition and enjoyment of material goods is altogether proper);
3. Faith in human reason;
4. Faith in the market as a way of distributing wealth and goods.

Is Locke the philosopher of the American Revolution? Probably not. But he well articulated many of the major themes accepted by the Founders of the revolutionary movement in the 1770s.

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Summary: Most Representative Thinker in Anglo-American Tradition
Comment: John Locke (1632-1704) wrote "Second Treatise of Government" in 1690, it was the main political philosophical source that our "Founding Fathers" went to in writing the "Declaration of Independence" and in forming our government. I think you should know something of Locke to understand what influenced his thinking. His father was a small landowner, attorney, Puritan and his political sympathies were with the Cromwell Parliament. Like Hobbes, Locke attended Oxford Univ. and did not think much about the curriculum or his professors. Most of his education came from reading books in the Univ. library. Renee Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton's writings greatly influenced Locke. Like Hobbes, he took a tutoring job teaching the son of the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and traveled Europe. His friendship with the Earl was beneficial in obtaining government appointments. During the political unrest in England, (1679-83) he fled to Holland because his liberal notions put him at odds with the government.

Locke writes the "Second Treatise of Government" to justify the Revolt of 1688 and the ascension of William of Orange to the English throne. The book argues against two lines of absolutist ideas. The first is Sir Robert Filmer's "patriarchal theory of divine right of kings; secondly, Hobbes argument for the sovereign's absolute power in his book "Leviathan." Locke argues that government emanates from the people. Locke's treatise rests like other political writings on its interpretation of human nature. He sees our nature opposite the way Hobbes did, decent and not as selfish or competitive. Man is more inclined to join society through reason and not fear. Man prefers stability to change.

His very important contribution to "law of nature" theory was his bias toward individualism. In state of nature, before government, men were free independent, equal enjoying inalienable rights "chief among them being life, liberty, and property." Where have you read that before? Property rights receive much attention in this treatise. Locke argues that government based on consent of man can still preserve freedom independence and equality.

His political writing had immediate influence in the world and influenced our founding fathers in their struggle against tyranny. He is an excellent writer and his theories are easy to understand by the laymen. As a graduate student of political philosophy, I recommend if you have an interest in politics, philosophy, or government then you must read Locke's "Second Treatise of Government"

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Summary: Essay: The Illusion of Supreme Legislative Power
Comment: The Illusion of Supreme Legislative Power
Classical Political Thoughts

The legislative power in a society that allows for money can not be reconciled with individual natural rights because the legislature is bound to compromise the property of minority for the interest of the majority. Thus, despite Locke's assertion that his legislature is supreme, it can not be, since according to Locke's own definition, the foundation of the legislature's supreme power only lies in the complete protection of the people's property by the legislature.

Locke asserts that the Legislative power is supreme in the commonwealth (Chapter 18). This legislative power, however, is only supreme because it protects the life and property of the people. He says,

"And thus the Community perpetually retains a Supream Power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any Body, even of their Legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the Liberties and Properties of the Subject. For no Man, or Society of Men, having a power to deliver up their Preservation, or Society of Men, having a Power to deliver up their Preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the Absolute Will and arbitrary Dominion of another." (p367)

The key here is that "no Man" can give up the right to protect his property and liberty; this means the legislative power does not gain its supreme power by protecting some people's person and property, but everyone's person and property. Sadly, despite Locke's genuine efforts to establish a government that was not "so foolish, or so wicked", his supreme legislature will not protect everyone's person and property. This is not caused by the corruption of the members of the legislature or their promotion of secret laws; instead, Locke's system is intrinsically flawed because the legislature acts according to majority vote.

Locke believes that the interest of the majority vote is the interest of the whole, and the majority vote in a commonwealth must decide the actions of the commonwealth. Locke writes of the necessity for majority rule as follows,
"It is necessary the Body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one Body, one Community, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should." (p332)

Locke makes no mistakes here-a government will never be able to function if every action it takes must obtain the consent of every citizen. Nevertheless, although for most of the time, the differences between majority vote and minority vote merely show differences in opinions about how best to achieve a common goal, it is unavoidable that sometimes the differences of opinion will represent fundamental split of interest. With this unavoidable fissure, the laws selected by the majority vote are bound to hurt the person and property of the minority.

America before the American Civil War is an example where a fundamental fissure in society appeared. In the United States of the late 19th century, there was a clear difference of interest between the slave owning plantation economy of the south and the free labor industrial economy of the north. The Yankees, through the legislature, was enforcing economic laws such as high tariff and low silver excavation that protected northern manufacturing industries but hurt the production and exports of southern farming produces. Since the legislature of the United States was controlled by the more populous northern states, the south felt that its interest was always trumped by the majority. This fissure made the legislature no longer a source of supreme power in the eyes of southerners, and it was the cause of the Civil War.

The American civil war is an extreme example, but lesser examples of differences in interest abound. In one case of the 1980s, the conservative British PM Margaret Thatcher recognized that it was not in the interest of the majority of the British people to keep on subsidizing coal workers with billions of tax money, and decided to let the market determine how the coalmines should be ran. Margaret Thatcher was justly representing the interest of the people who gave her and her party power to sit in the House of Commons. The coalminers, a minority interest group, however, were extremely upset because they would lose jobs if Thatcher succeeded since their high-cost mines could not compete in a market economy. The government and the mineworkers battled on the streets for a year before the issue was resolve.

Whether the PM or the mineworkers had more justice on their side is topic for another essay, but it is clear that fundamental differences of interests between different interest groups exist.

Reading Locke, nevertheless, one might come to the conclusion that the above kinds of conflicts of economic interest only arise from people's greed for obtaining what they do not need-the northern capitalists and the southern plantation owners were only fighting for ever more slaves and mills, and perhaps there should have never been any coalmines if only there was not so much economic development which only produce excess and corruption. One might say that in a true Lockeian society, there will never be such battles for money, and as evidence, one find Locke saying,

"God has given us all things richly, I Tim. Vi. 17. is the Voice of Reason confirmed by Inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils; so much he may be his labour fix a Property in." (p290)

The above idea on the outset seems to put a tremendous limit on the property one can obtain, and this limit promotes a form of simple agricultural society where everyone has moderate property and happiness.

If Locke really does believe that all industrial and expansionary economics are bad and does limit his Commonwealth to the moderate agricultural form, then the legislature could be supreme because when everyone has similar land and make similar produces, there can not be fundamental differences in interest. Nevertheless, Locke is not against industrial and economic expansions since he is not against money, which is the bloodline of economic developments.

Despite the gross inequality that comes with money, Money is acceptable to Locke because it accumulates imperishable goods. Locke believes that although a person should not try to hoard a hundred bananas a day for his own consumption, he should be able to obtain and keep what will be of lasting preservative value. In fact, he sets no limits on such imperishable goods; and the accumulation of imperishable goods is exactly what money accomplishes. Locke writes,

"They having by a tacit and voluntary consent found out a way, how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for overplus, Gold and Silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one, these metals not spoileing or decaying in the hands of the possessor." (p302)

As this passage shows, Gold and Silver do not perish, and therefore, they do not represent wastes. Although they cause inequality, they are "fair" in that they are the "overplus" of
one's labour that do not take away the interest of others.

One with Gold and Silver might purchase a nice English country estate, some nice carriages, or even a Cotton machine. Locke, by accepting these imperishable goods procured with money strips away the supreme power that the legislature could have had in an equal agricultural state. This accumulation of imperishable goods is bound to create differing classes in societies with the capitalists having one interest in the law and the poor having another and also create further interest sub-groups. Since the legislature is bound to pass laws that have majority vote (even when the group represents the minority population), the property and liberty of the minority group will always be compromised.

One might argue at this point that although it is clear that the interest of the minority might be deprived, but when people united together to form civil society, they made the contract with each other that each will be governed by the choice of the majority (P331). They are right, however, this contract is conditional. To understand the conditionality, the rationality for coming into civil society must be clear. Locke writes,

"To avoid this State of War (wherein there is no appeal but to Heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end, where there is no Authority to decide between the Contenders) is one great reason of Mens putting themselves into Society, and quitting the State of nature." (p282)

The above quote and Locke's ideas about majority rule together show that Locke is offering two choices for living: either one joins the society or he stays in the "State of War". If he chooses the latter, he keeps intact the whole of his property and rights, but must embrace the danger that there can be no "Authority" to protect his property and rights. If he joins the commonwealth, he will have to pay a "fee", which is the cost of the damage to his property majority action might do, however, this loss will be recuperated overtime from the long term security offered by the Commonwealth. Citizens, therefore, only gave up their irrevocable right to property in order to keep their property.

The balance of benefits changes, however, when one is only getting properties taken away by the society, but receives nothing in return. As the groups support different laws in the legislature through their representatives, the minority will not be paying a "fee" for long term security but will be simply be constantly suppressed by the majority. This dictatorship of the majority is no better for the minority than the state of nature when they still kept the right to punish others in their hands.

In any Commonwealth that uses money as the medium of exchange, there must arise differences of interests that make the legislature a place where majority interest will trump minority interest. Thus, individual liberty for some will be preserved, but for others, it will not be. The legislature will never be able to protect the interest of everyone, and therefore can not have supreme power if the source of the supreme power is truly, as Locke claims, the people.

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