Life, Liberty and Property

Life, Liberty and Property

Carter Gaian

Student number:1373050

Dr D. Mark Blythe

POLS 101 – B2

University of Alberta

Life, Liberty and Property

The enlightenment period lead to many revolutionary ideas regarding freedom and equality. Philosophers such as John Locke and Karl Marx have become memorable for their philosophical perspectives on the relationship between life, liberty and property and their contributions made towards the common ideologies of today’s society. The primary focus of this essay will to be to examine the conflicting ideological views of Locke and Marx regarding the relationship of labour, liberty and property by the comparison and contrast as well as the argumentation of the superiority of the ideas conceived by Locke by the breakdown of relevant historical examples. The persuasiveness of the argument will reside in the thoroughness of the investigation into the two positions, as well as the breakdown of their historical progression embodied in the United States and the USSR. These will reveal in theory and in practice the inferiority of Marx’s views on private property to those of Locke.

Firstly, in the eyes of Locke, there is a direct relationship between labour and property. Locke argues this relationship develops naturally in the state of nature as “human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, [which] necessarily introduces private possessions”(Second Treatise, section 35) or more simply, private property comes about as an extension of the individuals labour. Locke theorized in The Second Treatise that the ownership of private property by citizens or the natural right to property is justified by the means in which it is produced. The process as to how common resources are transformed to private property is elegantly described by Locke in the following quotation:

“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.”(Second Treatise, section 26)

As a result of Locke’s conviction, his ideological perspective regarding the role of government is in the preservation and promotion of human rights, chiefly property. Locke believed in a social contract between government and the civilian body, which consists of a society in which citizens willingly turn over their executive right to the government in exchange for legislative rights in the trust that this will be used to protect their liberties. If a legislative body fails in its accountability to its people, its power is thereby dissolved as it resides from its individuals (An introduction to government and politics, page 130). Having been entrusted with the executive power of its citizens, the government is responsible in the enforcement of laws which protect its citizens' freedom to life, liberty and property free from interference by others such as murder, coercion and theft respectively.

Furthermore, as for the role the government has to play in fostering its citizen’s freedoms, the installment of capitalism came as the answer to Locke. Aside from the clear productive power and efficiency of capitalism, the free private market leaves people with the fullest extent of their right to property and labour. The connection between freedom and property identified by Locke and felt by many has resulted in the immense popularity and success of the “laissez-faire” market system. As a result capitalism and the views of Locke regarding property embedded within it has become to different extents an economic staple of countless ideologies, including liberalism and conservatism.

Conversely, on the other side of the political spectrum, the ideas of Karl Marx are embodied with communism and to some extent socialism and represent an alternative perspective regarding life, liberty and property.  Marx refuted the direct relationship between an individual's labour and property put forward by Locke. Marx agreed with Locke on the principle of ownership of labour and the theory that labour gives a commodity value. It is in the end result of this process in which Marx and Locke disagree most strongly. Rather then property being the soul end, Marx proposed that “[l]abor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity” (Estranged labour, page 2). From this proposition Marx arrived on the conclusion that “[p]rivate property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labor”(Estranged labour, page 7). Marx felt that the capitalism forced the alienation of the “proletariat”(working class) by the “bourgeoisie” (upper class) as a result of the fact that profit seeking business owners could in theory never compensate workers equal to the value of their labour. The division of class structure was perpetuated by the productive nature of capitalism, and lead Marx to formulate a new ideology, communism.

Given his perspective regarding the relationship of labour and property, Marx theorized the need for a large role of government, which strongly contrasts the more limited responsibility proposed by Locke. Marx envisioned a society in which all means of production were public, where government takes “[f]rom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”(Critique of the Gotha Programme, page 5), thereby preserving the equality of citizens and protecting them from potential alienation and class struggle. The nationalization of the economy and society would result in policies such as equal pay for work and would require the heavy progressive taxation of citizens in order to fund government spending on the promotion of the common good. If the government failed in its accountability to its people in supporting their freedoms and equalities, then the people must rise together in revolution against tyranny. On the other hand, Marx believed that if the institution acted in the interest of its communal body that in time the state would wither away as man’s communal identity grew. In history, such an event has never occurred thus far.