Not completely rasa today

This was originally posted on my MySpace April 5, 2008.

I am so bored. Reread some Locke last night and today. Because we’ve been looking at real estate, and I have a friend that’s stressed over moving I decided a good focal point in the reading would be private property. Mr. Locke sure did have a lot to say so let’s see if I can’t share what he proposes ;)

The survival of each person requires that he be able to use material objects to sustain his life. Because God wants each individual person to live and prosper, he instituted the right to property as a corollary to the right to life. Locke’s supposition is that God gave the earth and its fruits to all men (sorry sir, but I like to think if there is a God giving it is to all humans not just men so that’s how I’ll be putting it peeps – I mean, come on it’s 2008 not the 1600s) in common. It follows that in the state of nature property was common in that every person had the right to gain subsistence from whatever nature provided. Originally, nobody had a private domain exclusive of the rest of humankind. God not only gave the world to humans in common, he also gave them reason to make use of it. The problem that Locke faced was to explain how commonly available resources can become legitimate private property to the exclusion of the right of other people. Locke employs the principle of individuation in the world to explain how collective property can become individual private property. He says that a person transfers his or her individuality into matter through his or her own labor. This individuates and decommunalizes property.

Private property does not and cannot come about by universal consent. According to Locke, natural man/woman enjoys property in his/her own person which is the foundation of all other property. This concept of self-ownership is the cornerstone of individualism and personal freedom. Every man/woman owns not only his/her own person but also his/her own labor. It follows that people can legitimately turn common property into private property by mixing their labor with it thereby using and improving it. Because individuals mixed their bodies in the form of their labor with unowned (free) resources, they created something new that was their property. What a person does when he/she applies his/her labor to a natural object is to endow it with certain attributes belonging to one’s own mode of existence. The Lockean view is that the quality of the owner’s very personality is embodied in his property. The right to private property arises because by labor man/woman can extend his/her own personality into the objects created (those of you that have been in my house know all too well that my personality is quite abundant in my property.) This natural right to private property exists even in the primitive society of the state of nature. The right to private property precedes civil law and is grounded in natural moral law.

Nature itself severely limits property in the state of nature. The natural fact of spoilage drastically limits property in the state of nature and acts as a type of rule to maintain a fair distribution of goods in the state of nature. This leads Locke to proclaim that spoilage limits the right of clear and exclusive acquisition in the state of nature. Private property is thus limited to as much as anyone can make use of before it spoils. People should not allow things to go to waste in the state of nature. We could say that nature has put both a moral and a practical limit on the amount of property that anyone can accumulate. The limit is not defined by the amount of what is owned but only by the consequences of the ownership. As long as nothing spoils in one’s possession, it makes no difference how much property he/she owns (I’m about sick of "owning" two pieces of property right now.) Property ownership is thus qualified to as much as anyone can make use of to any advantages of life before it spoils. This is known as the "Lockean proviso."

Locke believed that greater productivity of some would raise the general standard of living. He says that a person is wrong to think that another person deprives others by enclosing land and cultivating it for his/her own use. It follows that all his/her neighbors benefit because cultivated land is more productive. The poor frequently gain as an unintended consequence of the acquisitive actions of others. Because the productive use of resources by one person tends to enrich everyone, we could say that people’s interests are not in conflict and that wealth is not a static quantity – one person’s gain is also everyone else’s gain.

Locke recognized that spoilage is a necessary, applicable and effective means toward fair distribution only in the case of a scarcity of perishable goods. The invention of money renders the accumulation of property essentially harmless and avoids the disadvantages inherent in the original natural limits to property ownership in the state of nature. The invention of money, which does not spoil (ha!), made it desirable and reasonable for a person to produce more than was required for his/her family’s immediate needs (i.e., more than they could consume before it spoiled). People could exchange money for perishable and other goods. There would be no limit to the private acquisition of wealth if held in the form of money. Without money, a person had no incentive to expand his/her holdings and produce a surplus.

Money came into existence through a natural mutual consent process in the state of nature. Through this process the most durable and easily tradable commodity ultimately becomes acceptable as a money commodity. Locke’s theory of the origins of social institutions provided the framework for his consent theory of money. Money allows the more talented, rational, and industrious to create more, to accumulate the products of their labor, and to increase their wealth relative to others. According to Locke, money makes possible a benevolent form of property accumulation that enriches some without making others poorer.

Locke thought that labor was the major creator of economic value but that the market or relative value or the price of an object depended upon its usefulness and scarcity rather than the amount of labor embodied in it. In Locke’s system one earned property through his/her own efforts, but the value of that property was determined by the market. It follows that Locke’s writings implied no theory of labor exploitation. There is no evidence that Locke believed there would be a relationship between the amount of labor that goes into a product and its market price.

Locke explains that money so transformed the conditions of the state of nature that it was no longer desirable for people to live together without greater protection for their possessions. Lockean human therefore quits the state of nature and forms into civil society for the protection of his/her life, liberty, and estate. Locke sees the economy as logically prior to government and explains that government arises to remedy inconveniences that occur in the state of nature. The purposes of the government are to protect property, to keep order, and to provide a peaceful environment in which each person can freely pursue his/her own ends (sorry just had to make that point abundantly clear). Locke says that some government regulation of trade is necessary to protect and foster commercial interests. Here he is talking about procedural rather than substantive regulation. Permissible regulation for Locke includes contract enforcement, dispute adjudication, and the registration of deeds and titles. As an advocate of free markets, he is against the regulation of interest rates on both economic and moral grounds.

So anyway, it was entertaining and a nice break from the current news I started out reading. Basically, Locke states we have rights to life, liberty, health and property. These are natural rights, that is, they are rights that we have in a state of nature before the introduction of civil government, and all people have these rights equally. Just some old school thinking to feed your thoughts that left me wondering how it is then that we as a society have become the children of a mother (government) with Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome? Don’t ask me why this crap comes into my head at 2:00 in the morning or why I find it imperative to write it down to share with you thirteen hours later; it just does, and I just do.

Off to soak up the sunshine on my deck and to read something funny and light. Mr. Sedaris, I believe that means you and I have a date.