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SCI LIBRARY

John Locke and Rugged Individualism

Henry Moulds



[Reprinted from the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, January 1965]


TRADITIONALLY, JOHN LOCKE has been regarded as the John the Baptist, if not the Founding Father, of laissez-faire capitalism and rugged individualism. Such a view ought to have been expressed with caution since the Lockian corpus contains no treatise on economics comparable to, say, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. I suspect that these labelings of Locke were often based on fragmentary, out-of-context readings. It is my view that a reading of the whole of Locke's writings will incline one to a quite different interpretation of his economics. Not that he was a socialist. But neither was he a laissez-faire individualist. Rather his pronouncements on matters economic anticipate in a remarkable way the practical principles of our own mid-century American capitalistic society.

In an earlier article to which this is a companion piece,[1] I have described and defended Locke's theory of property in a state of nature. Since Locke's critics are chiefly disturbed by the disparity they find between his account of property in the natural state and his account of property in civil society, I shall proceed now to an examination of these charges of inconsistency as well as duplicity and crass materialism.


I


LOCKE ASSUMES that all of those who enter into the original covenant by which civil society is instituted have their own personal possessions in whatever extent. These items of property -- taking land as an example -- have been carved out of the universal common; originally somebody's labor made them "property." These properties are brought into the commonwealth for their preservation, i.e., to secure them from damage and loss. Though civil laws can create personal property (as when a public common is distributed by legal action), property as such is not dependent on civil society for its existence.

The effect of incorporation is to remove a certain geographical area from the original, universal, God-given common. So long as any of that common anywhere in the world (the ocean, for example) remains unincorporated, any man (be he citizen of any State or none at all) has the right to create personal property therein by labor. Within the State, that to which no individual has property rights (i.e., land unfilled and unclaimed) constitutes that particular commonwealth's common. It will be subject to regulation in the public interest; even so, the legislation may amount to no more than a confirmation of the law of nature that any person (a subject of that State, of course) may have the fruits of his labor thereon.

In civil society, men still have the right and duty to labor. By the labor on their own land, they will add to their property. And their labor, though for themselves, ought also to be for the common good. Indeed, "every one ... is bound to labor [not necessarily physical labor, of course] for the public good, as far as he is able, or else he has no right to eat."[2]

It may be that some of those who come into civil society already have more money than they can use; it may be that they already have more land than they or their families can use the product of. The law of nature is not violated so long as nothing is wasted, and money cannot possibly spoil. It may be that some of those who incorporate already have hired servants or tenants to work their land, or creditors to use their money. There is nothing in what Locke says anywhere that would prevent such or that would originate any of these phenomena in civil society.

Civil laws "settle" the properties of the subject.[3] That of course was one of the ends of civil society -- to arbitrate differences about ownership of property. This is scarcely possible without agreement between one State and its neighbors as to the bounds of their distinct territories, each State expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the possession of its neighbor.[4] While the institution of civil society is intended to preserve property negatively (i.e., from damage and loss), the effect will be positive. Established in their properties, without fear of dispossession, men will add immensely to their wealth. Men will acquire and produce the materials of a comfortable preservation as they have never done before.

In civil society, "the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions."[5] But the government cannot itself take a man's property without the owner's consent. For nobody has any real "property" in that "which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself."[6] There are exceptions, however. A criminal may be deprived of his property for the purpose of reparation. A man's house may be torn down in order to prevent the spread of a conflagration, as in the Great Fire of London. Here the public interest takes precedence.

Those who become members of a given civil society annex to that society all the property that they have or shall acquire which does not already belong to some other commonwealth. Whoever thenceforth inherits, purchases, or otherwise comes into possession of any of the property so annexed, expressly or at least tacitly agrees to be subject to the laws of that commonwealth.

Taxes are voluntary contributions based on a recognition of the services that the government performs in the subject's behalf.

It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e., the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by them. . . .[7]

Locke opposes arbitrary taxation. But he nowhere makes clear how taxes are to be assessed. What he says suggests equality: since all equally are protected, they should pay equal amounts. Yet it could equally well be argued that since the rich have more (not of life and liberty, but of material possessions) to be protected, they should pay accordingly. This interpretation, however, would not occasion a graduated income tax, but only a fixed uniform percentage.

Locke regards the incentive of private profit as compatible with -- indeed contributory to -- the public good; and he is no proponent of an equal day's pay for an unequal day's work.

... It is not to be supposed that any one should be refused to be employed by his neighbors while others are set to work, but for some defect in his ability or honesty, for which it is reasonable he should suffer, and he that cannot be set on work for twelve pence per diem, must be content with ninepence or tenpence rather than live idly.[8]

Locke has no time for the lazy; throughout his works he praises the industrious and shames the lazy, whether in mind or body. The "multiplying of the poor" in his time he was sure was due to "the relaxation of discipline and corruption of manners; virtue and industry being as constant companions on the one side as vice and idleness are on the other."[9] He "was inclined to view the problem of pauperism as more one of getting the poor to work than of getting work for the poor."[10] He said on one occasion that "labourers, living generally but from hand to mouth; and, indeed, considered as labourers in order to trade, may well enough carry on their part, if they have but money enough to buy victuals, deaths, and tools. . . .'[11]

Locke defends the "law" of supply and demand: ". . . things must be left to find their own price; and it is impossible, in this their constant mutability, for human foresight to set rules and bounds to their constantly varying proportion and use, which will always regulate their value."[12] And so, in connection with the question of money and interest, he says that the worth of money is and ought to be what one can get for it.

Although money is not as such a political institution, it is no doubt true that in advanced civil societies the use of money to make money becomes progressively more important. Locke's position on interest (as also on rent) has been thought to be an unconscious denial of his labor theory of property. Locke is aware of the problem, at least with respect to interest. Land, he says, "produces naturally something new and profitable, and of value to mankind; but money is a barren thing, and produces nothing; but by compact transfers that profit, that was the reward of one man's labor, into another man's pocket."[13] Why, then, should one man who does not labor take advantage of another's labor? Why does the borrower owe interest?

For the same reason, and upon as good consideration, as the tenant pays tent for your land. For as the unequal distribution of land (you having more than you can, or will manure, and another less) brings you a tenant for your land; and the same unequal distribution of money (I having more than I can, or will employ, and another less) brings me a tenant for my money: so my money is apt in trade, by the industry of the borrower, to produce more than six per cent to the borrower, as well as your land, by the labour of the tenant, is apt to produce more fruits, than his rent comes to; and therefore deserves to be paid for, as well as land by a yearly rent."[14]

This answer is hardly satisfactory, especially for those who will argue that he who is skilled in trade but lacks money (the means wherewith to exercise his ability) as well as he who is a skilled farmer but lacks land should be given money or land out of another's plenty instead of having to pay for its use. Granted that if land can demand rent, so can money, and that if the borrower makes more than the agreed-upon interest, he is not hurt by having to pay interest. But why should he have to pay interest in the first place? Should I not give what I cannot use to the man who can use it? I think Locke would have defended himself on the ground of inheritance. A man's property (land or money) belongs to his son after him. Inheritance is a law of nature. In civil societies, properties are fixed, i.e., established in the hands of a given party and his heirs or assignees in perpetuity. Even so, the law of use holds: that one must not waste his property. The son may be in such circumstances that he cannot use his father's money in trade. Yet he is entitled (indeed, required) to use it. What better for him to do than let out his money on hire (as also his land, if he has no knack for husbandry)? True, he, as everyone, should work, insofar as he is able; but the work that he can do may not be adequate to his support.


II


STRAUSS HAS ARGUED recently not only that Locke's doctrine is the classic doctrine of the spirit of capitalism but that Locke engaged in double talk to conceal this (then) revolutionary doctrine from the general reader. I reproduce at some length Strauss's discussion, since attention to it will clarify some common misunderstandings of Locke.

  1. Since [in civil society as Locke describes it] there is no longer enough and as good left in common for e veryone,[15] equity would seem to demand that man's natural right to appropriate as much as he can use should be restricted to the right to appropriate as much as he needs, lest the poor be "straitened." And,
  2. since gold and silver are now immensely valuable, equity would seem to demand that man should lose the natural right to accumulate as much money as he pleases. Yet Locke teaches exactly the opposite:
  3. the right to appropriate is much more restricted in the state of nature than in civil society. . . . Money has introduced "larger possessions and a right to them"; man may now, "rightfully and without injury, possess more than he himself can make use of". . . . According to the natural law -- and this means according to the moral law -- man in civil society may acquire as much property of every kind, and in particular as much money, as he pleases; and he may acquire it in every manner permitted by the positive law, which keeps the peace among the competitors and in the interest of the competitors.
  4. Even the natural law prohibition against waste is no longer valid in civil society.[16]

    Locke does not commit the absurdity of justifying the emancipation of acquisitiveness by appealing to a nonexistent absolute right of property.
  5. He justifies the emancipation of acquisitiveness in the only way in which it can be defended: he shows that it is conducive to the common good, to public happiness or the temporal prosperity of society: Restrictions on acquisitiveness were required in the state of nature because the state of nature is a state of penury. They can safely be abandoned in civil society because civil society is a state of plenty: "... a king of a large and fruitful territory [in America] feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day-labourer in England." The day laborer in England has no natural right even to complain about the loss of his natural right to appropriate land and other things by his labor: the exercise of all the rights and privileges of the state of nature would give him less wealth than he gets by receiving "subsistence"1' wages for his work. . . . The emancipation of acquisitiveness is not merely compatible with general plenty but is the cause of it. Unlimited appropriation without concern for the need of others is true charity.[18]
  6. If the end of government is nothing but "the peace, the safety, and public good of the people"; if peace and safety are the indispensable conditions of plenty, and the public good of the people is identical with plenty; if the end of government is therefore plenty; if plenty requires the emancipation of acquisitiveness; and if acquisitiveness necessarily withers away whenever its rewards do not securely belong to those who deserve them -- if all this is true, it follows that the end of civil society is "the preservation of property". . . . Men enter society in order not so much to preserve as to enlarge their possessions. . . .

Locke's doctrine of property is ... the classic doctrine of "the spirit of capitalism". ...To say that public happiness requires the emancipation and the protection of the acquisitive faculties amounts to saying that to accumulate as much money and other wealth as one pleases is right or just, i.e., intrinsically just or by nature just. . . .

. . . Since in his [Locke's] age most people still adhered to the older view according to which the unlimited acquisition of wealth is unjust or morally wrong . . . Locke "so involved his sense, that it is not easy to understand him" or went as much as possible "with the herd," While therefore concealing the revolutionary character of his doctrine of property from the mass of his readers, he yet indicated it clearly enough. He did this by occasionally mentioning and apparently approving the older view. . . . [But] the burden of his chapter on property is that covetousness and concupiscence, far from being essentially evil or foolish, ate, if properly channeled, eminently beneficial and reasonable, much more so than "exemplary charity." By building civil society on "the low but solid ground" of selfishness or of certain "private vices," one will achieve much greater "public benefits" than by futilely appealing to virtue, which is by nature "unendowed." One must take one's bearings not by how men should live but by how they do live.[19]

Now to take up seriatim the points that I have numbered in Strauss's brief.

  1. Perhaps one reason why Locke does not consider it necessary that appropriation in civil society be limited to need is that charity is obligatory as a law of nature. Really, Strauss's first point is plausible only on the assumption that even if the common of civil society were divided up, there would not be enough for all those who lacked. But that is not what Locke says. He declares that the public common is restricted (no enclosure or appropriation without the consent of all one's fellow commoners) because the remaining common (after enclosure of any part by any citizen) would not be as good to the rest of the commoners as it was before such enclosure. Before incorporation no one's enclosure could make such a difference. But this is not to say that there is anyone who does not have enough. Those who already have land may have "enough"; and the test may be allowed by consent to carve out of the common "enough."
  2. If "equity" has anything to do with the law of nature requiring the preservation of all mankind (so far as possible) in convenience and delight, then civil society should rather encourage the natural right to accumulate as much money as one pleases; for money introduces the desire for larger possessions, and it is the desire for larger possessions that raises the standard of living of all, such that in a developed State like England a day laborer, even though he may lack land, is better off materially than the king of a tribe in America, not far removed from the state of nature.
  3. Locke does not say that the "right to appropriate is much more restricted in the state of nature than in civil society." Rather the opposite. For money is not necessarily an invention of men in civil society. And if money were used in a state of nature, its use would not be restricted by all the positive laws of State and municipalities which limit the acquisition and use of property. Although the right to appropriate is more restricted in civil society, it is true that within that restricted right it becomes possible to add more and more to one's possessions.
  4. Has the natural law prohibition of waste terminated on man's entrance into civil society? We recall Locke's saying that God never intended man to spoil or destroy anything.[20] Have God's intentions altered? Really,

    amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place. . . .Even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting, is thought his who pursues her during the chace. ...[21]

    Since it is in the immediately following section that Locke goes on to state his injunction against waste, we may assume that the law of use still holds today for anything taken out of common, nor is there any reason to believe that Locke would relent his prohibition of waste even with respect to that long since taken out of common; i.e., even in the England of Locke's day, no man would have a right to let his land lie fallow without some use in mind.[22]
  5. By Locke's account, money and increase of possessions can exist outside of and prior to civil society. Therefore, the state of nature is not necessarily "a state of penury." Strauss's reference to the king in America is hardly evidence for his theory, since where there is a king, there is a civil society, and so we have a civil society that is not necessarily a state of plenty. The day laborer has not lost "his natural right to appropriate land and other things by his labor." Rather his opportunity for exercise of this right has been diminished.

    There is an inner inconsistency in Strauss's account here. Suppose, as he asserts, that the "emancipation of acquisitiveness" is justified as being the cause of the public happiness. How, then, can Strauss say that the restrictions on acquisitiveness "can safely be abandoned in civil society because civil society is a state of plenty"? Rather he should say that these restrictions must be abandoned in order to make civil society a state of plenty. Else he is saying that the plenty causes the emancipation of acquisitiveness.

    However much the "emancipation of acquisitiveness" contributes to the public happiness, is this contribution the only justification for accumulating wealth? For Locke such a defense is not sufficiently ultimate. The introduction of money, which opens the way to enlarged possessions, is a human artifice which finds its "rightfulness" in its being in accordance with the law of property. Of course, if our approach is prudential, then we can perhaps "justify" the device solely by its good results.
  6. The evidence that Strauss presents to establish Locke's concealment (i.e., that he seemingly approves the older tradition at the same time that he deliberately attacks it) will not stand inspection. "Locke almost quotes the words of the apostle, 'God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy,' and he speaks of "God's blessings poured on [man] with a liberal hand,' and yet 'nature and the earth furnish only the almost worthless materials as in themselves.' "[23] The solution to this puzzle is provided by a passage (which Strauss does not quote) where Locke refers to the "conveniences of life, the materials whereof he [God] had so plentifully provided for them... ."[24] According to Strauss, Locke says that "God is 'sole lord and proprietor of the whole world,' that men are God's property, and that 'man's propriety in the creatures is nothing but that liberty to use them which God has permitted'; but he also says that 'man in the state of nature [is] absolute lord of his own person and possessions.'"[25] Examination of the latter statement in its context[26] will show well enough that when Locke calls man "absolute lord" it is with respect to other men, not God. Finally, Strauss points out that Locke "says that 'it will always be a sin in any man of estate to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty.' But in his thematic discussion of property, he is silent about any duties of charity."[27] The silence is not surprising, since in the chapter on property Locke's purpose is to show how property is created, not how it is given away.

Really, in his chapter on property Locke mentions concupiscence not at all, and covetousness is mentioned but once,28 and there with discredit. In his Thoughts concerning Education he holds that "covetousness, and the desire of having in our possession, and under our domination, more than we have need of [is] the root of all evil. . . .[29] And yet it may be significant that Locke does not set about proving that covetousness is excluded :by the law of nature. Locke paraphrases Romans 7:7 as follows: "... the law [the Mosaic law] . . . tied men stricter up" from sin, forbidding concupiscence, which they did not know to be sin, but by the law. For I had not known concupiscence to be sin, unless the law [the Mosaic law] had said, Thou shalt not covet."[30]

The end of civil society is the preservation of property, but, as I have said before, Locke makes it very clear that by "property" he means more than material possessions and thus departs from common usage. In the chapter specifically addressed to the theme of "the ends of political society and government," Locke in the very first section explains that men create government "for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name, property."[31] And Locke closes the chapter still proclaiming that the intention of a man who enters civil society is to better "preserve himself, his liberty and property. . . .[32]

Locke certainly says that one can accumulate as much money as one pleases -- if one does not violate other laws of nature in so doing. He believes that one must take his bearings by how men should live, not by how they do live.[33] We are too prone to an exclusive sort of self-love, "all injustice generally springing from too great love of ourselves, and too little of others."[34] Children should be taught "to part with what they have, easily and freely to their friends; and let them find by experience," Locke counsels, "that the most liberal has always most plenty, with esteem and commendation to boot, and they will quickly learn to practise it." Having discovered that liberality has its own rewards, it will in time be-'come a habit and a pleasure for its own sake.[35]

LOCKE is NOT ONE to despise wealth,[36] and considers the incentive of private profit to be contributory to the public good;[37] but, despite all such capitalistic-sounding views, examination of Locke's discourses on money and interest turns up several passages that throw considerable doubt on the propriety of casting Locke in the role of the rugged individualist. For, although he argues against "some over-scrupulous men" that taking interest is equitable, not only does he agree to the desirability of a statute regulating interest, but he agrees to it as a countermeasure to monopolistic tendencies, i.e.,/i>, in order that

in the present current of running cash, which now takes its course almost all to London, and is engrossed by a very few hands in comparison, young men, and those in want, might not too easily be exposed to extortion and oppression; and the dexterous and combining money-jobbers not have too great and unbounded a power, to prey upon the ignorance and necessity of borrowers.[38]

Not only is Locke opposed to concentration of economic power; he is not necessarily happy about its wide dispersion. Thus, he favors legal "suppression of superfluous brandy shops and unnecessary alehouses. …[39]

Locke believed in (indeed, would have thought it strange to think otherwise) and had a hand in promoting government intervention in economic affairs. The doctrine of absolute or unlimited property rights is not to be found in Locke. There is no right to do what one wills with one's own.[40] The interest of property holders is restricted by natural law.

... God ... has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods; so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it: and therefore no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another's plenty as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise: and a man can no more justly make use of another's necessity to force him to become his vassal, by with-holding that relief God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat offer him death or slavery.[41]

One who knew Locke intimately testified that

people who had been industrious, but were, through age or infirmity, past labour, he was very bountiful to; and he used to blame that sparingness with which such were ordinarily relieved, "as if it sufficed only that they should be kept from starving or extreme misery; whereas they had," he said, "a right to living comfortably in the world."[42]

Were men to find themselves in a state of extreme scarcity, Locke would insist that since the fundamental law of nature is that all, as much as may be, should be preserved, therefore no one ought to harm another in his possessions. A man may not, unless it be to do justice to an offender, take away what tends to the preservation of the life of another, such that in a situation where not all can be preserved, the safety of the innocent should be preferred.[43]

Government may art to make effective these natural law limitations on the use of property. Locke was concerned with the injustice suffered in his own day by various segments of the economy (e.g., artisans) and proposed alleviating legislation.

... It is past question that all encouragement should be given to artificers; and things so ordered, as much as might be, that those who make should also vend and retail out their own commodities, and they be hindered, as much as possible, from passing here at home, through divers hands to the last buyer. Lazy and unworking shopkeepers in this being worse than gamesters, that they do not only keep so much of the money of the country constantly in their hands, but also make the public pay them for their keeping of it. Though gaming too, upon the account of trade (as well as other reasons), may well deserve to be restrained; since gamesters, in order to their play, keep great sums of money by them. . . .[44]

In one of his notes on the administration of the colonies Locke proposed that "he or she that has ten children living shall be exempted or free from all public taxes and levyings,"[45] and that the tithing man on the basis of his visits to the houses of his tithing should "inform the judge of any person or family [that] through sickness, age, charge of children or otherwise be not able to maintain himself that . . . order may be taken."[46] As the leading member of the Board of Trade in its formative years, the poor law became the object of Locke's intensive interest. He proposed that it be reformed by setting up a system of educating (in the main vocationally) and apprenticing the children of the poor so that they might be temoved from the paupers' rolls and come to earn a comfortable living.[47] It is an indication of Locke's feeling that while the State may and should intervene in the economic realm, its intervention should not have the effect of making the people wards of the State but rather of making them independent of it.


NOTES AND REFERENCES


  1. Henry Moulds, "Private Property in John Locke's State of Nature." Am. J. Econ. Scoiol., 23 (July, 1964)
  2. John Locke, letter to Molyneux, 19 January 1693/94 (The Works of John Locke [10th ed., London: J. Johnson et al., 1801], DC, 332). In subsequent footnote references to Locke's writings, the title of the particular work will appear, followed by the appropriate book, chapter, and section number (where Locke uses such divisions). Then in parentheses will appear the reference to the exact volume and page number of the Tenth Edition (1801) of Locke's Works. The only exceptions to this rule will be those of his writings not appearing in the Works.
  3. Locke, Two Treatises of Government, II, 38 (V, 360); 45 (V, 364).
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid., II, 50 (V, 367).
  6. Ibid., II, 140 (V, 423).
  7. Ibid., II, 140 (V, 422-3). The short title Treatises will be used in subsequent references to the Two Treatises of Government.
  8. Locke, Paper on Poor Law Reform. H. R. Fox Bourne, The Life of John Locke (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1876), II, 381.
  9. Ibid., II, 378.
  10. Paschal Larkin, Property in the Eighteenth Century with Special Reference to England and Locke (Cork: Cork University Press, 1930), p. 72.
  11. Locke, Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money (V, 24). In subsequent footnote references the short title Considerations of Interest will be used.
  12. Ibid., (V, 34). This general rule has its exceptions. See infra.
  13. Ibid., (V, 36). It was on the basis of this observation of Locke's that Marx (Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Valves, trans. G. A. Bonner and Emile Burns [New York: International Publishers, 1912], p. 26) concluded that "the ownership of a greater quantity of means of production than one person can put to use with his own labour is, according to Locke, a political device which contradicts the law of nature on which property or the right to private property is founded.
  14. Locke, Considerations of Interest, (V, 36).
  15. Evidently an allusion to Treatises, II, 35.
  16. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 240-1.
  17. Evidently in illusion to Considerations of Interest (V, 71).
  18. Strauss, op. cit., pp. 242-3. If this be "true" charity, then what of Locke's own statement (Considerations of Interest [V, 11]) that "common charity teaches, that those should be most taken care of by the law, who are least capable of taking care for themselves"?
  19. Strauss, op. cit., pp. 244-7.
  20. Locke, Treatises, II, 31 (V, 356).
  21. Ibid., II, 30 (V, 355).
  22. Locke, Thoughts concerning Education, 116 (IX, 113): ". . . people should be accustomed ... to spoil or waste nothing at all." The immorality of waste was on Locke's mind when in the late Sixteen Seventies he jotted down in his Journal occasional thoughts on the governance of the colonies. He advocated sumptuary laws (Ernesto dc Marchi, "Locke's 'Atlantis,'" Political Studies, III [June, 1955], p. 165) "not as a means for keeping social classes apart . . . but rather as a device to prevent waste and extravagant expenditure by the very rich, particularly land owners."
  23. Strauss, op. cit., p. 247.
  24. Locke, Treatises, I, 41 (V, 242).
  25. Strauss, op. cit., p. 247.
  26. Locke, Treatises,/i>, II, 123.
  27. Strauss, op. cit., p. 248.
  28. Section 34.
  29. Locke, Thoughts concerning Education, 110 (IX, 100).
  30. Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Gatatians, Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians (VIII, 315}.
  31. Locke, Treatises, II, 123 (V, 412).
  32. Ibid., II, 131 (V, 414).
  33. That is the point of Locke's observation in the "Epistle to the Reader" of the second edition of the Essay (Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894], I, 18-9) that it is one thing to note what men call good and another thing to refer to the law of nature, that unalterable rule by which men ought to judge.
  34. Locke, Thoughts concerning Education, 139 (IX, 131).
  35. Ibid., 110 (IX, 100). Of interest is Locke's paraphrase (Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul [VIII, 70]) of the familiar passages in Galatians (6:8) -- "For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting," which Locke takes to mean that "He, that lays out the stock of good things he has, only for the satisfaction of his own bodily necessities, conveniences, or pleasures, shall, at the harvest, find die fruit and product of inch husbandry to be corruption and perishing. But he, that lays out his worldly substance, according to the rules dictated by the Spirit of God in the gospel, shall, of the Spirit, reap life everlasting." Also the paraphrase (Ibid. [VIII, 134] of I Corinthians 10:24 -- ''Let no man seek his own: but every man another's wealth" -- as "No one must seek barely his own private, particular interest alone, but let every one seek the good of others also."
  36. Locke, letter to Molyneux, 2 July 1696 (IX, 384): "Riches may be instrumental to so many good purposes, that it is, I think, vanity, rather than religion or philosophy to pretend to contemn them."
  37. See, e.g., Locke, Paper on the Encouragement of Irish Linen Manufacture, Board of Trade Papers, cited by Bourne, op. cit., II, 363-72; Paper on Poor Law Reform, Bourne, op. cit., II, 386.
  38. Locke, Considerations of Interest (V, 64)
  39. Locke, Paper on Poor Law Reform, Board of Trade Papers, cited by Bourne, op. cit., II, 378.
  40. Lady Masham (Bourne, op. cit., II, 536) wrote of Locke that "waste of anything he could not bear to see, and he often found fault that people were generally so little instructed as to think they might do what they would with what was indeed their own. ..."
  41. Locke, Treaties, I, 42 (V, 242-43). Locke's statements enjoining charity and relief of the needy, though not unambiguous lend themselves more readily to the interpretation that rather than the rich making land (as the means of production) available to the needy, the more fortunate are to share their surplus of the fruits of the earth (the means of consumption) with the needy.
  42. Lady Masham (Bourne, op. cit., II, 536).
  43. Locke, Treatises, II, 16 (V, 347).
  44. Locke, Considerations of Interest (V, 28-9).
  45. Locke, "Atlantis," Journal for 4 January 1679, Charles Bastide, John Locke: Ses Theories Politiques et Leur Influence en Angleterre (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1906), Appendice I, p. 378.
  46. Ibid., Journal for 20 February 1679, p. 377.
  47. Locke, Paper on Poor Law Reform, Bourne, op. cit., II, 377-91.