locke and the bourgeois state

L O C K E A N D THE B O U R G E O I S STATE* R O S S P O O L E Macquarie University

Absrract. Locke’s Second Treatise is presented as an attempt to provide a theorisation and justification of an essentially bourgeois state. His theory of property right is presented and certain presuppositions displayed. It is argued that the concept of class, which is absent from Locke’s explicit text, nevertheless provides the key to its interpretation. Locke’s failure to provide an adequate theory of political obligation is discussed in the light of this.

I N this paper I present an account of the theory of the state which is to be found in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.’ The account owes much to C. B. Macpherson’s major work on seventeenth century political theory. Certain aspects of his account have been ~ri t ic ized,~ and others will be criticized below; it will be clear, however, that I adopt his major thesis that Locke is to be understood as providing a political theory adequate to the development of capitalism in seventeenth century England. However, Macpherson often finds it necessary to support his thesis by reference to assumptions that Locke may consciously or unconsciously have madea4 Such support seems to me to be otiose, and the search for it misguided. What is at issue is the interpretation of a body of text, not a socio-psychological investigation of its author. The claim that the Two Treatises constructs a form of the state which is appropriate to capitalist relations of production must be based on evidence securely located in the text itself. I hope to show that such evidence is amply available: that Locke’s state of nature is a recognizable simulacrum of capitalist society; that the theory of natural rights provides a framework within which essentially bourgeois interests are expressed; and that the social contract serves to construct out of these ingredients a form of state authority designed to serve the needs of capitalism. I will begin with the state of nature.

* I would like to thank the referees for Political Studies for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

All references will be to the critical edition edited by Peter Laslett (New York. New American Library, 1965).

C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory qf Possessive Individualism (London, Oxford University Press, 1962: reprinted 1972).

Most effectively in A. Ryan, ‘Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. Poliriccrl Siudies 13 (1965). 219-30. See also P. Laslett, Introduction to Two Treatises qf’Government, especially pp. 118-19, and ‘Market Society and Political Theory’, HBtorical Journal. 7 (1964). 1504: and J . Viner, ’ “Possessive Individualism” as Original Sin’, Canadiun Journal q/ Economics and Political Science, 29 (1963). 548-59.

See Macpherson’s account of his methodology, Possessive Individualism, pp. 4-8.

Political Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2 (222-237)

ROSS P O O L E 223

I

In Locke's state of nature individuals enjoy the rights to life, liberty and property, together with the right to protect themselves against any infringe- ments of these rights and to punish transgressors. Entry into political society involves giving up the last of these rights (self-protection, punishment) in order better to preserve the first three. Of these, the last-the right to property-is the most significant. Not only did Locke spend some of his best energies spelling out and defending this right, but he also found it conceptually appropriate to use the concept of property in a broad sense in which it encompassed the right to life and liberty, as well as the narrower and nowadays more familiar right to material possessions. While this creates a certain revealing ambiguity in some passages, usually the two senses can be easily disentangled. More important are certain conceptual associations which are created or insinuated. Given the double usage, it becomes disarmingly easy to conceive of individual possessions as the embodiment of life and liberty, and of life and liberty as individual possessions alongside land and estate. A certain ambiguous and contradictory unity between being and having is already potential in the double meaning allotted to the concept of property.'j

In what follows, 1 will use the concept of property right in the narrower of the two senses which are explicit in Locke. Property rights in this sense exist prior to the consent to enter political society in two forms: first, in an original state of nature, in the form of a limited property right: then, in a derived but still natural state into which money has been introduced, in the form of a right to unlimited individual appropriation. I will discuss these two states separately. In the original state, property is justified as follows: Though the earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Propertj in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Lubour 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 i t in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to i t something that is his own, and thereby makes i t his l'roperi.~. It being by him removed from the common state Nature place i t in, hath by his Labour something annexed to i t , that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.'

The final proviso, that 'enough, and as good' be lefr for others is guaranteed, though only in the original state, partly by the beneficence of nature, but more importantly by a limitation on appropriation by labour which is not explicit in

I n this he was following an established contemporary usage. See Viner. . "Possessive Individualism" as Original Sin'. pp. 554-6; Laslett, Introduction to Tuw Twuri.sc,s. pp. I 15-16; and. for a more extended discussion of the interrelation between the two senses, K . Olivecrona. 'Appropriation in the State of Nature: Locke on the Origin ol'Property'. Journrrl o/ / h c Hi.s/or:~, of

See Macpherson's elucidation of the concept of 'possessive individualism'. fo.vsessiiv ltidiiiduulisnr. p. 3 and pp. 263-4. ' T11.o Trrtrri.sc.s. I I . v. 27. I t should be noted that 'comnion' here means something like 'available

for anyone to appropriate'. This should be distinguished from land which IS 'left common by compact' and which IS not available for individual appropriation except with the consent of all involved in the compact. See I I . v. 35. Locke sometimes appears to confuse the two. e.g. at I I . v. 28.

I~PU.S. 35 ( 1974). 2 I 1-30,

224 L O C K E A N D T H E B O U R G E O I S S T A T E

the above passage, namely that a man can appropriate only what he8 can use and which is thus not spoiled as a consequence of its being excluded from the use of othersg

Locke's argument has had more appeal than can easily be brought out by a bare dissection of it. 1 suppose that if anything might plausibly be allowed as a dictate of the natural law it is the idea that the producer has some right to what he produces, and it is this principle which is at the heart of Locke's justification of private property and of many since.I0 But this principle will only yield something corresponding to the right of private property if two very strong restrictions are placed on the kind of labour involved. Given these restrictions, the argument becomes plausible, though it is highly unlikely that labour of the relevant kind ever takes place. The first restriction is that the labour must be construed atomistically : as that of one individual performing a self-contained task with a unitary outcome. Co-operative labour would not yield in any straightforward way an individual right of appropriation of the product and the exclusion of others from it. So Locke is either committed to the assumption that individual labour is prior to social labour, an assumption which is unjustified both historically and conceptually, or to the assumption that social labour must take place under conditions which gives some one individual the right to appropriate the product, an assumption which presupposes the institution of private property that Locke is seeking to justify.' I

The second necessary condition is equally significant: that the labour expended belongs solely to the individual in the sense that the expenditure annexes 'something' to the object which appropriates it for that individual and no-one else. Now in fact any actual labouring individual will expend strength for which he must thank those who nourished him and skills for which he must thank those who taught him.12 But this social component of the individual's labour is not such as to yield a corresponding property right; indeed, the individual acquires the right to exclude others. Hence, what establishes the property right must be the input of the individual where this is conceived of in some asocial sense. That is to say, the labour which creates property rights is not the expression of the individual as formed and constituted by the society of which he is a part: it is the expression of the individual as he exists independently of that society.

" Since it is reasonable to assume that the individuals who make up natural society and who come together to form political society are male heads of households, the male pronoun is appropriate. See Teresa Brennan and Carole Pateman, "Mere Auxiliaries to the Commonwealth": Women and the Origins of Liberalism', Poliric,al Siudies, 27 (1979).

Tn'u Treatises, 11, v. 34, 35-7. l o For example: J . S. Mill, Principles oJ' Polirical Econom~~ (7th edition, London, Longmans.

Green. Reader & Dyer, 1871), Vol. I , Book 11, Ch. 2. Section I ; T. H . Green, Lectures on r h Principles o/'Polirical Obligafion, Section 221 (in R . L. Nettleship (ed.), Works of' Thomas Hill Green, Vol. 11. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1896); Ayn Rand, The Virrue qf Se!fishness (New York, Signet Books, 1970), p. 44. See also the discussion in C. B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Rerrieval (London, Oxford University Press, 1973). Essay VI: 'A Political Theory of Property', espec. p. 130.

I I Cp. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism, p. 202. See also Marx. Grundri.s.w (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1973) Introduction, pp. 83-8.

I * Cp. P. Kropotkin, The Conquesr of' Bread (London, Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1913) Ch. I. Section 11, especially pp. 5-9.

ROSS P O O L E 225

This second condition touches on one of the key underlying themes both in Locke’s political theory and in later liberal thought : the conception of human nature, that which constitutes the essence of each individual and in virtue of which he possesses or acquires rights, as something essentially asocial. To some extent this is explicit in Locke, and receives a religious justification. Man’s essential nature is not socially constructed but divinely given, created by God prior to the individual’s insertion into the social order.13 To a greater extent, both in the work of Locke and later liberal theorists, i t exists as an implicit presupposition, playing an unacknowledged role in argument and doctrine, but neither clearly presented nor defended. It is in this form that it lies behind Locke’s case for private property and, as we shall see, some of his most characteristic views about individual liberty and consent.

The kind of property right which is justified on the basis of these two assumptions corresponds closely, but not completely, to a developed juridical conception of private property. Its core is the right to exclusive use, and it seems reasonable to take this to imply the further rights of exchange, bequest, and so But it does not include the right not to use, or to abuse, or to let waste, as such a right would be incompatible with the law of nature against spoilage. Further, and more important, the property must be limited in extent. N o individual may acquire more property than he and his dependents are able to mix their labour with and make use of.

That upper limits to property are defined by the extent or labour and of use suggest that the distribution of property in the original state ofnature will be more or lessequal. Certainly, there will be some without property who will bedependent on those who possess it. This group will includechildren, who have not yet come of age to enjoy their natural rights,’ slaves who have forfeited them,16 and servants who have contracted to exchange their services for a wage.” Of this last group, Locke has relatively little to say except to assume, more or less in passing, that the master isentitled to appropriate thefruitsofhisservant‘s labours.’* However, it is reasonable to assume the absence of large scale employment at this stage. For a start, the non-existence of money will severely limit the amount of individual appropriation possible as well as hindering the extensive development of the kind of exchange relations which result in large scale individual property holdings. Thus one of the conditions for the widespread employment of labour will be absent. Further, prior to the introduction of money, there is always a surplus of land available for individual appropriation. I 9 Hence, another condition for the development of wage labour, namely the existence of a propertyless class, will also be absent. Any individual’s decision to become a servant will, in principle, be the

I 3 See T w Trrurises, 11. ii. 6 . This condition emerges clearly i n the account provided in Olivecrona ’Locke’s Theory of Appropriation’. Phi/o.sophic,u/ Quurler/y. 24 ( 1974). 21 1-30; see especially pp. 223-5.

l 4 J . Plamenatz. Mun urid Sociclr,, (London, Longmans, Green, 1967). Vol. 11, pp. 245-6, finds a special problem about the right of bequest. I t is hard to see this. The right to exclusive use in a society in which exchange relations are established would have to include the right to exchange, and this right could hardly be enjoyed without that of gift, and thus of bequest.

I s Two Trrutiscs, 11, vi, pcrssini. especially 55, 58, 61. I 6 Two Trcwtises, 11, iv.

Twu Treurisrs, 11, vii, 85. I R TMV Treurisrs, 11, iv. 28. I y Two Trrutises. 11. iv, 33, 37, etc.


result of a free choice between genuinely available alternatives. Under these conditions it is plausible to suggest that employment will be limited and largely confined to household servants.20

Given all this, it is reasonable to conclude that the original state of nature is a society consisting largely of individual (or household) property owners, perhaps with some servants, who relate to each other on the basis of material equality and mutual independence.2' This situation changes dramatically with the introduction of money.

I 1

The transition from the primary to a derived state of nature involves the movement from a limited to an extended individual property right, and is presented as the consequence of a universal consent to the use of money as a medium of exchange.22 The main reasoning is as follows: the world is given to men to use and not to spoil: hence, an individual's property is limited to what he can use. But the introduction of money indefinitely increases the amount an individual is able to use : hence, indefinitely increases his potential property.

The difference made by the introduction of money can be brought out by noting that even in the original state of nature the use limitation has little bite for items which are not susceptible to spoilage, particularly as Locke is prepared to allow that use may be as exiguous as, for example, merely enjoying the delights of p o s ~ e s s i o n . ~ ~ Thus, an individual may possess as many pieces of gold as he desires and is able legitimately to acquire. Now suppose that there is, as Locke postulates, a common consent to allow gold, or some similar durable item, to count as a universal equivalent of exchange-value. Gold will then become a method of representing the exchange-value of all other commodities and something for which all other commodities can be exchanged. This will eliminate or minimize the risk of spoilage since at any point

2 o There is an interesting controversy between Laslett and Macpherson over the meaning of the word 'servant' in seventeenth century England. Laslett argues for a narrow interpretation covering (roughly) resident servants falling under patriarchal discipline ('Market Society and Political Theory', p. 152). Macpherson takes i t to cover all wage-earners (D~~irocrrrtic. Tkor j . . Essay XII: 'Servants and Labourers in Seventeenth Century England'). There is no need to take sides on this issue here. In the original state of nature wage labour will be largely restricted to household servants: in the derived state of nature. there will be a large class of individuals engaged in production as wage labourers. But these claims emerge as implications or presuppositions of Locke's account and do not depend on what he might or might not have meant by the word 'servant'. Without attempting to go into the difficult question of the extent to which Locke's theory contains patriarchal elements, it is worth noting that the concept of 'patriarchal discipline' does not seem to have direct application to the relationship between master and servant. For Locke, this concept on!,, has application to children and others ('Lunaticks and Idiots') who lack reason (see TIIW Trrcrriws, 11. vi). The authority of master over servant is derived from a free contract (11. vii, 85); as I argue below this presupposes the possession of reason by the participants (see. e.g.. 11. vi. 63). Thus, even although Locke writes of the servant as being 'in the Family of his Master. and under the ordinary Discipline thereof'. this cannot be construed as patriarchal discipline in any strict sense.

See. for exampte the description of the state of nature prior to the introduction of money at TIN) Trcwiisrs, 11. viii, 107. especially the reference to 'the equality of a simple poor way of liveing confineing their desires within the narrow bounds of each man's small propertie.'

TWO Trou/i.sc,.s. 11, v. 36. 46-9. TIW Trcwrises. 11. v. 46.

R O S S P O O L E 221

a non-durable item can be exchanged for an equivalent durable,24 at least so long as we assume the widespread existence of unimpeded exchange relations. In this way, the property limitation can be overcome without transgressing the law of nature forbidding spoilage. Further, since additional land will now be brought under cultivation, what is available to satisfy human wants is i n c r e a ~ e d . ~ ~ Natural resources which would lay waste under the original conditions of limited appropriation are now brought into the orbit of human use.

That natural resources are no longer wasted carried with it a certain consequence: there is no longer the abundance of resources available for individual appropriation which was characteristic of the original state of nature. This means that there must come into existence, alongside the class of property owners, a class of those who do not own property and who are not likely to be in a position to acquire any.

Locke does not squarely confront this conclusion. But it emerges clearly enough in those passages in which he contrasts the situation in those territories in which money has not been introduced and those in which it has. In the former cases, there is land available for any individual to appropriate but it lies unproductively fallow. In the latter, there is no land left to appropriate, but since all land has been brought into the orbit of human use, productivity has increased immeasurably and, as a consequence, everyone is better off.16 Indeed, Locke's argument not only concedes the existence of a propertyless class: i t requires it. For the extension of property rights beyond the limits of individual use will only make possible an increase in productivity if i t is the case that the owners have some means of expending the labour of others on i t , which requires that they be able to purchase the labour services of others. But in order that they be so fortunate as to find labour services available for purchase in the market place, there must exist a class of persons who are not encumbered with property of their own, and who are forced to sell their services to those who need them in return for the means of existence.

The existence of a propertyless class thus emerges as both consequence and precondition of the extension of property rights. This slightly paradoxical situation foreshadows, in a rather off-beat context, the problems in economic history as to the genesis of capitalism. For it is undoubtedly capitalism that Locke is talking about. The situation which obtains in the state of nature after the introduction of money is one in which exchange relations are pervasive, in which there is a class differentiation between those who own property and those who do not, and in which the mutual need of the two classes must be satisfied by members of one class exchanging their labour services in return for the means of existence. These are fundamental and defining features of the capitalist mode of production.

The main points at issue in the transition from a limited to an extended property right would have emerged more directly in Locke's account if he had clearly distinguished the role of money as a medium of exchange from its role

L4 Two Treutises. 11, v. 46-1. z s Tno Treriiiws. 11. v. 31. L o See Two Treu/isr.s, 11. v, 36, 41, 43, 45, etc


as capital, i.e. where it enters into exchange for the purpose of profit.27 All other things being equal, profit can only be achieved and capital accumulated through exchanges in which what is made available to satisfy human wants is increased. Thus, the productive use of money, which plays such a central but obscure role in Locke’s argument at this point, will mean both the use of money to maximize the use made of the material world and thus to increase the satisfaction of human wants, and also, what is the nowadays more familiar sense, the use of money to engender more money. It is this nexus between the desire for private gain and the increased satisfaction of the desires of others which is crucial to understanding the importance of the role of money, not just as a convenience of exchange but as capital, in Locke’s justification of the extension of property rights.

This relationship between private gain and the public interest allows us to resolve a prime jacie inconsistency in the Second Trearise: Locke’s acceptance, if not defence, of ‘the desire of having more than Men needed’28 and the later condemnation of ‘amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupi~cence’ .~~ For the latter is mere covetousness: the desire to have more at the expense of others. This is quite distinct from the desire to increase one’s individual holdings via productive activity where others may also be expected to benefit from this activity. Thus, there is no incompatibility between Locke’s attack on concupis- cence and a defence of the profit motive.30

Ill

Locke’s derived state of nature is, therefore, recognisably a capitalist society. Amongst other things, it involves the existence of a class of propertyless individuals. But what, one might ask, has happened to the natural rights of these individuals? Since they are denied direct appropriative access to the material world, they have no effective right of property in it, and in the absence of this, their rights to life and liberty must be seriously threatened.

Since nowhere in the Second Treatise does Locke make anything more than oblique and ambiguous reference to this class, it is not altogether surprising that he provides no obvious answer to this question. However, Macpherson has argued that there is a clear answer which is implicit in Locke, and it is a simple one: members of the labouring class do not have the same natural rights as the proprietors. The argument that he attributes to Locke is as follows:

27 See Macpherson, Possessive Individualism, pp. 206-07 where Locke is credited with drawing this distinction, though largely on the basis of writings other than the Two Trearises. On the distinction itself, see Ernest Mandel: Marxisr Economic. Theorj. (London, Merlin Press, 1968; reprinted 1971). Ch. 3; Marx: Capiral, Vol. I (Moscow, Progress Publishers; 1974). Chs. 1-6. On the Marxist account there is a necessary connection between the development of wage-labour and the emergence of capital.

2 8 Two Trearises, 11. v, 37; see also 11, v. 48. 2 9 Two Trecrri.ses, 11, viii, I I 1 ; see also I!, viii, 107. 30 As argued, for example, by Laslett; see Introduction to Two Trc~arises, p. 119. Macpherson

provides the wherewithal for this above account in his discussion of the distinction between money as medium of exchange and money as capital, Possessive Individualism, pp. 207-08. However, Macpherson’s attempt to resolve the apparent incompatibility is quite different; see fo.sses.vive Individualism. pp. 236-7. Macpherson’s interpretation is criticized in Ryan‘s ’Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie’, p. 224.


rationality is a necessary condition for the full possession of natural rights; appropriative behaviour is necessary for rationality ; hence, those who are unable to appropriate are not rational and do not possess the same natural rights as those who do appropriate. A corollary to this conclusion is that full membership of political society is limited to property owners; non-owners are the objects of state policy, not members of the political comrn~n i ty .~ '

It may well be the case, as Macpherson argues, that views of this kind were widely held in the seventeenth century and that Locke, in other contexts, subscribed to some of them.32 However, there is little basis for ascribing the above argument to Locke in the text of the Two Treatises. Locke does note in passing that property is acquired in the original state by the 'Industrious and Rational', not by the 'Quarrelsome and Contentious', and there is perhaps a suggestion that i t is this latter benighted lot who, undeserving the right of property, end up as property-less wage- l abo~re r s .~~ But this suggestion is not developed, and nowhere else is there a suggestion that lack of property carries with it loss of natural rights. On the contrary, natural rights are often unambiguously attributed to all individuals (with the exception of children, criminals, idiots and madmen).34 Furthermore, after the institution of political society, all individuals are equally subject to the authority of the state: hence, in the absence of an alternative theory of political obligation, they must all be supposed to have tacitly consented to this authority. But consent, tacit or otherwise, presupposes prior possession of the natural rights which are the subject matter of the compact, and also, and independently, possession of rationality, since the consent of a non-rational being could not create a corresponding ~b l iga t ion .~

Locke is, therefore, committed to the claim that non-owners possess the same natural rights as owners. This means that the form in which these rights are possessed equally by all individuals must be compatible with the kinds of inequality which prevail in capitalist society. In fact, as i t will emerge, there is a position implicit in Locke which is even stronger than this: the form in which the propertyless enjoy their natural rights is precisely appropriate to their situation. The natural rights are not only preserved, but are functional within the capitalist system.

Let us reconsider the situation which prevails in the derived state of nature.

'' Possessive Individualism, pp. 229-38. The question of membership of political society will be taken up in Section IV below.

3z The evidence adduced by Macpherson. Possessive Individualisnl. pp. 222-9 seems conclusive on this point. See also R. H. Tawney, Religion und /lie Rise qf' Cupirulistn (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. 1940). pp. 175-6.

3 3 Two Trearises, 1 1 , v. 34. 34 See Two Treurises, 11, i, 6, 12; vi, 54. 60-1; vii. 87; viii. 95; etc. See also the discussion in

Ryan, 'Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie'. pp. 222-3. 3 5 Macpherson argues that owners consent to enter political society in a more full-blooded sense

than non-owners (Possessive Individualism, pp. 247-5 I ) . This does not affect the above points. Non-owners are undoubtedly subject to the authority of the state; hence must have consented (in some sense) to that authority. See also Locke's remark that 'no body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself', Two Treutises, I I . xi. 135. I t is worth noting that non-owners are involved in a range of other contracts as well (e.g. the wage-contract, marriage). Unless we presuppose rationality. none of these contracts would be binding. The wage-contract will be discussed in more detail below.


There is a class of property owners with the responsibility of using their property as productively as possible. There is also a class of those who do not own property, and whose rights to life are threatened to the extent that they are barred from access to the material resources necessary for surivival. Fortunately, the needs of the two classes are complementary. Owners of property can purchase the labour services of non-owners, and hence use their property productively. By selling their labour services, non-owners, now wage- labourers, can obtain the means of existence. Locke in fact suggests that the increased productivity which obtains after the introduction of money is such that the labourer will live better in this situation than he would otherwise.36 In this way the right to life of the non-owning class is safeguarded.

The right to liberty is more complex. Let us recall the conception of human nature presupposed by Locke’s initial account of property. This was the idea that the individual is essentially asocial, and that this asocial nature is expressed through labour in such a way that it creates an exclusive property right. This right is one which is free of the kinds of impediment (customary, legal, or political) which were characteristic both of feudalism and absolutist state policies. It is, however, subject to the overriding law of nature in that the property must be utilized prod~ctively.~’ As the property is free of social encumbrances, so too is the individual appropriator, who is free in a quite radical sense. For what is essential to his existence he owes nothing to society. His natural freedom is subject, not to social restriction as such, but only to the requirements of the law of nature.38 This includes the obligation to ac- knowledge and respect the existence of other radically free individuals, an obligation which will be maintained just so long as all interpersonal relations (with the standard exceptions) are mediated by the consent of the individuals involved. Interpersonal relations thus become contractual relationships.

There are some natural law limits on the freedom of contract. For example. no individual can sell himself into slavery. If there is a sense in which one’s right to life is a property, there is a more basic sense in which it belongs to God, and one cannot alienate what belongs to another.39 But if slavery is excluded, wage-labour is not. The individual’s labour power is his to exchange in the market in return for the means of his existence. While this has the effect of placing the labourer under the discipline of his master, this authority is of a conditional and temporary nature, with the labourer retaining the right to the

” Two Treurisc.s, I I , iv, 4&1. There is some tension between this claim and the admission made elsewhere (see the passages cited in Macpherson, Possessive fndividuu/i.srn. p. 223) that the labourer will generally live at a subsistence level. ’’ As noted above, there is a divergence between Locke’s account of property and a developed

legal conception of private property in that the latter normally allows a right of abuse and waste. However, Locke’s account is perspicuous about the nature of capitalist economic property (roughly: control over means of production) which underlies its various juridical forms. Capitalist economic property will lapse unless i t is used productively (this is a ‘law of nature’ of capitalist economic relations); however, i t requires a ‘legal expression’ in which the right of productive use is combined with a right of abuse and waste. On this, see L. Althusser and E. Balibar. Reuding Cupitd (London, New Left Books, 1970). Part I l l (by Balibdr). Ch. 2. Section ( I ) , especially p. 231.

3n Two Treurises, I I , iv, 22. J9 Two Treuriscs, 11, iv, 23.

ROSS P O O L E 23 I

disposal of his services when the period of the contract has expired.40 The wage labourer is in a quite different position to the slave whose life is subject to another, or to the serf, some of whose labour services are inalienably tied to a particular master. Wage labour is free labour. The labourer is free to sell his services to whoever desires them at the best price he can obtain. Freedom of contract in this sense is presupposed by wage labour, and is not incompatible with i t .41

What, finally, about the right of property? How can property as a natural right be compatible with the existence of a propertyless class? To answer these questions, we need to turn again to Locke’s original account of property. On this account, property in the material world emerged as a derivative of a prior kind of property, namely property in one’s labour.42 The individual is free to use this more basic item of property as he wishes, so long as he keeps within the bounds of the natural law. In the original state of nature, the major use will be that of working on, and thus appropriating, the material world. In the derived state of nature, where there is no material world left to appropriate, its only use as far as the propertyless individual is concerned is that i t may be exchanged for a wage. This does not mean that the original use and the associated natural right of appropriation have lapsed. On the contrary: these belong to the propertyless individual and form the subject matter of the wage contract, through which they are-for a period-transmitted to the employer who thus has the use of the labour and enjoys the right of appropriation.

What is required, in other words, is a distinction between two forms of property. The first and basic form is that of property in labour, which involves the right of appropriation. This establishes property in its second form of material possessions. When property in this second form has been so far extended that there is no longer an external world available for individual appropriation, property in its first form is all that remains for one section of the population. The major use for its owners is now its use in exchange, as if it were a material possession, and the right of appropriation goes over to the purchaser. Contrary to Macpherson’s view that members of the labouring class do not possess natural rights, i t emerges that it is only because they do possess the natural right to appropriate that they may legitimately transfer this to their employer through the wage contract.43 What this means is that the right of

Two Trecilhes, I I . viii, 85. JI One might object. as did such later liberals as T. H. Green and L. T. Hobhouse, that the

freedom to enter the wage-contract when the only alternative was starvation hardly counted as freedom in any very substantial sense. This seems not to have worried Locke: see TWO Trotrrisc,.~ I. iv. 42-3, where he argues that the authority of a rich man over a beggar derives ‘not from the Possession of the Lord. but the Consent of the poor Man. who preferr’d being his Subject to starving’.

TIW Trc.rrtirer. 11. v. 27. 44. Strictly. we should distinguish the capacity to labour (’labour power’) from the exercise of this capacity (‘labour’). with the former being the object of ownership and exchange. See Marx. Crrpirtd. Vol. I . Chs 6-7.

J3 See the discussion in Marx, C’opi/u/. Vol. I . Ch. 24. Section I . especially p. 547: ’At first the rights of property seemed to us to be based on a man‘s own labour. At least. some such assumption was necessary since only commodity owners with equal rights confronted each other. and the sole means by which a man could become possessed of the commodities of others. was by alienating his own commodities: and these could be replaced by labour alone. Now. however, property turns out to be the right. on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of


property has been maintained, but it now has two distinct embodiments: for the capitalist class, it is enjoyed as the right to appropriate, accumulate, and exchange material commodities; for the working class, it is the right to exchange labour services in return for a wage. So long, but only so long, as both sets of rights are conceived of as equally forms of property can the right of property be held to be preserved in the derived state of nature described by Locke.

The effect of these arguments is to establish the natural rights of the individual in a form which is not just compatible with capitalism, but appropriate to it. Capitalism requires a free labour force, and this is provided by the natural right of property in one’s labour and by the natural freedom to sell this on the market; the natural right to life is preserved just so long as the wage contract is maintained. Capitalism requires the freedom of individual accumulation and exchange of commodities, and this is established by a natural right of property unimpeded by social and legal restrictions. These are not natural rights appropriate to feudalism, slave societies or, for that matter, socialism. They are appropriate, indeed necessary, for capitalism.

There is a more general point implicit in this account. What Locke has done is to present the basic concepts which describe the original state of nature as adequate to the description of the society which prevails after the extension of property rights. A situation in which two classes in fundamentally unequal positions confront each other in circumstances of mutual need is con- ceptualized in terms appropriate to a situation in which a number of individual proprietors enter into relationships with each other on the basis of mutual independence and material equality. The key to this is the assimilation of property in labour with property in the material resources necessary for existence. In one move, the key feature which distinguishes capitalism from Locke’s preceding state of society, namely the concept of class, is eliminated.

I t is, however, the absent concept of class which defines the locus of Locke’s political theory. While the society he describes is presented as if it consisted of individuals equally situated with respect to natural rights and entering into relations with each other on this basis, the form and content of the natural rights enjoyed are those essential to the functioning of a class society of a particular kind. The bearers of Locke’s natural rights are not individuals whose nature is essentially distinct from that of any particular social order in which they might happen to exist, but individuals who exist as members of two distinct classes, one of which has direct access to the means of life, and the other of which does not. The equal rights which the members of both classes share are rights appropriate to a fundamentally unequal situation. The concept of class provides the underlying theme of Locke’s account; individualism is the mode in which it is expressed and concealed.

others, or its product, and to be the impossibility, on the part of the labourer, of appropriating his own product. The separation of property from labour has become the necessary consequence of a law that apparently originated in their identity.’ See also the footnote to this passage: ‘The property of the capitalist in the product of the labour of others “is a strict consequence of the law of appropriation, the fundamental principle of which was, on the contrary, the exclusive title of every labourer to the product of his own labour.” (Cherbuliez, Richesse ou Pauurerk (Paris, 1841). p. 58, where, however. the dialectical reversal is not properly developed.)’


1v

It is now possible to consider the account of the nature, limits and conditions of legitimacy of state power which emerges in the Second Treufise. The framework for this account is already before us: i t is established in the account given of the state of nature. The theoretical task which remains for Locke is to construct a concept of the state which is required by and appropriate to this natural condition.

Locke's general strategy is clear. The rights which are enjoyed in the state of nature are insecure just to the extent that some members of society may be so corrupt as to infringe them. While each individual possesses the rights of self- protection and punishment, these may lapse through lack of strength or be misused through self-interest. Hence, the institution of political society. Each individual gives over his rights of self-protection and punishment in order better to secure the rights of life, liberty, and property (all of which together constitute property in Locke's broad sense). The state becomes the neutral umpire in matters of dispute, and the repository of force to ensure obedience and punishment. Since this involves a subordination of natural freedom to political authority, political power must be founded on the consent of each individual involved. This compact establishes legitimate authority, with its limits being defined by the overarching law of n a t ~ r e . ~ "

The compact which institutes political society is one which each member enters as an individual in order to secure his individual right^."^ If, as I have argued, the content of the rights which Locke ascribes to the individual members of natural society is to be understood in terms of its underlying class structure and these natural rights are functional within capitalist relations of production, then a state which performs its purpose of preserving the natural rights of its individual members must PO ipso sustain those relations of production and the class structure constituted by them.46 I n other words, a state which is absolutely neutral with regard to the elements of natural society, i.e. the individual bearers of natural rights, must serve the function of maintaining the position of the dominant class.

I t is in this context that we should read Locke's critique of arbitrary state What Locke calls arbitrariness is the inevitable consequence of a

state's claiming the right to impose a higher moral order on society. For Locke there can be no moral order except that laid down by the law of nature, and this is already expressed in natural society. Hence the role of the state must be limited to that of providing this moral order with an appropriate political expression. In this sense the state is subordinate to society, not something superior to it. But since the moral order of natural society lacks a sufficient internal capacity of self protection, it requires a political form of organization

44 See Tivo Treutises. I I . passim. but especially Chs. vii, viii. ix. 4 s See Two Treurises, 1 1 , xiv. 163; xv. 171-2. 46 Laslett (Introduction to Two Treariscs, p. 119) argues that Locke can be interpreted as a

'crypto-capitalist' (Laslett's term) only 'by denying point blank that Locke's consistent claim. "The obligations of the Law of Nature, cease not in society, but only in many cases are drawn closer" (11. 13S), can apply to property.' Not so. Given the content of the law of nature as Locke presents it, a state which enforces it will thereby reproduce capitalist property relations.

4 7 Two Trearisrs, I I , xi. 135; xix, 2 1 4 1 6 ; etc.


with effective coercive powers, ultimately the power of life and death,48 to maintain the natural order of things. Hence, the state comes into existence as a distinct organizational form. The institution of political society means the subordination of the members of natural society to an authority which has the power of life and death over them. However, the exercise of this power is only legitimate to the extent that it secures the moral order which obtains in the state of nature. Anything beyond this may legitimately be resisted.

This establishes three of the most important features of the bourgeois state. First, its actual function is that of maintaining the capitalist system and the position of the dominant class. Second, this requires the existence of an effective coercive apparatus; this must not, however, interfere with the prevailing property relations, except by way of doing what is necessary to maintain them.49 Third, the form of appearance of this state is that of the neutral representative of all members of society. These functions are faithfully represented in the theory of the state presented in the Second Treatise.50

This considerable theoretical achievement is, however, not without cost. Locke’s task was not simply that of presenting a form of political power appropriate to a certain state of society; it was also that of showing that such power was legitimate, i.e. of constructing an adequate theory of political obligation. As we shall see, the individualism which plays such an important role in concealing the class structure of the derived state of nature places a formidable obstacle in the way of constructing such a theory.

Let us recall the asocial nature of the individuals who make up natural society. The natural freedom of these individuals consists in their being subject to natural law; they are not subject to social restrictions except insofar as the recognition of other free individuals is required by the law of nature. The only way such individuals can properly become subject either to another individual or to state power is through a voluntary act of giving up certain natural freedoms. 5 1 Thus, the contract which institutes political society cannot be for Locke a convenient myth located in prehistory or philosophical speculation. I t must be entered into by each and every member of political society as the act by which certain rights are transmitted, and certain benefits received, and through which the individual legitimately becomes subject to political authority. It is this requirement which leads to Locke’s well known difficulties in identifying something that will count as at least tacit consent to entry into political society.52 Underlying these difficulties is a deeper problem. For i t is essential to Locke’s account that entry into political society be a free act of the

Two Treatises, 11. vii, 87. Jy In order to protect property in general, it may need to be interfered with in particular cases.

Property must be regulated as well as preserved. See Two Treutises. 11, i , 3 . Cp. Laslett, Introduction to Two Treutises. p. 119.

Locke’s presentation sometimes falters. On at least one occasion, the explicit purpose of political society appears to be the preservation of property in the narrow sense (see Two Treutbes, 11. xi. 138; cp. also 140). and Locke seems to be on the verge of making the disarmingly frank admission that the function of the state is to preserve the position of that class which monopolizes the material wealth of society. Usually, however, he is more careful. See Two Treatises, 11, viii, 95, 119.

Two Treutises. 11, viii, 95, 119. 5 2 For the main discussion of tacit consent, see Two Treatises, 11, viii, 119-22. For criticism, see

Plamenatz, Man und Society, Vol. I , pp. 225-30.


individual: an option which may or may not be taken up. This has the effect of founding the authority of the state on the individual will and this must always be an insufficient basis for a form of authority which, in the last instance, will always claim the right to impose itself on the individual. Optional membership based on an individual’s judgement of his own best interests, is not a freedom which the state can or will allow.s3

In fact, the choices which Locke makes available are almost purely notional. While his discussion is somewhat opaque, something approaching express consent is taken to be given by an individual when he acquires property in the narrow sense of material possessions, whilst tacit consent is taken to be given by almost anything an individual does (e.g. lodging for a week, travelling on the highway) which does not involve actually leaving the area controlled by an existing state.s4 Given that emigration is not a real option for the majority of the population (even assuming, what is false, that the state will not claim residual authority in this area), the appeal to the existence of this as a choice to enter political society merely empties the idea of free and voluntary consent of any real content. While Locke may have succeeded in defining the nature and the limits of state authority, he has effectively conceded its inescapability and thus destroyed its title to legitimacy.

This type of criticism of Locke’s doctrine of tacit consent has been familiar, at least since H ~ m e . ~ ~ However, we should be wary of supposing that Hume and the later utilitarians had anything better to offer. Indeed, if interpreted as part of a descriptive rather than a legitimizing theory of political obligation. Locke’s account is superior to that offered by his eighteenth century successors in at least two respects. First: i t seems likely that an adequate account of the distinction between authority and power will need to make use of some concept at least analogous to that of consent. Authority relations exist, not just as external constraints on the behaviour of the agents involved, but as internal determinants of it. Hence, an account of the authority relation must make reference to its manner of representation in the hearts and minds of the individuals subject to it. This internal representation of the authority relation need not, of course, come into existence as the result of an act of conscious choice by an individual who is aware of the existence of real alternatives (think of the child’s subjection to and acceptance of the authority of its parents); indeed, it is unlikely that i t every comes into existence in this way. However, if

53 See Hegel, Philosophj 01 Right, translated by J. M. Knox (Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1952). s 4 On all these points. see Two Trecitises, 11, viii, 119-22. While i t is clear that the role of

material possessions in defining a more tangible form of consent to political society than other forms of consent could be used to justify a theory of differential political rights. such that property owners had the right to participate in the political process whilst the propertyless did not, this theory does not emerge very clearly in the Second Trc.atisc,. I t was certainly commonly held in the seventeenth century and later and perhaps Locke simply took i t for granted. But it does not appear to be contained in the Second Trerrtise. The discussion in Macpherson. Posses.siw /ndividuu/i.srn, pp, 247-51, seems to me to go beyond what is present in Locke’s text.

5 5 See Hume, ‘Of the Original Contract’. in Locke, Hume, Rousseau: Social Contract (ed. Sir Ernest Barker) (London, Oxford University Press, 1960). ‘Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country. when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives. from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel. freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish. the moment he leaves her.‘


it is freed from its voluntarist associations, the notion of consent does begin to capture the kind of attitude involved. Second: it does appear to be the case that consent in this sense is embodied in a range of day to day activities which would not normally be considered to be political. In both these respects, Locke’s account is a good deal more insightful than, for example, Hume’s question begging appeal to ‘habits of obedience’. And while it is true that Locke failed to provide an adequate justifying theory of political obligation, this same problem arises, perhaps even more acutely, with later overtly utilitarian theories. The authority of the state over the individual can no more be founded on the promise or probability of benefits to the individual than it can on an individual act of choice. If this were the foundation of political obligation, then the individual would be entitled to opt out of political society on any occasion (e.g. war, taxation) when costs seemed to outweigh benefits. But the very existence of the state depends upon its actual and moral capacity to require of its individual subjects that they sacrifice self-interest on its behalf and at its behest.56

Locke’s failure to provide an adequate justifying theory of political obligation is, then, not an accidental lapse, but is indicative of deeper problems. The source of the difficulty lies in the nature of the society which is simulated in Locke’s political theory and that of later liberalism. Bourgeois society is essentially a class society: it consists of two basic classes whose structural position is defined by unequal access to the major resources of society. At this level of description, we have the ingredients for a theory of class antagonism and, perhaps, for a theory of obligation within classes. What we do not have is the raw material for a theory of the obligation of all members of society to a political order which functions to maintain the existing class structure. A necessary step in the development of such a theory must be the presentation of a model of society in which the class structure disappears or is peripheral to a more basic identity of interests, and which at the same time provides an account of social life which is appropriate to the appearance and functioning of capitalist society. Locke’s account of natural society satisfies both these conditions: social life, at least where this takes place outside the sphere of the family, consists of the contractual interrelations of basically free and equal individuals. On this foundation, it becomes a relatively easy task to present the bourgeois state as, ideally, an organ distinct from the elements of natural society and neutral between them. The focus of political theory becomes, not the way in which the class structure of capitalist society is mediated through the various institutional forms of bourgeois political life, but the relationship between the individual members of society and the state.

This achievement is, however, bought at some cost. The individuals who are elements of this society must be equipped with the characteristics necessary for them to participate in bourgeois existence: thus what are essentially social properties are presented as intrinsic characteristics of these natural individuals.

5 6 See Hegel, Philosophy ojRighr, Part 111, Sub-Sections I I and 111. especially Hegel’s distinction between ‘civil society’ and the state. The force of Hegel’s critique of individualist theories of political obligation seems to have been largely ignored within the liberal tradition. Cp. K.-H. Ilting, ’The Structure of Hegel’s Philosophy qf’Righr’ in Z. A. Pelczynski (ed.), Htgel’s Polirical Philosoph), (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1971).

ROSS P O O L E 231

In Locke, this reification takes the form of a doctrine of natural rights (the right to appropriate the external world for one’s own exclusive use; the freedom to enter into contractual relationships; etc.) with the necessary conditions for the functioning of capitalist society concealed within these rights. With the later utilitarians, this reification takes the more direct form of a doctrine of interests, with similar effects. But a necessary consequence of this mode of presentation is that certain other social and political arrangements become external, and essentially contingent as far as the individual is concerned. Political society becomes a contract which an individual may or may not enter; or a means to an end which it may or may not be in his interests to choose. I n neither case do we have a sufficient basis for the modern state. The individualism which plays such an important role in concealing the class nature of the bourgeois state at the same time destroys its title to legitimacy.

locke and the bourgeois state

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