john locke embraced many of ideas in his theories on the state of nature and the rise of government...

8/7/2019 John Locke embraced many of ideas in his theories on the state of nature and the rise of government and society

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John Locke embraced many of ideas in his theories on the state of nature and the rise of

government and society. Thomas Hobbes also presented these ideas. They differed

however, in that Locke believed that god was the prime factor in politics. He believed

that individuals were born with certain natural rights given not by government or society,

but by God. This he said is what gives all people equality. Besides the right to self-

preservation, Locke also believed that all individuals had a natural right to property. This

natural right carried with it two preconditions of natural law. First, since God gave the

earth to all individuals, people must be sure to leave enough property for others to have,

and secondly nothing may be allowed to spoil. These conditions met, an individual was

granted exclusive rights to any object that they mixed their labor with. For Locke, mixing

labor was in effect placing a part of the self into an object, and thereby making it part of

the individual and therefore their property. Locke also argued that when people agreed to

start using money, they also agreed to the disproportionate and unequal possession of

the Earth. He believed that people would be free to sell their labor to one another in

exchange for money. When this happened, any property the laborer produced became the

property of the buyer. For Locke the state of nature was still a horrible place, but Gods

law was created moral imperatives preventing humans from partaking in the total free for

all that Thomas Hobbes describes. People left the state of nature, according to Locke, not

out of fear of violent death, but as a matter of convenience and in order to protect their

property. They did not give all of their rights to an absolute authoritarian government.

Instead, they formed two distinctively separate agreements: the contract of society and

the contract of the majority of society and government or trustee relationship as it is

often referred to. Another point that makes Lockes theory different is that society has the


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power to overthrow the government. Since a majority created it, they have the power to

remove it. Locke saw that the government should be accountable to the people. Locke

was in favor of a limited government, not an authoritarian one like Hobbes described.

Although Hobbes and Locke differed in their theories on government and society, the one

thing that they did have in common was their view of the importance and autonomy of

the individual in society. The extent to which this was true varies but the one important

fact remains. The people existed as individuals before societies and governments came

into being. They each possessed certain rights, and all had the freedom to do as they

pleased. This was unrestrained according to Hobbes, and with some restrictions placed

upon them by God according to Locke. For Karl Marx, communism emerged from

material, especially productive, development. Thus, he jibes that philosophers had

hitherto only sought to interpret the world, when the point was to change it. Marx

attempted to turn the labor theory against the champions of capitalism. He pushed the

theory in a direction that most classical economists hesitated to follow. Marx argued that

the theory is supposed to explain the value of all commodities, including the commodity

that workers sell to capitalists for a wage. Marx called this commodity "labor power."

Labor power is the worker's capacity to produce goods and services. Marx, using

principles of classical economics, explained that the value of labor power must depend

upon the number of labor hours it takes society, on average, to feed, clothe, and shelter a

worker so that he or she has the capacity to work. In other words, the long-run wage that

workers receive will depend upon the number of labor hours it takes to produce a person

who is fit for work. Suppose that five hours of labor are needed to feed, clothe, and

protect a worker each day so that the worker is fit for work the following morning. If one


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labor hour equaled one dollar, the correct wage would be five dollars per day. Capitalists,

Marx answered, must enjoy a privileged and powerful position as owners of the means of

production and are, therefore, able to ruthlessly exploit workers. Although the capitalist

pays workers the correct wage, somehowMarx was terribly vague herethe capitalist

makes workers work more hours than are needed to create the worker's labor power. If

the capitalist pays each worker five dollars per day, he can require workers to work, say,

twelve hours per daynot uncommon during Marx's time. Hence, if one labor hour

equals one dollar, workers produce twelve dollars' worth of products for the capitalist but

are paid only five. The bottom line: capitalists extract "surplus value" from the workers

and enjoy monetary profits. Marx believed that people by nature are free, creative beings

who have the potential to totally transform the world. But he observed that the modern,

technologically developed world is apparently beyond our full control. Marx condemned

the free market, for instance, as being "anarchic," or ungoverned. He maintained that the

way the market economy is coordinatedthrough the spontaneous purchase and sale of

private property dictated by the laws of supply and demandblocks our ability to take

control of our individual and collective destinies. Marx condemned capitalism as a

system that alienates the masses. His reasoning was as follows: Although workers

produce things for the market, market forces control things; workers do not. People are

required to work for capitalists who have full control over the means of production and

maintain power in the workplace. Work, he said, becomes degrading, monotonous, and

suitable for machines rather than free, creative people. In the end people themselves

become objectsrobot like mechanisms that have lost touch with human nature, that

make decisions based on cold profit-and-loss considerations, with little concern for


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human worth and need. Marx concluded that capitalism blocks our capacity to create our

own humane society. Marx's notion of alienation rests on a crucial but, in fact, shaky

assumption. It assumes that people can successfully abolish an advanced, market-based

society and replace it with a democratic, comprehensively planned society. Marx claimed

we are alienated not only because many of us toil in tedious, perhaps even degrading,

jobs or because by competing in the market-place, we tend to place profitability above

human need. We are alienated because we have not yet designed a society that is fully

planned and controlled, a society without competition, profits and losses, money, private

property, and so on, a society which, Marx predicts, must inevitably appear as the world

advances through history. I believe that the best government is democracy because it is

the best form of government that encompasses justice and legitimacy. Governments were

formed, according to Locke, to protect the right to life, the right to freedom, and the right

to property. The rights were absolute, belonging to all the people. Locke also believed

that government power should be divided equally into three branches of government so

that politicians will not face the "temptation... to grasp at {absolute} power." If any

government abused these rights instead of protecting them, then the people had the right

to rebel and form a new government. John Locke spoke out against the control of any

man against his will. This control was acceptable neither in the form of an unfair

government, nor in slavery. Locke wrote, "The natural liberty of man is to be free from

any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man,

but only have the law of nature for his rule." In addition, Locke felt that women had the

ability to reason, which entitled them to an equal voice - an unpopular idea during this

time in history.

john locke embraced many of ideas in his theories on the state of nature and the rise of government...

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