Locke and Marx on property: philosophical foundations and critiques

Second Treatise of Government

The second treatise government

John Locke was a thinker and physician who attended Westminster School, and later joined Christ Church at Oxford. He was a brilliant thinker who had a lot of influence on matters of epistemology and political philosophy. Locke's contributions to Liberal theory and classical republicanism were also tremendous. His writings have largely formed the basis for Western philosophy.

John Locke on property

Locke states that the earth is the property of people, and hence useful for their survival and benefits. He wonders on why people own property individually yet humankind should own the earth, and everything in it is common to everyone. Locke believes that individuals appropriate things around them for individual property to exist. He claims each person's owns his or her own body. Every task that he or she performs with the body is, therefore, becomes his or her own property. Suppose this person adds labor on a given object, the object eventually becomes his because of the use of his or her own labor. Locke asserts that every individual has the right to possess property through his or her own initiative.

Locke believes that one can own as much property as they wish as he or she can use to their own advantage. For instance, he uses the person picking apples. He claims that a person who goes into the woods and picks apples has the right to own them. This is because he uses his labor in acquiring them. Therefore, this person can do anything he desires with the apples. One can eat as many apples as he wants before they go moldy. This means that one can take as many things as he can use. This also applies to factors such as land, housing, and farming. One can only plant as many crops as he wants as long as it satisfies his needs and without wastes. He outlines that one can only rightfully own something by adding labor to the item they wish to possess. However, he is against acquiring more than one can use, which goes against the law of subsistence. Locke says that by taking more than you need, one takes what belongs to another person. The law states that people should not take more than they need. By doing so, one might end up misusing it or wasting what remains after satisfying his or her needs. It is wrong as another person might be having nothing yet one is wasting what he has.

Locke states that there is always enough for every person. When he gives an example whereby one person lets another quench his thirst first. The water will still be enough to quench his thirst. This fact also extends to land. He claims that as much as God gave land to humankind commonly, it should not stay without cultivation. Locke outlines that the earth is available to the industrious and rational. The fact that one cultivates a given land should not bother him or her. This is because he or she is putting it into use. Moreover, everyone has the right to land, and this is only possible with one's own labor.

Karl Marx

He was a Prussian-German philosopher, sociologist, historian, journalist, and a revolutionary sociologist. He was useful in developing the socialist movement through the establishment of social sciences. Marx attended the University of Bonn before joining the University of Berlin. He developed philosophical ideas while studying. Marx exiled to Brussels where he became the key figure of the Communist league. Marx's socialist concepts contributed a lot to the formation of socialist states. His ideas also led to the formation of labor unions and parties across the world.

Karl Marx on Private Property and Communism

Karl states that personal life and property rights have a connection. However, he denounces both and refers to them as bourgeois freedom. He claims that an individual that is not with the society solely works with his private interests and acts according with his own expectations. He says that freedom to own property is hollow, and it only aims to help one acquire something better. Therefore, this does not encourage freedom for all, but gives freedoms to the ruling class only who are also capitalists. He claims that capitalist have the means by which they control how the lower classes develop. The lower class hence depends on the capitalist to develop. However, this would be difficult since capitalists never value the rights of others.

Karl was against private ownership of property. He says that the liberal traditions have affected the social nature of human kind. Karl is against the idea of one person enjoying his property and disposing it as he wills at the expense of the society and other individuals. He suggests communism as the solution to the problems the society is experiences. Communism views capital to be a social power and not personal. According to Karl, communism encourages common property ownership whereby all the members of the society own the property.

This personal property of the property does not change, but only the character of the property changes. He says that there is no need for the subdivision of the society into classes. According to Karl, the burgeois society allows capitalists to control the appropriation of those in the lower classes by ensuring that they live as far as their own interests. He states that non-communists only aim at increasing labor accumulated whereas communists accumulate labor to increase and to promote the laborer.