Midterm Paper

Here is my midterm paper, for what it's worth:

Greed over Need
Locke’s views on property rights and how human warfare violates his philosophies


John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government focuses heavily on the idea of property ownership and various philosophies regarding the rights of humans to own things. Locke believes that there is a certain “natural right” that explains why humans deserve to own property and regulates how much they can own. Locke suggests that humans, by natural right, should only seek to appropriate what they need to live reasonably and comfortably. Why, then, do people frequently wage war amongst themselves in order to acquire more property than what they need to live reasonable and comfortable lives? In all of the rest of the natural world, this phenomenon is all but nonexistent; no animals seek to kill and conquer others of their own kind to gain land or resources, yet war has played a very important role in human history. Ultimately, while Locke’s theories are logical and would probably work in practice, Locke’s ideas are essentially rendered null and void due to overlooking one thing: greed, a trait inherent in far too many humans.
Chapter V of Second Treatise of Government covers Locke’s ideas on property. He clearly believes that there is a natural limitation on how much property each person is allowed. In Section 32, he states that, “As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property” (21). The most important part of this sentence is the final point: that a person’s land-based property should be no more than what they can “use the product of.” Locke also brings up the idea of “enough and as good” in regards to property rights: “…[I]n effect, there [is] never the less left for others because of [one person’s] inclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all” (21).
Just by looking at these two concepts, the idea of waging war in order to acquire land seems at odds with Locke’s beliefs. According to his theory of natural rights, people should own only as much land as they can make use of, and they should not own so much land that it deprives other humans of resources they need. Despite this, human history (particularly in regards to ancient civilizations) has been shaped by tribes and civilizations conquering other tribes and civilizations in order to increase their land holdings; such is the essence of imperialism. One appropriate (if cliché) example is that of the Europeans and Colonial Americans taking over the land of the Native Americans up to the point of essentially banishing the natives to small reservations so that the settlers could acquire as much new land as possible.
This phenomenon is not found anywhere else in the natural world. The closest thing would be the territorialism of certain animals. Wolf packs, for example, set up territories that enclose areas where they will be able to get the resources they need. They will attack wolves of other packs that intrude into their territory, but this is a rare occurrence as wolves tend to stick to their own territories (human destruction of their natural environment has, however, led to increased territorial conflicts between packs). They do not gather armies to destroy or subjugate other packs to take more land than they need; there is only violent struggle when resources are in short supply. Humans, on the other hand, primarily conquer out of greed rather than need. They take more than they need from nature and they waste many resources. then, out of desire to gain more land and natural resources, go out into the world to appropriate more land. If other humans happen to occupy that land, they will wage war upon them and, if necessary, wipe them out in order to gain more territory.
When it comes to material possessions, Locke believes (and rightly so) that material goods that are directly necessary for survival are the most important kinds of property. Food, obviously, is the primary possession that is vital to human survival, and Locke has specific views regarding food. First, he maintains the “enough and as good” principle: people have a right to appropriate food products from nature as long as there is enough food of the same quality left for others to obtain. Second, there is the “spoilage proviso,” which argues that people should not appropriate more than they need to the point that the excess goes to waste; “…indeed it [is] a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than [people] could make use of” (28). Locke uses the image of a person collecting acorns to illustrate these points, suggesting that a person has the right to pick up an acorn and claim it as their property so long as it does not already belong to someone else and as long as there are enough acorns left of equal quality for others to obtain, and also that if a person hoards acorns, he should is obligated to use all of them before they spoil; otherwise he has no right to have claimed ownership of them. As far as other necessary material possessions go, such as clothing and shelter, Locke again maintains that people are entitled to whatever is necessary for reasonable and comfortable living. When it comes to luxuries, however, such as jewels or precious metals, Locke believes that such things “may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor” (29). He claims that material these kinds of material goods are not necessary for survival as they are, but instead have “value only from the consent of men” which can be exchanged for money; money, in turn, could be used to pay for “the truly useful, but perishable supports of life” (28-29).
Here we come to some interesting ideas. First, if humans were to live by the “enough and as good” and “spoilage proviso” (which Locke believes are governed by natural law), then there might not be a lack of consumable goods. Also, if everyone were to own only what was necessary for reasonable and comfortable living, then people would not lack vital possessions nor would they have need of excess luxuries. Third, “gold and diamonds” have no intrinsic value; they are only worth what people agree they are worth, and, having no base value in regards to survival, are not governed by a natural right to own them. However, having a socially agreed upon value, such possessions can be exchanged for goods necessary for survival.
These last few ideas are where I believe Locke’s argument is flawed. His reasoning is logical: if humans only took what they needed and made sure there was enough left to support other humans, then there would not be a problem. The flaw is not necessarily with Locke’s logic, but with human nature: (most) humans, in varying degrees, are greedy. Greed is a trait found primarily in humans in “advanced” civilizations, where much importance is placed on material wealth. This trait is related to the human desire for power, which Thomas Hobbes discusses in Leviathan. In their greed, humans desire those material possessions which society has placed value upon, as well as money, in order to accumulate wealth. Greater wealth, in turn, generally leads to greater power, and as Hobbes claims, people constantly struggle to have greater power over others. Motivated by greed, people will step outside of the boundaries of Locke’s “natural law” and “natural right” in order to appropriate more than what is merely necessary for reasonable and comfortable living, be it out of a desire for excess luxury or to gain power. We see this in the cases of thieves who break into peoples’ homes and steal jewelry, putting themselves in a state of war with their victims just for the sake of acquiring property that, while not necessary for survival, increases wealth due to its socially-appointed value. This is also the case of ancient kings and emperors, who would wage wars and conquer lesser civilizations in order to rob them of all their “valuables,” hoarding the looted treasure in order to maintain great social power. It is important to note that such behavior does not exist in “uncivilized” populations of people; for example, some African tribes. Many such groups of people do not place any value on personal possessions that have no practical use, and as such, rarely find themselves in conflict with each other or with similar tribes (unless there is a need for resources, namely food, and no compromise can be reached).
Locke takes on the idea of the “state of war” in Chapter III, and the idea of conquest in Chapter XVI. Locke believes that a state of war exists when people (many people or even a single person) attempt to get others under their power or take away their liberty (which includes possessions necessary for survival, since they are protected by natural law/right, which Locke believes is synonymous with liberty) by use of force (14-15). Locke does not look kindly on those who put themselves at a state of war with others; in Sections 18 and 19 of Chapter III he explains that he would, for example, have the right to kill a thief intruding into his home because people who put themselves in a state of war forfeit their lives when they seek to deprive others of their liberty (15). Locke also discusses conquest, describing what he calls “unjust conquest” as well as “just conquest.” Locke likens the unjust conqueror to a petty criminal: “Should a robber break into my house, and with a dagger at my throat make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title, by his sword, has an unjust conqueror, who forces me into submission” (91). He believes that unjust conquerors have absolutely no rights to the property of the conquered, nor should they have any real power to control the conquered. However, Locke’s opinion of so-called “just conquerors” is a little different. Locke states that “conquerors in a lawful war,” where “victory favours the right side,” may appropriate the possessions of those who forfeited their rights by entering a state of war against the conqueror…but only to “make reparations for the damages received” and he has “no right to seize more than the vanquished could forfeit” (92, 95). Aside from that, Locke argues that even “just conquerors” have no right to appropriate the estates or property of those whom they have vanquished. Clearly, however, the world does not work this way, and historically conquerors in both “just” and “unjust” wars have pillaged and looted their opponents to add to their own personal treasuries.
In essence, it comes down to greed being the main motivation behind the human tendency to wage war, whether personal or on a major scale, in order to gain land and material property (wars over religious/political beliefs are a different story). Humans, for some reason, typically desire owning more property than they need; they desire luxury items and the money that could be used to buy such possessions. Many people eat much more than they need to (hence the growing obesity problem, particularly in America) and often waste food, flying in the face of Locke’s views on what rights people have in regards to food. Greed driven by the desire for power is also a factor: people believe that if they own more “valuable” goods than others, then they have more power than them, and as such will sometimes go take extreme actions in order to gain more property than they really need. Locke believes that humans who engage in a state of war with one another have no rights to the estates and property of others. Even those whom he considers to be “just conquerors” in war are only entitled to appropriate reparations for damages inflicted by their opponents; however, this is almost never the case in war involving takeover of territory and possessions. Therefore, while Locke’s beliefs about property rights as dictated by natural law are reasonable and, in theory, would be ideal, they do not necessarily apply to the real world because humans, on the whole, are just not satisfied with owning only what is necessary for survival in Locke’s terms.