Editing Property (section)

==== John Locke (17th century) ====

In the following generation, [[John Locke]] sought to answer Filmer, creating a rationale for a balanced [[constitution]] in which the monarch had a part to play, but not an overwhelming part. Since Filmer's views essentially require that the [[House of Stuart|Stuart]] family be uniquely descended from the [[patriarchs]] of the [[Bible]], and even in the late 17th century, that was a difficult view to uphold, Locke attacked Filmer's views in his [[Two Treatises of Government#First Treatise|First Treatise on Government]], freeing him to set out his own views in the [[Second Treatise on Civil Government]]. Therein, Locke imagined a pre-social world each of the unhappy residents which are willing to create a [[social contract]] because otherwise, "the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure," and therefore, the "great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property."<ref>John Locke, "The Second Treatise of Civil Government" (1690), Chap. IX, §§&nbsp;123–124.</ref> They would, he allowed, create a [[monarchy]], but its task would be to execute the will of an elected legislature. "To this end" (to achieve the previously specified goal), he wrote, "it is that men give up all their natural power to the society they enter into, and the community put the [[Legislative power]] into such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the [[state of nature]]."<ref>John Locke, "The Second Treatise of Civil Government" (1690), Chap. XI, §&nbsp;136.</ref>

Even when it keeps to proper legislative form, Locke held that there are limits to what a government established by such a contract might rightly do.

<blockquote> "It cannot be supposed that [the hypothetical contractors] they should intend, had they a power so to do, to give anyone or more an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them; this were to put themselves into a worse condition than the State of nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man or many in combination. Whereas by supposing they have given themselves up to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him to make a prey of them when he pleases..."<ref>John Locke, "The Second Treatise of Civil Government" (1690), Chap. XI, §&nbsp;137.</ref></blockquote>

Both "persons" and "estates" are to be protected from the arbitrary power of any magistrate, including legislative power and will." In Lockean terms, depredations against an estate are just as plausible a justification for resistance and revolution as are those against persons. In neither case are subjects required to allow themselves to become prey.

To explain the ownership of property, Locke advanced a [[labor theory of property]].