Overlooking John Locke's Views On Property

In the Second Treatise of Government by John Locke, he writes about property. Property is, in Locke’s thought, the foundation of justice, and the line between order and chaos. According to him, property is founded on one common fact, that every man has property on his own person. For example if man takes something from nature which could belong to anybody, and then labours with it, it becomes his property. However, the property must be used in a productive and an effective way. Only obligation is to make use of what he takes, before it spoils or perishes. In other words, it is not acceptable to own land if it is not utilised and there must be enough land left for others as well, so everything can not be used by one person. The idea of money was invented because people were using their property rights in a very mean way. With the creation of money things were given value and this invention prevented people from taking more than they could afford. Anyway, money is the means of trade and exchange possession of the properties.

When I look more in detail Locke’s explanation of property, I find some problem points. For example Locke has been inaccurate about what people are ultimately entitled to own with their work. He also supposes that there are plenty of things available that have not been mixed with anyone’s labor, but we live in the world of 2019, there is a shortage of attractive land that is unowned by anyone and an even greater shortage of land over which no nation claims political dominion. Another point is that what happens to the items that no one has laboured. For an initial allocation of property when there really is an abundance of items that no one has laboured over, Locke’s labor theory of property seems fine if one does not carefully think through what happens over time. But when items no one has laboured over will become scarce later on, that future scarcity can not be ignored. Furthermore, his theory leaves generations of owners which seem to be unfair as only people who can work are allowed to own property. This rises a question, what happens to those that do not own any property, how can they be part of the society if they do not have anything that they can protect as personal property. In my opinion this is unnatural at the core when nature did not create such inequalities. To end, I think that Locke’s explanation of property is an excellent early attempt, however it is far from being a fully acceptable theory of property. Anyway, there is no doubt that with its fault his theory is still influencing. The worldwide leading nations seem to be practical supporters of his theory. Furthermore his idea is connected with our democratic values which have become non-transferable.