The Significance of Property Acquisition and its Association to Preservation in Locke's Second Treatise

Running head: POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLITICAL SCIENCE
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1POLITICAL SCIENCE
John Locke’s fundamental political analysis known as The Two Treaties of Government
(1690) has been significantly been recognized as a seminal piece of work in the history of
political liberalism (Locke). However, the Second Treatise in particular has been recognized
whereby Locke has posed certain significant disagreements related to the case of individual
natural rights and privileges, limited government depending on the sanction and approval of the
governed, power division within the government and further most importantly the authority of
people within the society in order to depose ruling section who have being incapable to preserve
their end of social contract (Drahos). The essay will comprise the origin of property in the state
of nature in Locke’s Second Treatise by shedding light on the limitations posed on property
acquisition and its association to preservation. The thesis statement of this essay is “the
significance of the enhanced productivity caused by labour along with the association between
money and property”.
The theoretical understanding of state of nature holds various connotations whereby in
the opinion of Hobbes, the state of nature is considered as a state of persistent mutual
exploitation, all individuals seeking to govern individuals of the society and to obtain honour and
revenues (Ashcraft). However, Hobbes argued that there are no human rights in the state of
nature where individuals possess the natural authority to act in order to uphold the individualistic
liberty and protection and further implies they way they respond savagely to each other with the
intention to preserve their own life (Zwolinski). However, Locke holds a different position in
comparison to Hobbes where he believes that individuals could live in a state of nature and
further ‘this state of nature’ gives rise to complete autonomy where all individuals are given
equal opportunity and can be associated with the ‘bond by the law of nature’ (Locke). In the
opinion of Locke, human authorities and rights are regarded as rights which every individual

2POLITICAL SCIENCE
possess and further belong to all humans, thus cannot be transferable to others in the society.
Furthermore, Locke has critically argued that initially in the state of nature, there has a lack of
incentive for any individual to intend to gather more additional property which an individual
could utilize as major proportion of goods were considered to be unpreserved (Locke). Locke
had further provided an explicit understanding of an early state of existence where there had
been an abundance of resources with scarcity of population although the essential level of wealth
was probably very low (Drahos).
Locke holds the assumptions that when individual possesses equal privileges and
opportunities to suitable land and further obtain approximate value and revenues from it, an
individual has the right to suitable undemanded land as one’s privately owned asset or property
and this misuse further establishes indisputable situation to gain full property authorization
preserved by the appropriator regarding the specific parcel of property (Locke). Thus it has been
noted that from premises related to self-ownership alone nothing can be associated with the
liable possession of parts of the earth (Epstein). Furthermore, Locke believed that each
individual possess the rightful ownership of one’s own self and further reinforced on the notion
of the world as a shared property or belong to Adam’s child Abel and his descendents
(Zwolinski). However, under conditions of non-scarcity, individuals can perceive that if an
individual has a rightful possession to one’s own self, individuals ought to be able to apposite as
much land as possible and further obtain revenues by exerting labour on that land (Locke).
Furthermore, if an individual claims his labour to be his own along with the abundance of land,
others could demand the justifiable possession to a portion of that individual’s labour on that
non-scarce land (Claeys).