Any Lockeian scholar would be lying if they told you that any topic in
the secondary literature on the Two Treatises of Government was more famous (or
infamousÉdepending on who you talk to), widely debated, or caused more
controversy than the old Oxford gradÕs theory of property. Some are shouting
from the left that Locke argues a rights claim for subsistence for all
individuals, that it may even support MarxÕs theory of exploitation. Yelling
back are those from the right who claim that he formulates a moral
justification for capitalist appropriation of property. Then of course there
are those somewhere in between who are telling everyone to shut up because
Locke wrote the damn thing over three hundred years ago in the political
context of 17th century England and to derive these kinds of modern political
presumptions is ludicrous. They all make fine cases for their respective
theories. This humble treatise, however, will merely essay to provide a fairly
objective explanation of John LockeÕs disputed offering to the political and
economic understanding of property and how it relates to poverty and the
distribution of wealth. It will then continue to examine the two most
preeminent, contemporary champions of welfarist and entitlement theories in
that of John Rawls and Robert Nozick respectively, focusing specifically on
what they, standing on LockeÕs shoulders, offer as an acceptable system of
economic justice.
Locke begins by stating that each person has a natural right to preserve his or
her life. "God has given the Earth to all people in common for their
sustenance." (Locke 310). In the state of nature, each person owns everything
in nature equally with everyone else. However, some things in n ...