Right To Property According To John Locke Summary

Rights to Property According to John Locke

In chapter V of The Second Treatise of Government by John Locke, he begins by explaining that God has given earth to all man in “common”. Meaning everyone equally owns all of the earth and its fruits. How can we humans, fairly distribute this land? What gives one man the right to a deer over every other person on earth? Labor, Locke states “The labor that was mine removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them”(13). This meaning that once you put work and physical labor into some sort of land or animal, it is then yours to own out of the common land. For example, a man sees a deer on the side of the road and uses his weapon to kill it. He has used his recourses
At the end of section 50 he states “But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labor yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out, a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the over plus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor” (23). After stating what he believes is the best way to distribute land, this is his way of warning us how easily this balance can be broken. He means to show everything he explained doesn’t matter because we have allowed value to be given to something, which cannot feed man and does not spoil in the hands of man. Therefore, unbalancing nature and allowing certain men in power to posses a disproportionate amount of this earth only because they own more gold and silver. By us as a society agreeing blindly to give gold such high value, we have changed the ways of life from wanting to obtain cattle, land, and natural goods. To in turn only chasing gold and silver (money). This only hurts the earth that has been given to all men in common by God. It allows men with wealth and power to spoil lands and destroy habitats only because they choose to obtain absurd amounts of gold to let decay and spoil in their hands. Take for example all the animals, which go extinct by allowing certain men with enough money to go out with multimillion-dollar machines and completely wipe out forests. Which is as Locke states given to all men in common. So what is Locke’s purpose in making us realize this? Its feels like a warning, letting you see the way earth should really