Summary Of John Locke's Second Treatise

In Second Treatise, Locke states that the world is given “to mankind in common” by God, yet his argument is for the right of private property with the justifications of: the property must be designated for the property to be useful, those who labor for the property own it through their labor, and any man can take as much property as he wants as long as the property is used and not spoiled. Locke begins his argument with the point that if property is to be used, then it must be appropriated and “…another can no longer have any right to it…” prior to the property being able to “…do him any good for the support of his life.” (p.19, $26) For a person to survive, one must have his or her own private property to obtain the necessary resources for survival. The common property of all mankind becomes private property when it alters from the state of nature where the property is naturally occurring. The next question pertains to how common property removed from the state of nature is private property.
Locke links the catalytic relationship between labor and property by citing a laborer as taking property “…out of the hands of nature…thereby appropriated it to himself.” (p. 20, $29) Thus, if anything requires labor, whatever the labor applies to, becomes the property of the person by association. The theory comments on Locke’s era of feudalism and refuting the lord-serf relationship. By this definition of private property, the land and the products produced belonging to the lords would then be the private property of each serf because the serfs are the faction laboring on the