copyright Tatiana Harrison, 2008
Quotes will be annotated as follows:
L: John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, Prentice Hall/Library of Liberal Arts, Ed: Thomas Peardon //
M: E/P = Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (and the Communist Manifesto), Great Books in Philosophy, 1988, trans: Martin Milligan // M: CM = Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and) The Communist Manifesto, Great Books in Philosophy, 1988, trans: Martin Milligan //
M: GI = Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, International Publishers, 2001, ed: C.J. Arthur
John Locke, in the Second Treatise of Government, and Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, The German Ideology, and Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, discuss communities that result from their conceptions of property and labor. Locke’s community is a commonwealth, complete with government and laws, the end of which is the preservation of the property of its citizens. The preservation of property creates a society which protects each man’s right to be distinguished by what is his, and by what is not his. Marx’s community is a communist society that is not political, but social. The end of Marx’s communist society appears to be the abolition of property. The eradication of owned and private property results in a society that does not distinguish between what is mine and what is yours. These vastly different communities result from the same grounds of property and labor. How can theories grown from the same soil sprout such different results? Taking property and labor in general as the ground on which these communities are grown, we begin our exploration by examining the resulting communities to try to reveal any differences that might be lurking in their grounds.
Locke begins man’s journey into the commonwealth by inventing the state of nature in which man first finds himself. He claims that there is one rule that governs all men in this state: the rule of reason. Reason will dictate to each man the best way to live his life, and reason will generate a respect towards other men:
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions…
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 1: page 5
Any man who does not follow the rule of reason and attacks another man or another man’s property places himself in a state of war with that man, and with all men. Since this man does not follow the rule of reason like other men in the state of nature, he becomes a threat to every other man and every other man’s property, for what he is willing to do to one man, he might be willing to do to all men. Not only has this man become a threat, he has removed himself from the state of nature by not abiding by the law of nature, which is the rule of reason. The attacked man should treat his attacker as if he were an animal that could endanger the lives of men, for by not following the rule of reason, the attacker has relinquished his abilities as a man to act as though he were one without reason. It is the right of the attacked man to defend himself and his property with whatever means he can muster, no matter how extreme. As long as the attack is continuing, no means of defense can be too extreme. This is the crux of the state of nature: that any man has the right to defend himself, and his property, against one who is endangering either of them. If he or his property is attacked, he can take retribution from the offender. The problem in the state of nature occurs because each man can act as his own judge, and revenge and anger can overcome reason. An injured man might not be able to judge his offender fairly for the anger he feels, and, in the state of nature, he alone can act as judge, and punisher.
This rule of reason cannot hold men together peacefully. Consider a simple case: a man enters another’s house to take his fish. The man is caught by the owner of the fish, who proceeds to attack the man. Now, according to Locke, this attack is just, because in a state outside society, each man enforces his own interpretation of the rule of reason. The rule of reason itself does not need to be interpreted, but emotions cloud man’s ability to accept the rule of reason. In the owner’s eyes, the thief is attempting to injure him by taking his property, and deserves the beating he is now receiving. In the owner’s eyes, the thief has placed himself in a state of war with the owner, and has lost his natural rights to protect himself and his property. The owner’s actions against the thief appear justified to the owner, who feels he is only exercising his natural rights to protect himself and his property.
Let us now consider the scenario from the thief’s perspective. Perhaps the owner of the fish has been procuring more fish than he can use. Perhaps the owner has even gone so far as to let the fish rot in his house. If the owner had been allowing the fish to rot, he would have been stealing from what Locke calls “the common.” The common is what nature alone can provide man. Stealing from the common injures the other men living in the state of nature by wasting what another man could use. Even if the common is abundant, allowing something to rot is still wasteful:
As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labor fix a property in; whatever is beyond this is more than his share and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.
Locke: pg. 19, Ch. V
Each man in the state of nature is only allowed to own what he can use before it spoils. Since this owner has been allowing fish to rot, he has been taking what is part of another’s share. Now, this thief knows that the owner has been stealing from the common, and seeks retribution in a way he feels is just: to take the fish from the owner before it can be wasted.
Since they have no common judge, and they are the only ones who perceive the situation, the state of nature mandates that they deal with the problem each in his own way. Unfortunately, as was shown, their perceptions about what occurred and what is a just punishment can vastly differ. Their perceptions could differ to such an extent that one man feels he has been injured by another, and the injurer feels he has done no harm to the other man. One of the men involved will have given up his natural rights by refusing to abide by the rule of reason, thus placing himself in a state of war with other men, while the other man involved will be acting to protect his natural rights. To perceive which man is acting according to his natural rights requires the judgment of one who is not directly involved. The different perceptions of the men involved only muddy the rule of reason, not demean it.
Another possible outcome of this situation is that the owner of the fish will recognize that he has been stealing from the common, but will not allow himself to be punished. The owner recognizes that he has not been abiding by the rule of reason, but does not wish to be punished for it. While reason will lead him to accept that he has injured the common, his emotions could prevent him from being willing to accept his just punishment. This outcome shows the need not only of an impartial judge, but of an impartial executor of judgment.
As has been shown, the state of nature is unstable. This instability stems from three causes:
First, there wants an established, settled, known law… for though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures, yet men, being biased by their interest as well as ignorant for want of studying it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases.
Secondly, in the state of nature there wants a known and indifferent judge with authority… for every one in that state being both judge and executioner of the law of nature, men being partial to themselves, passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far and with too much heat in their own cases, as well as negligence and unconcernedness to make them too remiss in other men’s.
Thirdly, in the state of nature there often wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution…
Locke: pg. 71, Ch. IX
To avoid the state of nature degenerating into the state of war, each man must accept the rule of reason, and must be in perfect control of his emotions to allow the execution of that rule. Reason and emotions act as feuding aspects over man’s actions. When he is perfectly controlled by reason, his emotions hold no sway over his actions. When he is perfectly controlled by emotions, he no longer abides by the rule of reason, and can no longer be in the state of nature with other men. Most men will seek a balance between their emotions and their reason. This balance, however, will fluctuate and cannot be stable. The state of nature, therefore, cannot maintain itself, and is only a temporary state. Either it will degenerate into the state of war, or the men in the state of nature will create a commonwealth. The creation of the commonwealth will have one main purpose:
The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property.
Locke: pg. 71, Ch. IX
The decision to unite into a commonwealth having been made, the men must then create the commonwealth. How is the commonwealth created?
Each man in the state of nature has the power both to judge the rule of reason and to execute it. These powers are what each man must give up to the commonwealth for its creation. Each man that wishes to be in the commonwealth must consent to give up these powers to specific individuals within the commonwealth. These powers cannot simply be given up, for then man would be denying the existence of his natural rights. The decision of to whom these powers will be given is made by the majority of the men, for:
…it is necessary the body [i.e.: the commonwealth] should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority; or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body…
Locke: pg. 55, Ch. VIII
Since each man chooses to give up his natural powers to the commonwealth, the majority of men will have the most natural power to give to the commonwealth. These powers can be given to elected representatives, or given to a family to rule for generations to come, and so forth. It does not matter what form of government the commonwealth has as long as its end is achieved. Now that the government has been formed, how is it to achieve its end?
Recall that in the state of nature one of the causes of conflict was that each man could have a different interpretation of the law of nature. One of the government’s main tasks, therefore, will be to create laws that each man in the commonwealth is expected to follow. The formation of set laws will give each man the ability to order his life on the same terms as every other man. Instead of interpretations of an unspoken law, there will be set laws that attempt to make explicit the unspoken rule of reason and its implications. The men, therefore, have given up one of the two powers they had in the state of nature. The other power they possessed was to execute the law as they saw fit. To create the commonwealth, they must also give up this power. This power they will give up to the executive branch of the government, such as the police. The executive branch of the government is necessary to allow peace in the commonwealth; if each man can execute the legislated law as he sees fit, there will be no common judge between two men, and passion still will threaten to overcome reason. Everyone in the commonwealth, including those in the legislative and executive branches, is subject to the laws of the commonwealth.
Now that the men have entered into a commonwealth, it follows that their possessions also become subject to the commonwealth. This follows directly from the end of the commonwealth being the “preservation of property”; for how can the commonwealth preserve something that is outside of it? This is not to say that the men lose their possessions to the commonwealth. Both the men and their possessions become subject to the commonwealth in the same way:
By the same act, therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any commonwealth, by the same he unites his possessions which were before free to it also; and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of that commonwealth as long as it has being.
Locke: pg. 69, Ch. VIII
This means that, when men agree to enter into a commonwealth, they agree to abide by the laws of the commonwealth, which may or may not include laws that pertain to their property. For example, the commonwealth might have a law that each citizen must pay a certain amount in taxes. This law will not be in opposition to the end of the commonwealth, but will allow the commonwealth to generate the means to maintain its end. (This is because the commonwealth has taken upon itself the burden of protecting all the property of its citizens, and the means by which it must protect the property of its citizens must also be property.)
Locke’s commonwealth, therefore, includes a governmental system that regulates and protects the property of its citizens. This regulation and protection takes the form of laws, and the power behind the laws to execute them. Locke’s community, therefore, is a political community created to provide stability to each man’s property, including each man’s economic status and each man’s life and liberties. The commonwealth occurs because man is not unified in the state of nature, but separated from other men not only by his individual conception of the rule of reason, but also by his opinion on how the rule of reason should be executed. In Marx, man is unified as part of the same species naturally, but becomes separated through estrangement of labor and the creation of private property. The community that results for Marx is a social, not political, community.
Marx’s community is not created from the state of nature as Locke’s is. Marx’s communist society is the result of a revolution against the pre-existing capitalistic government. Private property gives rise to capitalistic government, thus forming a fusion between economics and politics. For Marx, there can be no government without economy, and those with economic power will also have political power. Since the government arises from private property, it thus perpetuates the estrangement of people from people. The end of Marx’s revolution to a communist society, as opposed to Locke’s reasons for creating the commonwealth, is not the preservation of property, but the unification of people, both with their labor and with each other. Communism is:
… the positive transcendence of private property, as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being—a return being conscious, and accomplished within the entire wealth of previous development.
Marx: E/P: pg. 102-103
Communism allows man to return to his human state as a social being while allowing previous developments to still exist. From the very industry that propagates capitalism, communism will rise. Communism results from the government’s inability to solve the problem of estrangement, for the government itself is founded upon the very estrangement that is causing the workers to revolt. The government is nothing more than an extension of the property-owners’ control over the workers. If the people of this society are to be unified, the forces which oppose their unification must be destroyed. Anything that is a result of private property, including government, must be abolished. The solution, therefore, is the creation of a completely new community that results from the abolition of all owned property, whether private or state.
This new community would not be created as Locke’s commonwealth was, but would evolve from the current, capitalistic community. This evolution would be empowered by the very object it is revolting against: private property, for the current community, in the name of private property and capital, allows the working class to become more and more impoverished, not only economically, but also humanistically. Through the growth of capital, the working man loses his identity as man, for he is not merely a machine to produce products, but is a being with choice and thought:
The whole character of a species—its species character—is contained in the character of its life-activity; and free, conscious activity is man’s species character...
Marx: E/P: pg. 76
The current government grew from forced, estranged labor, instead of free, conscious activity. As such, it denies man his species character, and diminishes him as an individual. Though man considers his identity to be that of one man, his identity is derived from his being a man qua man:
Man is a species being, not only because in practice and in theory he adopts the species as his object (his own as well as those of other things), but—and this is only another way of expressing it—but also because he treats himself as the actual, living species; because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being.
Marx: E/P: pg. 75
That man is a species being means that man’s identity is derived from that of the entire species. As part of the species, man participates in the species’s life-activity. Since man’s life-activity is free, conscious activity, Marx states that man himself is a free being. The implication is that freedom consists in the ability of men to choose their actions consciously without being controlled. A man’s existence as man resides in his ability to participate in man’s life-activity. Free, conscious activity is not the means to fulfill a need, such as feeding himself, but is itself the fulfillment of a need. Since man considers himself to be part of a species, man considers himself to be a universal, not an individual, being. Through identifying himself with the entire species, man not only universalizes himself, but unifies himself with other men. This universalization of man is not only ignored by the government, who treats man merely as a creator of commodities, but is continuously destroyed by the government which receives its power from private property.
The revolution that allows communism to occur can only happen when the working class has been so exploited that it begins to form its own communities. These communities will be formed in the den of exploitation: the factories. The formation of communities (labor unions) by the working class can only be powerful enough to force a revolution when the exploitation of the working class has become a world, and not just a local, problem. This revolution has several stages. First, since the government cannot merely be dissolved, its relation to private property must be changed. To change its relation to private property, the government seizes all private property and claims it as state property. This places control of property and capital in the hands of the government directly, instead of in the hands of individuals. This transition to socialism will occur through the following reforms made to the current government:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Marx: CM: pg. 230-231
These reforms are all made to unify its citizens. This unification would occur mainly through step 1, the abolition of private property. Each of the steps that follows maintains that abolition. This abolition of private property is not done to reduce wealthy men to poor men, but to unify the people through an equalization of economic status. The private property of the wealthy men is not given to the poor men, but is given back to the people to be used by anyone and everyone in the community.
Though each of the reforms finds its cause in step 1, each reform contributes to the unification of the citizens. Steps 2 and 3 solidify the abolition of private property and prevent any citizens from acquiring private property. Step 3 might be the reform most violently opposed, for inherited property often unites a family and provides the family with a sense of identity. For example, the wedding dress one’s mother wore might be passed down throughout generations as an heirloom: a testament to the family’s love and strength. Yet the reliance on property as the objectification of human need is a capitalistic reliance, and not a reliance that would be found in a truly communist society. What does it mean for a family if it needs heirlooms to feel unified? It means that the family is focused on material objects instead of real, human needs. These two steps remove the focus of the society from material objects.
Socialism is just one of several revolutions the society must go through before it can truly become a communist society. Through socialism, private property becomes state property, but state property is itself only another form of owned property. This would not be the case in a communist society, where there truly would be no owned property. The abolition of owned property, whether state or private, allows each man to return to his species being, which means that each man regains free, conscious activity. The regaining of man’s species activity cannot occur when owned property still exists, for then each activity becomes merely a means to an end (the end being either the accumulation of private property or capital, or the fulfillment of other needs, such as food, or clothing.). Owned property will truly not exist in a communist society, and the notion of owned property at all will recede when man can not claim that something is “his” instead of another man’s. When the society changes from a capitalistic society to a communist society, no one will own anything. Each object in the society will belong to the society as a whole, and the idea that one man can own something while another cannot will fade. The society itself will have property, but only when compared to other societies. Within the society itself, there will be no property.
What makes these radical changes appear inevitable to Marx? Assuming for a moment that the pre-existing government was originally created in the same manner as Locke’s commonwealth, why have these changes become necessary? Why must the people revolt? Locke states that men can only be in a commonwealth when they have a common judge, and follow common laws. If every man were subject to the same laws and the same judges, there would be no estrangement between citizens. This estrangement occurs as a result of economic classes in Marx, and does not occur at all in Locke. The existence of a class-based society with different political powers must be the reason behind these radical changes that Marx proposes.
The society in Marx’s pre-existing capitalist government has two economic classes: the property-owners and the workers. These classes are not only divided economically, but also politically. The property-owners have become the ruling class, with the workers as those over which they rule. There are no such political classes in Locke. Clearly, there could be no division of political classes in Locke’s state of nature, since each man is equally ruled by the rule of reason. In Locke’s state of society, the political equality from the state of nature is maintained through the government’s chief end of preservation of property. Instead of men being equally ruled by the state of nature, men in the state of society will have common judges. The creation of the commonwealth in Locke does not dictate the redistribution of property. Instead, it seeks to maintain what those men obtained as property in the state of nature through labor done in the common. In the state of nature, the rule of reason dictates that no man should be allowed to be wasteful, for then he would be stealing from the common. In Locke’s state of society, this law would likely be maintained through civil laws. For the state of society to have two economic classes with different political powers, the society itself would have had to mutate from its original state in which each man’s natural powers (to interpret the rule of reason, and to execute it) were given to specific people. The existence of political power in an economic class as opposed to the specific people to whom the power was given originally means that the society itself would have changed from its original state.
In Locke, the majority of the people have the power to create the government they desire. Once the government is created, the state of society will be maintained unless two citizens do not follow the same laws, or do not have a common judge. Marx claims that the property-owners and the workers have no common judge. The property-owners form the ruling class of the society:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.
Marx: GI: pg. 64
They are not the legislative or executive branches of the government that the people, at the commonwealth’s conception, formed, but a new ruling power that has grown within, and against, the commonwealth. Since the property-owners control the material necessary within the society to publish and distribute ideas, the ideas which rule the government will be the ideas of the property-owners:
Since the State is the form in which the individuals of a ruling class assert their common interests…
Marx: GI: pg. 80
The property-owners, and not the government formed by the majority at the conception of the commonwealth, control the government through their ruling ideas. Since the property-owners now, effectively, control the government, there will be no common judge between property-owner and worker. In Locke’s terms, this removes the classes from a state of society, but does not return them to the state of nature. This removal cannot be a return to the state of nature, for in the state of nature each man was his own king, but in this state, we have a ruling class. The conception of the different classes with one class ruling another places the classes in what Locke would describe as a “state of war.” This occurs because the ruling class rules without the approval of the class over which it rules. It has stolen the powers that the ruled class had in the state of nature: the power to interpret the law of nature, and the power to execute it.
How did this theft occur? At what precise moment did the classes separate into ruling and ruled class? To be more precise, at what moment were the classes formed? Marx will want to claim that the classes were formed the moment private property came into being; for as soon as private property exists, there are those with, and those without. As soon, then, as one man claims that something is his, he has means to influence the government that other men do not have. As an owner of property, he has the means to promote his ideas. From the promotion of his ideas, he, and the rest of the property-owners, and not the majority as in Locke, will create a government that best suits his own needs as an owner of private property. (Notice that if the common is abundant, men with estates, or material possessions, will be the majority of men. If the common is not abundant, or should the common cease to be abundant, the majority of men will be those without surplus possessions. In other words, the majority of men will only possess what they need to survive: food, etc.) Government and private property, then, are formed at the same moment. This is directly opposed to the creation of the government in Locke where the government was created to preserve property. In Locke, property comes before government. In Marx, property comes with government. In Locke, property comes as a result of labor. In Marx, one’s property does not necessarily come as a result of one’s own labor. These differences point to fundamental differences in Locke’s and Marx’s conceptions of property and labor. To speak of property and labor in both systems is to assume that they are the same in both systems, when they are not. To understand how the theft of the ruling class occurred, we must first understand how the meaning of property and labor changed from Locke to Marx.
Locke grants property to men while they are still in the state of nature. This means that property and government are completely separate entities. Yet it is ridiculous to speak of two entities as separate when only one of them (government) has been defined. Locke defines property quite simply as:
…their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name ‘property’.
Locke: pg. 71, Ch. IX
Property is not, then, just material possessions, but lives and liberties as well. These liberties cannot be the powers men had in the state of nature to create laws and to execute them, for the commonwealth would then be unable to serve its purpose of preserving property. (Recall that the formation of the commonwealth required all men to relinquish those powers to the commonwealth.) Since property exists both in the state of nature and in the commonwealth, the liberties that it includes cannot be excluded from either state. Locke describes the liberty man has in the state of nature here:
…what state all men are naturally in, and that is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another…
Locke: pg. 4, Ch. II
This can easily be modified as follows to accommodate man in the commonwealth:
…what state all men are in, and that is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and person as they think fit, within the bounds of whatever law or laws apply to them (i.e.: either the law of nature or the laws of the commonwealth), without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another…
The first sentence states that all men are free to determine for themselves the best way to order their lives when the laws under which they have agreed to live do not dictate the actions they must take. This means that every man has the liberty to live his life in any way he sees fit, for entering a commonwealth is a choice, and not a forced action. If a man enters a commonwealth, he still has the liberty to live his life as he deems best, because he has used his own liberty to join the commonwealth. Joining the commonwealth, again, does not deprive man of his liberties. In addition, since each man in the commonwealth maintains the same liberties, each man in the commonwealth will have equal liberties and equal freedom. This does not mean, however, that each man will have the same power in the commonwealth; for power is given to the legislative branch to form laws, which power the rest of the commonwealth lacks, and similarly with the executive branch. This liberty is, simply, man’s ability to use the reason which God has given him:
God, who has given the world to men in common, has also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience…
Locke: pg. 17, Ch. V
Liberties having been discussed, it remains for us to determine what makes up a man’s estate in Locke. A man’s estate is directly linked to a man’s life; for a man’s life creates his potential to labor, and labor creates his estates:
Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature has placed it in, it has by this labor something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labor being the unquestionable property of the laborer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough and as good left in common for others.
Locke: pg. 17, Ch. V
The life of man does not only include his living essence, but his potential to labor. The potential to labor as part of life which is part of property implies that the actualization of labor, the product, will also be part of property. Labor’s products are the estates.
Different aspects of property occur at different moments. The first that occurs is man’s life, or the potential to labor. Man has his life as property from birth. As the man matures, as he grows from a child into a man, he gains his liberties. Before maturity, a man’s liberties are his only potentially. When a man develops his ability to reason fully, he then acquires his liberties as part of his property. Life and liberties, therefore, occur as property before estates. They are there in actuality before estates, which remain only there potentially. Labor and estates become actualized as part of property at the same moment, but labor must come before estates. Through labor, something that was part of the common becomes property to one man only. How does this transformation occur?
The term “common” refers to everything that nature provides freely for man. The common is shared between all men equally; no man has any greater right to anything in the common than any other man. When something that was once common becomes property to one man, it is removed from nature and can no longer be used by any other man. This transformation occurs through the labor that man imposes on the object. Through the labor man imposes on an object, man removes the object from nature. Laboring on an object in natures infuses part of man’s property, namely, his life, into the object, and this infusion separates the object from nature. Since laboring takes time, which is part of life, labor mixes a man’s life with the object of his labor. This mixing makes the object of his labor part of his property.
For example, consider an apple that has fallen on the ground. A man sees the apple. Is the apple part of his property the first moment he sees it? No, it is still part of the common. Yet from the first moment the man bends down to pick up the apple, it is his property. This is a literal removal of an object from nature, for man removes the apple from the spot in which nature has placed it. Let us consider a case where the removal from nature is not so obvious. For example, consider that the same man sees the same apple on the ground, and does not pick it up. Instead, he leaves the apple there to rot naturally until the seeds are exposed. Each day, he makes the walk from his habitat to the apple to check on its progress. When the seeds are exposed, he covers them with dirt and sprinkles water on them from a nearby stream. He does this every day, continually checking to see how the apple tree seedling is doing. Eventually, the seedling grows into an apple tree. This apple tree is part of this man’s property, because he used his body and mind to affect the growth of the seed. Yet when exactly did this tree become his?
That the tree is not his from the moment he first saw the apple is clear from our previous example. When he covers the seeds with dirt, it is clear that those seeds are now his; for then he has altered nature and labored over the seeds. Yet a case can be made that he labored over the seeds before covering them, for surely walking from his habitat to the apple each and every day is labor. The labor of walking to the apple every day, however, is not labor that changes nature, unless the walking created a path to the apple. (In that case, the path could be said to be his, but not the apple to which the path leads.) But surely the thought that went behind the plan to allow this apple to decompose into seeds and then to plant the seeds and water them counts as labor? This labor, also, does not count as the type of labor that produces estates, for this labor changes nothing in nature. (A man’s thoughts are always part of his property as they fall under part of his liberties. Since man has the liberty to reason, the result of that reasoning ability—i.e., thoughts—will also be part of his property.) The type of labor that produces estates, therefore, is physical labor. By physical labor here, we mean any labor that is done with hands or other body parts. Writing a book about theoretical physics, for example, would count as physical labor.
Notice that though man can be in the state of nature with respect to other men, he is not a part of nature in Locke. All nature is common to all men. If man were a part of nature, he would also be common to all men. Being common to all men would mean that a man’s life would be no more his than any other man’s. Since a man’s life is a part of his—and only his—property, were man a part of nature in Locke, man could not have any property. The very notion of property conflicts with the notion of common. Since man has property within himself from birth, he cannot be common, and, therefore, cannot be part of nature. Man, then, is always in opposition to nature, and is never part of it. In fact, this opposition allows man to gain property from his labor in the common, for mixing his life with something in the common removes that object from the common and makes it his.
Man has a right to add his labor to anything in nature, thus creating property, as long as he can use his property before it spoils, and as long as the common is abundant:
As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labor fix a property in; whatever is beyond this is more than his share and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.
Locke: pg. 19, Ch. V
If he obtains too much of an object that can spoil—apples, for example—he must either trade the apples for something that will last longer, such as nuts, or he can trade the apples for money.
… he might heap as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of anything uselessly in it.
And thus came in the use of money—some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful but perishable supports of life.
Locke: pg. 28, Ch. V
Money, then, is a kind of property that is useless while it remains private property. It cannot be used once it is in your possession; it can only be used in later exchanges. Money is here made equal to labor, because both labor and money can produce any product, depending on quantity. When man takes more than he can use from the common, he still does labor on that object. The object he takes, though it is surplus, is still made his by the labor he’s done on it. Even if the object will be wasted, even if the labor is surplus because the object is surplus, this product of labor is still part of that man’s property. As part of that man’s property, he cannot lose the object without being injured. To allow man to possess more than he can use (i.e.: to allow man to possess more than he can use before it spoils), he exchanges the extra labor he has done for money:
…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 overplus 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. This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions men have made practicable out of the bounds of society and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money; for, in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.
Locke: pg. 29, Ch. V
When the common is abundant, this man cannot be called a thief, for he has not wasted any of the common. Yet this is also true when the common is not abundant, for the man still has not wasted anything by trading his surplus for money. When the common is not abundant, however, there will be an unequal distribution of money, for most of the men will not have the chance to procure a surplus, and will only be able to labor for what they can use. This creates an unbalanced economy, where some of the men have money, while others only have what they can immediately use. Though the distribution of money is not uniform, the men with money, according to Locke, have done no wrong. In fact, they have avoided doing a wrong by trading their surplus for money before their surplus could be wasted. The only act of obtaining surplus, which then becomes money, is spoken of by Locke as an accident:
He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples had thereby a property in them; they were his goods as soon as gathered… And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of.
Locke: pg. 28, Ch. V
It is “foolish” to hoard more than he can use, since reason should have prevented him from doing surplus labor. It is also “dishonest” because he is announcing to every man, through his labor, his intention of using this surplus when he cannot. Money prevents him from being wasteful, and is here made equivalent to labor, and the exchange can be reversed.
When the common is no longer abundant, there will be those who cannot obtain their own land, their own estates. (They will, of course, always have their lives and liberties as property.) These men have no method to sustain themselves or their families except their labor. Yet since the common is so scarce, their labor must be used on someone else’s land instead of in the common. The object of their labor, when done on another’s property, does not become their property. Labor only creates its object as property for man when man removes the object from nature. Since the object on which man is laboring is already removed from nature, man cannot further remove it. Labor can only create its object as property for man when the object is part of the common. Since the common is no longer abundant, these men must labor on others’ estates. To labor on another’s property, these men must be hired by those with estates. This means that they will do a certain kind and certain amount of labor for those men in exchange for money:
…for a freeman makes himself a servant to another by selling him, for a certain time, the service he undertakes to do in exchange for the wages he is to receive; and though this commonly puts him into the family of his master and under the ordinary discipline thereof, yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him and no greater than what is contained in the contract between them.
Locke: pg. 47, Ch. VII
This action does not require a commonwealth, but is required to follow the laws of a commonwealth if it occurs within one. Also, since the agreement on the value of money would occur between individuals separately in the state of nature, this exchange is made simpler by the creation of a commonwealth with the ability to monitor the value of money. The monitoring of money would, most likely, occur through laws created by the commonwealth. Since money was made equivalent to labor done in the common originally, money in this case will be part of a man’s property. As part of man’s property, it is the commonwealth’s obligation to attempt to preserve it. Most money exchanged, however, will not occur as a result of labor done in the common, but as the result of labor done on another’s estate. Assuming the value of money to be monitored by the government of the commonwealth, any exchange involving money will become more stable in this commonwealth. For example, in the state of nature, the value of money must be re-determined before each exchange, between each man involved. The value of money in the state of nature will then be subject to the same interpretation as the rule of reason. In a commonwealth created with the ability to monitor money, however, the value of money will be the same for each citizen, and will not change in each exchange. This provides stability to the value of money, and through this stability, encourages its use. (For, in the state of nature, an apple will always have the value of an apple, but 2 pieces of silver at one time might have the value of an apple, another, an acorn. In the state of nature, only the values of useful possessions are stable.)
The placement of a man as another’s worker affects the laborer’s relationship with his labor. In the common, any labor done creates property for the laborer. Since this is not the common, the labor done does not mean the product of the labor becomes part of the estate of the laborer. Instead of the product, the laborer is given money as a replacement. Money was shown to be equivalent in value to labor, but that was shown when the labor was done in the common, and not when the labor was done on another’s estate. The labor done in the common that is then exchange for money was always surplus labor, labor that created something a man could not use before it rotted. The labor done in this case is not surplus labor, but labor specifically with the intent to receive money afterwards instead of the product of labor. Locke’s treatment of money and labor ends here. We can venture no further into the territory of worker using Locke’s terms without it being mere speculation. To continue on, we must discuss property and labor in Marx’s terms.
Labor, and not property, is common to all men in Marx. It is what creates their essence, what characterizes them as people. Since men do not have property within their beings naturally, men will be part of nature, since what separated them from it in Locke is no longer there. Labor, instead of property, is what all men have within their beings:
This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the production of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals… a definite mode of life… What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce.
Marx: GI: pg. 42
A man, therefore, is a product of what and how he labors. Labor defines a man as that particular man. It individualizes man and separates him from every other man. If labor is what gives man his individuality, each man will want to choose what and how he labors, for he will want to control who he is to become. Regardless if man has the right to control who he is to become, every man will desire this right. If he does not have that control, then the labor he does becomes someone else’s labor and not his own.
When labor was first divided to produce the most product in the least time, man first found himself being defined by one particular labor and one particular method. Who he was no longer depended on what he chose to labor on that day, but now depended on what he had previously labored on days before, and what he would continue to labor on days after. We left Locke behind because he could not describe the situation in which paid workers found themselves. Specifically, he failed to discuss what effect, if any, a man’s labor had on its object when the object was not part of the common. This is the situation in which Marx’s workers find themselves. These workers are subject to the will of the one who pays them, the property-owner, and the more they specialize in one particular act of labor, the more efficient they will become at it. This specialization is the division of labor:
Division of labour only becomes truly such from the moment when a division of material and mental labour appears.
Marx: GI: pg. 51
The workers came to the property-owner because they had nothing with which to work, and could not sustain themselves, or their families. The division of labor between material and mental occurs for the first time here, when the worker sells his material labor to the property-owner. Since man is defined by what he does, and since what the workers do is not given to them as a choice, the workers feel that the labor they do does not belong to them, but belongs to the property-owner for whom they are working.
And finally, the division of labour offers us the first example of how… man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.
Marx: GI: pg. 53
To sustain himself and his family, the worker must continue to do the specific material labor the property-owner orders.
The division of labor does not just affect the worker, but the property-owner as well. As the worker is being defined more and more by his labor, so is the property-owner being defined more and more by his ownership. Since the property-owner is part of the ruling class, he will support the ruling ideas of the society. These ideas will define the property-owners in the same way that material labor will define the workers. Both the property-owners and the workers will be defined by each other, and not by their life-activities. The property-owner will be defined by his ownership of property, his treatment of his workers, and his capital. The workers will be defined by their lack of property, their labor, and their lack of capital. The property-owner, then, as well as the worker, is defined as a result of the division of labor. Marx focuses more on the results that the division of labor has on the workers, but it is also true that the division of labor negatively affects the property-owners who are also not defined by man’s life-activity, but by economic status.
After the division of labor, and after the advent of money, material labor separates man from the product of man’s own labor in two ways. First, since the product of man’s labor does not belong to him, man feels that his own labor does not belong to him. Second, since the labor feels forced, the laborer feels no connection to the product of his labor:
Labor produces not only commodities: it produces itself and the worker as a commodity—and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.
This fact expresses merely the object which labor produces—labor’s product—confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer.
Marx: E/P: pg. 71
Instead of labor creating man as an individual, labor here creates man as nothing but the value of what he can produce. This alienation occurs not only as a result of the division of labor, but as a result of the advent of money and the scarcity of the common. Since the worker has no land of his own, he must use another’s land to labor on. Since the property-owner can only do work on his own land with a penalty of lost efficiency and lost capital, he must use another’s labor to cultivate his own land.
First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind… His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it.
Marx: E/P: pg. 74
Labor, therefore, is done out of necessity, and not out of freedom. Man is not defined by what he wants to do, but only by what he must do.
This division, not only of labor, but of man from his own labor, also divides man from man. Men now are divided into two classes: property-owner and worker. Both of these classes suffer similar results of the division of labor, but these results (that the members of each class are not being defined by man’s life-activity) only cause to separate man from man:
Thus, if the product of his labor, his labor objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of him, then his position towards it is such that someone else is master of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, powerful, and independent of him.
Marx: E/P: pg. 80
Since both classes are defined by the other class’s existence, both classes view the other as hostile. The division of labor causes the property-owners to define the workers, and the workers to define the property-owners as well. This not only divides man from man, but makes the opposing class the enemy.
The result of the division of labor is private property:
Private property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labor, of the external relation of the worker to nature and to himself.
Private property thus results by analysis from the concept of alienated labor—i.e., of alienated man, of estranged labor, of estranged life, of estranged man.
Marx: E/P: pg. 81
Division of labor not only ensures that the property-owners will continue to be the property-owners, but also that the workers can never become property-owners. This follows directly from the specialization of the workers in material labor and not in mental labor. Since the workers could not do mental labor without suffering inefficiency compared to the property-owners, the workers will continue to do that at which they are most efficient. Not only would the workers be inefficient in mental labor, but they lack the material means, the property, to not be a worker for a property-owner. Private property necessitates the division of labor, and the division of labor forces private property to remain private.
The property owned by the property-owners and used by the workers in their material labor is what Locke called “estates.” Property for Marx is only the material possessions, and does not include the life and liberties that Locke’s conception of property included. This distinction places property primary for Locke, but labor primary for Marx. When property is set as something that is fundamental to men, nature and men live in opposition. This is Locke’s world: men are not part of nature, but an addition to it. In Marx’s world, labor, as species-labor, is fundamental to men, which creates a harmony between nature and men. As men, like all species, have their own species-labor, man is necessarily a part of nature. From man’s life-activity comes man’s life, and from man’s life comes man’s consciousness.
When Locke creates his commonwealth, he creates it to protect man’s individual property. Each man has his property that is his own. The separation of private property from the common creates distinctions between men. These distinctions are not only based on man’s estates (i.e.: his possessions), but are also based on his thoughts. As his thoughts are part of his liberties which are part of his property, man distinguishes himself from what is common by what he thinks, by what he does, and by what he owns. The preservation of man’s property is the primary reason men in Locke’s world create commonwealths. The creation of the commonwealth not only allows men to preserve their individuality through the preservation of their property, but also equalizes men in their natural powers. By this, I mean that each man in the commonwealth has relinquished his natural powers of judging and executing the rule of reason. Equalizing men in this way, however, does not make them unified; it only makes them equal in their abilities to be judged fairly. The equalization of men in terms of the law still allows man to be separate and distinct from every other man. This distinction and separation from every other man is the same distinction and separation man has with nature. As a result of Locke’s treatment of the common and definition of property, his commonwealth is born to preserve that which Locke deems most important: that my life, my liberties, and my estates, are mine. They are not, and can never be, yours.
Marx’s community is not created at all. It is a result of the current commonwealth’s inability both to allow man to be unified with man, and to allow man to be unified with nature. Since Marx places man in nature and not as a force outside of nature, when the current commonwealth by empowering private property forces man to separate himself from nature, and, because of that separation, from man, the citizens of this commonwealth must revolt to unify themselves both with themselves, and with nature. This unification will allow man to do only the labor he wishes to do. Since no man has private property, each man will be liberated from the capitalistic demands brought on by the division of labor. This liberation will free man from worrying about his efficiency, and will allow him to be finally unified with the community. In a truly communist society, each man will do what is best for the society, instead of what is best only for himself. For man to be joined with nature, man must become “common” in Locke’s terms. The unification of man both to nature and to man occurs because man releases himself from the ownership of his own life and his own liberties to create a society in which each man’s life and liberties belongs to that society alone. When Marx excludes life and liberties from his definition of property, man rejoins nature and rejoins society as part of nature’s and society’s common property. When the citizens of this society are truly able to accept that their lives and their liberties exist for the benefit of the society as a whole, and not for their own personal benefit, the society will become a communist society.
The grounds from which Marx’s and Locke’s societies rise are property and labor, but their meanings are different. The grounds that create Locke’s commonwealth are focused on man as an individual, separated from nature. This separation from nature allows man to create property for himself by removing an object from nature. The commonwealth that rises from this conception of property and labor is one where each man’s own, individual properties are protected. The grounds that create Marx’s communist society, on the other hand, focus on man as part of a species, and, therefore, man as part of nature. The communist society that rises from this conception of property and labor is a unified society where each man is part of the society’s consciousness. The differences between Locke’s and Marx’s communities depend on what makes a man a man: his individual property, or his identity as a species.