Historical context 1a - How John Locke's ideas justified enclosure, colonialism and slavery

This mini-lecture looks at the links between the activities of the newly empowered merchant class in eighteenth century England and America and the ideas of John Locke

[danielcoyne]

Mr. G, you say that Locke did not come up with anything original in the idea of the right to life. Of course he believed the right to life inalienable because God had given it to us, even in the state of nature. In the state of nature man has the right to defend himself against attackers. Man has absolute executive function. In nature there is the right to life, but through executive function we might take a life or have our life taken during conflict. That is natural. We might even deem it necessary and proper to take a life through our own executive function as justice for being wronged or in the case of persistent threat.

The unique aspect of Locke's idea is that government is obligated to protect that right to life and has no arbitrary authority over our lives. Monarchs did not have to honor a right to liberty and therefore did not protect or recognize the right to life. They could imprison a man without charge and allow him to rot in jail, or execute him. The Leviathan, in theory, needed no reason. If he deemed it for the public good, the commonwealth, it was proper.

Robert Filmer, Locke's immediate opponent, would not grant that we have an absolute right to life that is not extended from the good will of the divine-right king of the realm. Being that the king is the direct descendent of Adam, he alone holds all subjects' fates in his hands. He is the state. Nobody's person is secure because no one has liberty under a monarch, only privilege, which can be taken away. So, Locke's ideas are unique for his period. Hobbes said all men are created equal, but he must have understood the Leviathan as super-human just as Filmer did. Or maybe he suspended his notions of liberty to grasp for security in a pragmatic scheme to end the chaos of the Civil Wars that had disrupted his tranquility. But that form of security is not prudent. That is the taek away from Locke. That is Locke's innovation, his great contradictions on slavery notwithstanding. Who else was saying that at that time?

I do agree with your major point regarding the inconsistencies and calculations of Locke's work, and I think it is important for students to understand the context of his work--his relationship with proprietary land owners and his interests in the slave industry. I just don't follow your opening salvo of disdain for the originality of his work. It seems to actually serve your purpose. He had to come up with new justifications for his patrons' and his own actions. He had to, as David Wooten puts it, change human behavior to fit his desired system.

I enjoyed the lecture.

[Aggelostououranou]

This is very interesting because you sir are making some good arguments but what you're saying does seem to go against Locke's writings.

First off, John Locke basically said that people have the right of property on their own bodies, so they own their bodies. This principle by definition strictly goes against slavery. Also, he said that people acquire property by putting their labor on it. So, by working and cultivating a piece of land, that land becomes their property. So wouldn't that basically mean that someone doesn't have a right of property upon something which he didn't apply his own labour? Except I guess if this, isn't the only way that someone can acquire property. But if he thought that there are other ways as well then why not mention them? Moreover, I have read about the important caveat that you mention in Locke's theory of property, but I haven't seen it phrased to imply so strongly the fact that if one doesn't maximize the profit of his property then he forfeits his right to it and therefore loses that property. As for the constitution of Carolina, I have read that people argue that Locke merely wrote it, which I guess implies that he didn't endorse it?

This is quite interesting but also confusing because I'm not sure what to make of Locke's theory and ideas and ultimately him as an individual. Was he simply a hypocrite and a liar? Or did his theory only apply to European whites? And so, do we assume that he excluded black and native American people from his theory of inalienable rights because he thought of them as inferior? And if yes why didn't he specify that? Because he had an ulterior motive?