The Lockean State of Nature

A state of nature governed by reason

For Locke, the state of nature is not Hobbes's war of all against all. People in it are free and equal, but reason, which Locke calls natural law, governs their conduct. Reason shows that no one should harm another in their life, health, liberty, or possessions. These are not rules imposed from outside. They are what rational creatures recognize when they think clearly about how to live alongside others.

This means natural rights exist independently of any political authority. You have a right to your life, your freedom, and what you have earned before any government says so. Government doesn't grant these rights. It either protects them or it doesn't.

The state of nature is, for Locke, peaceful in principle. The problem is enforcement. Without a common judge, each person must enforce their own rights, which leads to partial judgments, disproportionate retaliation, and escalating conflicts. Government solves this problem, not the problem of human nature itself.

Property and the labor theory

Locke's most influential and contested idea is his theory of property. In the state of nature, the earth and its resources are initially held in common by all. How does any of it become mine?

Locke's answer is labor-mixing: when you mix your labor with something from nature, you make it yours. The person who clears a field, plants it, and tends it has added something of themselves to what was common. They own the result.

Two constraints limit this. You may not take more than you can use before it spoils. And there must be "enough and as good" left for others. Locke thought these conditions were met in his time, particularly because labor dramatically increases the productivity of land. He also argued that money, by consent, allowed the limits on accumulation to expand without waste, since money doesn't spoil.

Critics have noted that these constraints disappear quickly in Locke's argument, leaving the labor theory as a justification for whatever property arrangements already exist.

The right to revolution

Because government exists to protect natural rights, a government that systematically violates them forfeits its authority. This is Locke's most politically explosive claim.

When a legislature acts against the life, liberty, or property of the people, or when a ruler dissolves the legislative and rules by will rather than law, the people may resist. The right of revolution is not a license for instability. Locke thought people were patient and conservative. They would not revolt over minor grievances. But sustained tyranny, a long train of abuses in Jefferson's later phrase, justifies reconstituting authority from scratch.

This is the direct intellectual source of the American Declaration of Independence. The argument is Lockean almost verbatim: governments are instituted to protect natural rights, and when they fail, the people may alter or abolish them.