Bill of Rights

Rereading John Locke. It’s Different the Second Time

We’re a couple weeks into Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and after reading through it, listening to lectures, and discussing it, I’m convinced that the first time I read Locke I did not fully comprehend his argument.

I’ve often known Locke to be called the basis of American thought, and many conservatives will cite Locke as the basis for their limited government philosophy.

They emphasize Locke’s focus on the individual and his seemingly limited view of the actual rights a government has in the context of a social contract.  All well and good.

However, we should be careful of drawing any broad conclusions from this regarding “limited government.”

The concept certainly is present in Locke, but like Inigio Monotya says

John Locke’s power complex:  How limited is government?

Locke does indeed write his philosophy though the agency of the individual and unleashes devastating arguments against concepts of hereditary and/or subjective use of political power. Locke understands this power to be essentially having the power over a persons life and death:

Political Power then I take to be a Right of making Laws with Penalties of Death, consequently all less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of Property, and of employing the force of the Community, in the Execution of such Laws, and in the defense of the Common-wealth from Foreign Injury, and all this only for the Publick Good (sic). – 1.3

This concept of political power thus places within the individual the power to grant a governing authority such power, necessitating Locke’s concept of government as being by the consent of the willing.

While this may seem like the very epitome of conservative thought, Locke makes it clear that the ensuing political order that is derived from this consent, is not necessarily so mutable as to be judged inadequate and illegitimate by the people at the drop of a hat:

Where-ever therefore any number of Men ar so united into one Society, as to quit every one of his Executive Power of the Law of Nature, and to resign it to the Publick, there and there only is a Political, or Civil Society (sic). 7.89

In other words, the individual gives up his right to govern himself so long as a state of war has not been engaged in and he has no legal appeal. This is where Tea Party conservatives may get a little antsy as Locke pursues his point:

And thus every Man, by consenting with others to make one Body Politick under one Govenrment, puts himself under an Obligation to every one of that Society, to submit to the determination of the majority…. Or else this original compact would signifie nothing…. (sic). 8.97

Locke is essentially arguing for a representative government that is as permanent once the “original compact” is settled.  That compact may be amended, renegotiated, and otherwise changed, but so long as the majority agrees to such adjustments, and legal procedures are in place to appeal abuses (real and perceived), Locke doesn’t seem to think that the government should be uprooted, overthrown, or otherwise done away with.

Given the nature of political rhetoric in America today, on both the left and right, it would be easy to write American politics off as being beyond saving, but Lockean theory would argue that to the degree that the majority agree to the fundamental ordering of government and maintenance of law and order, there’s no need for any kind of massive, systemic overhaul.

Political philosophy as ideology:  Careful what you wish for.

Political philosophy is a tricky business because the philosopher is rarely partisan, and even more rarely an extremist in the sense of being radically committed to an ideology.

As an observer of politics, the philosopher seeks merely to understand and explain the world as it is, at least Locke seems to want to do that. I still think a conservative can correctly lay claim to Lockean philosophy as the basis for her thought, especially as progressive thought grows more collectivist. However, Locke seems to be less a conservative paragon than when I first read him.

He still make sense though, so maybe I’m reading him with a greater degree of clarity.

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