Sufficiency and freedom in Locke’s theory of property
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885115587118 |
| Author | Daniel M. Layman |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2018, Vol. 17(2) 152–173
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885115587118
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Article
Sufficiency and freedom in
Locke’s theory of property
Daniel M. Layman
Brown University, USA
Abstract
It is traditional to ascribe to Locke the view that every person who acquires natural
property rights by labouring on resources is obligated to leave sufficient resources for
everyone else. But during the last several decades, a number of authors have contrib-
uted to a compelling textual case against this reading. Nevertheless, Locke clearly
indicates that there is something wrong with distributions in which some suffer while
others thrive. But if he does not endorse the traditional proviso, what exactly is the
problem? In this paper, I offer a solution to this puzzle. I argue that according to Locke,
once people use their natural rights to acquire large properties, many individuals are
unable to enjoy the material and moral wellbeing, or ‘‘preservation,’’ that is the end of
natural law. For evenif such largeproperties pose no problem for material preservation,
they foster arbitrary power that offends against moral preservation.
Keywords
Locke, property, republicanism, money, natural law
1. Introduction: Locke without the Proviso
Most scholars of John Locke’s political philosophy believe that his theory of prop-
erty includes a proviso, or restriction, that prohibits people from appropriating
resources to such an extent that there is not enough left for others. This norm has
variously been called the ‘sufficiency restriction’,
1
the ‘Lockean proviso’, or simply
the ‘proviso’.
2
The key text commentators use to attribute the proviso to Locke
appears near the outset of his famous chapter on property, where Locke explains
that labour on unowned resources affords the labourer property in those resources,
‘at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others’.
3
Jeremy Waldron has levelled a sustained challenge to this received reading.
4
According to Waldron, the only restriction that limits individuals’ natural moral
power to create property rights is a waste restriction that forbids people to take
Corresponding author:
Daniel M. Layman, Brown University, Political Theory Project, Box 2005, 8 Fones Alley, Providence, RI 02912,
USA.
Email: daniel_layman@brown.edu
more than they can use. A right of charity allows those in desperate need to use
others’ property to survive, but there is no sufficiency-oriented restriction on indi-
vidual acquisitive acts.
5
Waldron’s argument is, I think, quite compelling, and it
will be useful to reproduce some of its central features. First, Locke simply does not
assert that leaving enough and as good is a necessary condition of just, property-
creating acquisition. Rather, he identifies leaving enough and as good as a sufficient
condition of just, property-creating acquisition:
Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in,
he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby
makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath
placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common
right of other men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the
Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least
where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.
6
Surely it is most natural to read ‘P, at least where Q’ as ‘if Q, then P’ rather than as
‘if P, then Q.’ Thus, it is most natural to read this passage as saying that if there is
enough and as good left for others, then everyone has a right to what she has
appropriated. But in order to constitute a necessary condition on the justice of
individual acts of appropriation, the conditional would have to run the other way.
Second, Locke repeatedly identifies the waste restriction as the sole natural
restriction on individuals’ moral power of appropriation. Here are two represen-
tative passages:
It will perhaps be objected to this, That if gathering the Acorns, or other fruits of the
Earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may ingross as much as he will. To
which I Answer, Not so. The same Law of Nature, that does by this means give us
Property, does also bound that Property too. God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim.
vi. 17. is the Voice of Reason confirmed by Inspiration. But how far has he given it us?
To enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils;
so much he may by his labour fix a Property in. Whatever is beyond this, is more than
his share, and belongs to others.
7
He that gathered a Hundred Bushels of Acorns or Apples, had thereby a Property in
them; they were his Goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look, that he used them
before they spoiled; else he took more than his share, and robb’d others ...the exceed-
ing of the bounds of his just Property not lying in the largeness of his Possession, but
the perishing of any thing uselesly in it.
8
The first of these two passages appears only four paragraphs after the famous
‘enough, and as good’ passage. Why would Locke take up, as though for the
first time, the challenge of how much individuals may appropriate and answer it
by appealing to a waste restriction if he had already answered the same question
completely differently less than two pages earlier?
Layman 153
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