So, as many of you know, America (as well as many other nations) has a wide range between the very rich and the very poor. Much of the wealth is held within a very small percentage of the population. Here's how John Locke justifies it:
Back in the good ole days when cavemen and dinosaurs roamed the earth, probably back in the Roosevelt administration or early 70's for you non-history majors..., people were free and equal, nobody had any natural authority over anybody else. At the same time, this liberty was freedom to do what you wished...but only within moral limits. These limits were determined by "natural law", which meant that people had duties to respect the rights of others. This social situation is affectionately known as...THE STATE OF NATURE.
Now, in this state of nature, one of our "natural rights" is our right to private property (in the sense of property referring to both possessions and to rights). Locke's famous defense for capitalism and economic inequality follows:
God-gave the earth to humanity in a sort of communistic state, where "this land was my land...this land is your land...this land was made for you and me" correctly applies. He also owns us humans, so that if we murder another person, we have "sinned" against God's private property. How does this public property turn to private ownership? By the labor theory of value. If there is an apple lying on the ground or "the public state" if you pick it up and dust it off, you have appropriated this apple for yourself by putting work into making it ready for consumption. So for Locke, labor changes the normative property status of things in the natural world: from being commonly owned, to private. A more appropriate example is farming. Land that is wild gives not much produce, but once I put my blood and sweat into making it more productive, it becomes mine. Now, nobody can take it away from me, since I have mixed my labor with the objects.
Now, some of the greedy people on here are thinking...well I could own the whole world then. That's not morally correct according to Locke, who claims that
1.) you have to leave "enough and as good" in the common property for others
2.) You can only take what you and your family can consume- you cannot take so much that "waste and spoilage" occur.
Plus, in the state of nature, you're going to have a lot of farmland you won't work and a lotta dead deer that you can't eat or preserve (after you hunted them of course)...and a whole lot of hungry, angry people against you.
So now, for the change that allows social inequality through hoarding. Before, you couldn't hoard things in nature simply because it violated the Lockean Proviso that it causes waste and spoilage. With the introduction of money, a durable-non-perishable good, we can store the value we have created through our labor in goods. Locke claims that certain people are naturally more industrious than others, going around and mixing their labor with everything. These people now have a way of saving up the resources claimed by their labor. Before, they could not pass anything on to their children above perishable goods for consumption, but now, they can pass on their accumulated imperishable wealth, giving their children a head start. Over many generations, this will tend to cause great differences in wealth between families. However, as long as there is no acquisition by force, isn't the acquisition fair at all points? If so, doesn't it justify the economic inequalities we would have now (granted that our system is flawed because of acquisition by force)?
Especially interested in arguments that tear up Locke using his own statements...so logical fallacies or problems with his original premises (things he assumes). But feel free to discuss anything related.
Working against Locke from within his own premises:
1.) This system depends upon the existence of God for property rights to occur. Who says that's a sound premise?
2.) This isn't exactly within what I have written, but Locke claims that we are allowed to defend ourselves against people who have an intent to kill us. We are allowed to kill them in this case. Yet, what is the difference between these "enemies" and our competitors? Enemies are simply competitors to a stronger degree in the state of nature. Locke tries to lessen this effect by hinting at the belief that there is an infinite supply of goods, since resources seem to just be lying around for us to pick up and mix our labor with. However, waste can only be bad if it hurts other people, meaning that resources are not unlimited. Therefore, killing a competitor prevents the rise of a potential...or even a "mini-enemy", which is justified in Lockean terms. Therefore, this either forces him to accept the fact that we can kill others and hoard in the state of nature for our own benefit, or property rights do not come as a result of labor mixing with resources.
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8 comments:
sorry i didn't know where to say this comment... the new layout looks slick =P
ok sorry ill comment on your topic after i get a chance to read it... i just got back from the library working on an impossible problem set...
lol, wasn't my doing =P, was epfanne's
Locke's view of the basis of economics is totally unfounded in reality. Wealth does not come about merely by the "mixing of labor and resources." Capital (in other words, prior wealth) is a crucial ingredient in the production of more wealth. That's why Marx saw that labor could only be freed when labor took control of the "means of production."
To give you a real life example of what I mean: look at the music industry. To make $, you have the artists (labor) and the resources (instruments). But the artists are nobody without the record company, all their recording studios and marketing (capital). Because of the power of capital, the record companies are able to box the lowly artists into crappy contracts and extract the lion's share of the profit while the artists themselves get paid very very little. If everyone works equally hard, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer under the capitalist system.
His idea about the 'state of nature' is shaky. In fact, all philosophies that try to legitimize their claims based on this argument are faulty.
The 'state of nature' is just a hypothetical situation with little basis in reality.
There was never an era in human history/prehistory that you can just point to and say, "Oh, that's our natural state."
I disagree. Although there's no "natural state" for humans (since humans naturally like to alter nature to suit them), it doesn't mean we can't learn something from how societies used to be built.
Many modern day hunter-gatherer societies are quite a bit more communistic and quite a bit less capitalistic than more "advanced" societies. What this example demonstrates is that the people who say "communism is against human nature" are wrong.
Err, I mean, I don't exactly disagree completely. Your criticism is valid, but it's really just parsing words and minute details. You're right that the world that Locke described, however, is a nonexistent fantasy. Just like Adam Smith's "baker" and "blacksmith," economics never was that simple.
However unequal, the system of artists + record companies is completely legitimate. Like you said, the record companies provide the capital, the artists provide labor. Because the system is contractual and due to the nature of the competitive market, artists are able to choose to not sign new contracts and simply pick a different recording company.
As Marx would say, the artists sign the contracts because they recognize that if it were not for the existence of record companies, it would be more difficult for the artists to make a living. If the contracts are disagreeable, then they would lose the artists. Sure, because the companies have a great deal of capital they will become richer, but if they ever become selfish and unjust (as they have in recent years), artists can revolt, which leads me to my next point...
With the advent of the internet, we see a shifting of power because artists are able to establish capital without a record company (ie. NIN). The industry has seen a gradual shift of power from large companies (RIAA) to more independent labels.
And now, established artists can go on mixing labor with resources in the comfort of their own homes.
You're right that the internet has done a lot of great things for egalitarianism. It has done a lot for free speech and a lot for bringing out the best in people.
However, that still doesn't change the fact that we live in a corporat-ocracy. Adam Smith never intended for Oil Lobbies and Big Tobacco to control the government with their pocketbooks. I'm glad Barack Obama is a breath of fresh air, because both McCain and Hillary were politicians that were bought and paid for.
I don't think you can call the system legitimate when the laws that govern it were written illegitimately. The legal system itself massively favors those who have wads of money. I don't know if you're familiar with the Duke Lacrosse case, but basically, the only reason the players were acquitted was because they were rich and hired an amazing lawyer. If they had been poor like the other 99% of all defendants, they would have been sent to prison for false charges.
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