Locke's "labor argument" for private property

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John Locke

[This is the first of a series of posts for beginning philosophy students who are doing their first reading of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government:  The following commentary is taken from my book Understanding John Locke: The Smart Student's Guide to Second Treatise of Government.]

In Second Treatise of Government, John Locke asks this question: If the right to the private possession of an edible thing is a necessary condition for my nourishment and preservation, then how does one acquire this right?  What can I do to make the fruit or the,] venison mine (my private property), while in the state of nature, even if I do not have the consent of others to do this?

Locke’s first answer to this question is provided as the conclusion of a deceptively simple argument, quoted here:

Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself.  The labor of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say are properly his.  Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provide, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property (§27).

Locke scholars call this “the labor argument for private property.”  Here are the steps Locke takes to get to his conclusion.

1. Everyone has property in their own person (nobody else has a right to one’s own person).

2. If everyone has property in their own person, then they have property in the labor of their body and the work of their hands (nobody else has a right to the labor of a person’s body or the work of their hands).

3. When anyone removes something that nature has left it in, then they mix their labor with that thing, or join their labor to it.

4. If someone mixes or joins their labor to a thing that nature has left it in, then they make it their property.

5. Therefore, anyone who removes something that nature has left it in, has property in that thing.

To illustrate Locke’s argument, suppose that you reside in the state of nature with ninety-nine other men and women. You and they have common ownership of all the land, animals, edible fruit, vegetables and forests.  You decide to build a shelter, and to that end, you go into the forest and cut down several trees.  The act of cutting down a tree with an axe or saw is an act of work or labor, which act is as much your property as is your body.  By cutting down the trees, you have “mixed your labor with” or “joined your labor to” the trees.  Hence, the trees are, from that moment, your property, to do with as you wish, and from which you can exclude everyone else from possessing or using. If others want trees to build their own dwellings, then they cannot justifiably take the trees that you removed from the commons by your own labor.

 Locke restates the argument in the concluding sentence of §27:

It being by him removed from the common state that nature placed it in, it hath by this labor something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labor being the unquestionable property of the laborer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to…

The only difference between this and the previous statement of the argument is that Locke uses the additional metaphor of “annexing” one’s labor to that which is removed from the commons.  It is never made clear how these metaphors help us get from “She cut down the tree with an axe” to “The tree is her private property.”  If “cutting down the tree” does not get us to the conclusion (“She owns the tree”) then how does “She mixed her labor with the tree” get us there?  To put it another way, using the metaphors annexing, mixing or joining appears to do no more to prove how the tree becomes one’s private property than cutting down the tree proves this.

Finally, Locke adds an important proviso to the labor argument when he states that the right to what a man joins his labor to is limited to there being “enough, and as good, left in common for others.”  If you cut down trees for your shelter, then you must leave enough healthy trees in the forest for others to build their shelters.  You have no right to either cut down all the trees in the forest or leave only unhealthy trees.

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