Jhon Locke second treatise - Essay Example

While Locke presents a number of viable suggestions in regards to property ownership it is nevertheless to conduct a critical evaluation of the validity Locke’s postulations pertaining to property ownership and an assessment of the applicability of his arguments in modern property ownership. In Locke’s argument pertaining to property he argues that a person’s body happens to be his own property and any work that it undertakes is thus seen to essentially be owned by it. Locke postulates that by mixing labor with the various available resources availed by nature essentially causes results in the removal of these natural resources from common ownership and makes these resources our very own.

He points out that this is the premise that is granted for property ownership as provided for in the bible and is in line with Adam’s means of obtaining dominion over the entire earth and its creatures (Locke Sec. 36). Locke’s use of the bible is seen to be an attempt to try and essentially justify his position on the general formula that was used in the acquisition of land. In my opinion this supposition as provided by Locke essentially makes sense as it is primarily through our own individual labor activity that we can be able to cause the various natural resources to obtain their innate true value.

However in my opinion, I think that Locke did not take into careful consideration aspects such as communal labor that see individuals undertake a number of labor activities not for their own individual gain, but primarily for the benefit of the entire community. Locke also seem to overlook the fact that it is nowadays quite common for individuals to desire to own land not for their own mere self-gratification but primarily for ecological stewardship purposes where their attempts are mainly geared at the general conservation of nature.

To some extent, Locke’s position can arguable seen to not be justifiable as although the original premise of land acquisition in which the entire world was according to Locke America and there was a lot of land which was seemingly unowned, and hence the acquisition of land by an individual did not in any way tend to infringe on another individual’s capacity to acquire land as there was no evident scarcity of land to own (Locke Sec. 36), this supposition can be seen to not hold true in the modern day world as the rapid population increase that has been experienced around the world has caused there to be numerous persons across the world who despite their engagement in labor activities, still cannot be able to own any land or own any housing property.

This is despite there being some individuals happen to own thousands of acres of land or various properties that remain vacant for very long stretches of time without having any human habitation. It is primarily in respect to this that I strongly support the argument that the current unequal possession of the earth has essentially been imposed by most men by those that happen to be stronger than them. My current perception is that if all men were to be granted equal opportunity and resources, all men would desire to and eventually own land.

Locke points out that money has been of great aid in the promotion of the unequal and disproportionate possession of the