Thomas Hobbes and John Locke: Theorists of the Possessive Individual

cThe social contractualist doctrine of Hobbes and Locke can be treated as advocacy of early liberalism. Hobbes’s man is competitive, egoist, self-interested and is rational insofar as his safety and well-being is concerned. Further, the basis of the State is consent of the individuals through their social contract. If liberalism is about individualism, freedom and consent, then Hobbes lays the foundation for such a doctrine. Further, it is liberal because Hobbes explains the existence of society and the State by reference to ‘free and equal’ individuals.³

Lockes formulations of inalienable natural rights of life, liberty and estate being the basis of society and State is a clear-cut statement of liberal doctrine. These rights provide individual exclusive and indefeasible realm, which the State cannot violate or negate. These rights include individual civil and political rights of life, liberty and estate. Right to life requires other rights and things, which are necessary to preserve it. Right to property is what individual acquires through labour by way of goods and possessions. Interestingly, Locke’s concept of property as a natural right is connected with the mixing of labour. According to Locke, ‘the labour of his body and the work of his hands … are properly his’.⁴ Locke identifies property in those possessions or acquisitions that labour of an individual obtains. Property is possession of what an individual acquires by mixing his labour in whatever—grass, turf, land—is available in nature in common with others. Thus, right to property is a natural right in its own capacity—on the principle of labour mixed, as well as an extension of natural right of life—possessions required to preserve it. Up to this point, Locke’s right to property is an equal right for all, as a person has right to acquire property by mixing his labour so long as there is enough left in common for others.

Soon, this principle of labour and sufficiency (mixing labour and leaving sufficient for others) is supplemented with another principle—principle of spoilage. This means that a person can appropriate as much as one can use without spoiling it. Locke used the example that if a person were to gather a hundred bushels of apples and half of them spoiled before they could be eaten, then the person took more than his share and robbed others.⁵ However, the spoilage principle may become redundant if it is assumed that what one has acquired could be exchanged and preserved without spoiling it. And also that once a person has this exchangeable commodity or capacity, not only labour in person but labour of others can also be acquired. Locke reaches this logical conclusion and introduces the factor of currency or exchangeable units. The principle of currency enables one to acquire even without leaving sufficient for others or spoiling what has been acquired but not used. This also becomes the basis for exchange of commodities and labour. Thus, Locke’s theory of labour as basis of property leads him to propound the right of unlimited accumulation of property.

To maintain the inviolability of these rights, the society retains the supreme authority. The government becomes an agent of this supreme power and is limited by the trust it reposes. Thus, Locke envisages a limited government that is based on the consent of and representation from the individuals and also subject to resistance from the people if it fails to protect the natural rights of the individuals. These principles are integral to liberal political thought.

As both Hobbes and Locke envisaged a self-contained individual with proprietorial rights on their person and capacity, Macpherson has termed their theory as political theory of possessive individualism.⁶ In political and philosophical terms, Hobbes and Locke prepared the grounds for a liberal political doctrine in the seventeenth century by enunciating the principles of consent, individualism (Hobbes and Locke) and individual right to life, liberty and property and limited government (Locke). In fact, Locke’s limited government as trust is left with only core police functions or to legislate, execute and arbitrate. He also accordingly seeks separation of these three powers in three distinct organs so as not to allow concentration of power in any one organ of the state. It was Locke who would like the State to be ‘a night watchman, whose services are called upon only when orderly existence is threatened’.⁷