Nickhil Singh
Title: The Social Contract to Avoid Rebellion
Typically, we view governments as strong, authoritative bodies that serve in the interest of the people. In the Second Treatise of government, John Locke tries to justify the citizenry’s right to revolt in order to avoid or counteract the unanticipated event that a government ceases to work for the interests of the people. In doing so, Locke brings into question the rationale man must use and the right man possesses to revolt in a commonwealth. Through his explanation of man’s right of revolution, Locke provides an answer to this issue; in particular, he argues that man agrees to a social contract because he wants to protect his inalienable right to property. If the legislative of a government infringes on the peoples right to property, they may justifiably revolt. However, this does not open up the floodgates for revolution because man, trained by habit, becomes accustomed to his property and way of life. Subsequently, getting a majority consent to revolt becomes arduous unless under dire circumstances, and without this majority consent, no small faction or one man will possess the authority, by Locke’s right of revolution, to revolt. Indeed, by showing that man’s habitual attachment to property creates a tradition preventing him from revolting in most circumstances, Locke successfully argues that the right of revolution is not a invitation to political anarchy.
Locke believes that man possess an inalienable right to life, liberty and property, and he argues that man’s right to property gives him the right to revolt. As he says, “whenever the legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves in a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence” (222.111). Specifically, Locke believes that in the first place, men entered into the commonwealth by consent and signed a social contract to implement a legislative to protect his property. However, this contract is binding; that is, the government must perform its duty and protect the people’s property. If the government fails to do this, either by altering the legislative of the government or by abusing its power in another fashion, then the people of a commonwealth, after trying to appease themselves through the confines of the law, have the right to revolt against a government that no longer possesses any binding authority over them. Subsequently, society degenerates into a state of war where every man must fend for himself, although men are still governed by the principles of self-preservation and the duty to protect others.
Two fundamentals problems Locke must address is why property is so important to man, and why he would be unwilling to constantly risk his current property for the promise of more property in the future. To answer the first question, Locke says, “The labour 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 provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property” (5.27). Locke thinks that property is like the body of an individual. It possesses an intrinsic value to each and every man because he has put hard labor, like tilling the soil, into acquiring it. Like one’s own body, God gives property to humans and God also gives man the ability to own property through his labor. So, not everyone has an inherent right to property unless they labor for it.
This particular attachment to property explains man’s reluctance to revolt, for as Locke says, “Whence it is plain, that at least a great part of the land lay in common; that the inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any more than they had use of. But when there was not room enough in the same place, for their herds to feed together, they by consent, … separated and inlarged their pasture, where it best liked them” (25.38). When the people made an agreement to divide equal shares of their land, man got his first taste of property from which he received specific pleasure because it was the fruits of his labors. But by putting his labor into it, man become more attached to his property, and it became more valuable to him than it normally would be. Each man could determine his own particular intrinsic value for his property and he valued it over other property because his labor was an investment he made in it. For this reason, man entered into the commonwealth to protect his property because, like his life, it can be taken. So though man could change the commonwealth at a whim, he chooses not to because he fears losing a tangible wealth like property, which means almost if not as much to him as his own life.
Furthermore, Locke also needs to clarify what he means by “people” when addressing the right to revolt. Does he mean the majority of people, or any collection of people, even one man, may revolt if morally in the right ? Perhaps Locke answers this question when discussing unjust conquest when he says, (92.176)
Then they may appeal, as Jeptha did, to heaven, and repeat their appeal till they have recovered the native right of their ancestors, which was, to have such a legislative over them, as the majority should approve, and freely acquiesce in, If it be objected, This would cause endless trouble… he that appeal to heaven must be sure he has right on his side; and a right that is worth the trouble and cost of the appeal
In discussing the right of an individual to revolt against an unjust conqueror in the name of God, Locke demands that man not only be doing the right thing, but also be sure that what he is doing is amenable and feasible to the people. Though one man, as history has shown, could conceivably believe that he is right without consulting others, Locke believes that whomever revolts must look out for the ideals of the original members of the society who built the government. And, this fundamental idea consisted in letting the people choose the legislative branch of their government. Only under that circumstance, which implies “the majority should approve, ” could a person revolt against a government (92.176).
Additionally, an assumption that the majority of people should decide whether to revolt can be found in Locke’s argument for tradition. Locke believes that man, entrusted with the decision to revolt, would not continually revolt against the government, though there might be many acts of the government that would anger the people. Locke explains that people, accustomed to the habits of their lives in the commonwealth, build traditions that make them less inclined to change their ways. As Locke states, “People are not so easily got out of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest. They are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame” (223.113). In reality, a tradition in a commonwealth can only exist if each individual person acts within an agreed framework that then becomes adopted by the state. Thus, tradition implies habit and common consensus. By habit, man becomes accustomed to his way of life, which property plays a fundamental part in, and by consensus man fears change because he thinks it might impact his current lifestyle. With the old government, man possesses stability in relation to his property, which plays a crucial role in his lifestyle, and the comfort level from this lifestyle could be lost in a transition to a new legislative. Due to this fear of change, man will only revolt in circumstance so egregious where he would undoubtedly lose all the property and things important to his familiar existence.
Similarly, Locke’s argument about tradition preventing chaotic rebellion is more effective than his argument about a magistrate fearing revolt for the very reason that it does not presuppose moral reason and fear in one man, the magistrate, but in many men. In describing how to enforce laws through intimidating the magistrate, and therefore preventing revolts, Locke says, “the properest way to prevent evil, is to shew them the danger and injustice of it, who are under the greatest temptation to run into it” (114.226). Although Locke believes that by giving the people the power to revolt the magistrate will be kept in line, he fails to show how this fear of a revolution would be greater than the magistrate’s harmful desires. A magistrate of a certain moral character may feel empathy for injustices suffered by others, but there is no guarantee that the people will choose a magistrate that necessarily feels this way . Additionally, with today’s technology and even with the technology of the past, the magistrate may possess the power and technological strength to thwart any attempts from his contemporaries, so as not to have any fear of revolution in the first place, let alone the chaos of constant revolution. If this happened, the people would be unhappy and no social contract would exist at all, for the interests of the people would not longer be rooted in the legislative of the government. Of course, Locke created his right of revolution to counteract this possibility in the first place, so it could not be the desirable end of this very principle to revolt.
In contrast, Locke’s argument of tradition, instead of relying on a moral and fearful magistrate, relies on upon the majority of people possessing these qualities and making the correct judgments on whether to revolt based on Locke’s principle’s of property. Why would the people, i.e. the majority of people, be more inclined to exhibit these traits than would any one person? They will, because as Locke says, “The slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or, after some interval of fruitless attempts still brought us back again to our old legislative of king, lord and common” (116.230). Again, by using English history as his example, Locke shows people’s propensity to stand by tradition. And, as we stated earlier, this attachment to tradition comes from the property that they own and their unwillingness to give it up. The people fear losing what they have because of their familiarity for their circumstances, specifically the happiness that there property gives them. And as the future gains are intangible, they are loath to change the present.
Locke has shown that mans enters the commonwealth to preserve his property and that this property possesses an intrinsic value, which makes man less apt to revolt in a commonwealth. However, he needs to demonstrate how a commonwealth that is not steeped in epic tradition, or any tradition, can survive for without a good history in a commonwealth, it would seem that there would be no habit born from tradition to rely upon. Therefore, no commonwealth would ever have maintained a long-lasting government. But Locke refutes this fallacy specifically when talks about the origins of a king’s prerogative by saying, “But when mistake or flattery prevailed with weak princes to make use of this power for private ends of their own, and not for the public good, the people were fain to express laws to get prerogative determined in those points wherein they found disadvantage with I: and thus declared limitations of prerogative” (85.162). From Locke’s knowledge of English history, we conclude that most commonwealths started off as absolute monarchies, where the monarch could do as he pleased. Then, the monarch would abuse this prerogative and the people would try to change the law or revolt. Through changing the law or inciting a revolution, the people in the commonwealth changed the laws of the state, so that the monarch did not have absolute power over the people, but only had prerogative in specific instances. Though revolutions did occur, society did not stray far from its original form because people were adverse to changing their habits from even the most tenuous times (223.113). Thus, by Locke’s argument, even new commonwealths could be formed by slowly progressing society from their original form of government to an ideal form of government with a legislative, judicial and executive branch checking each other (77.147). Even if the process took many years, society would still reach this form.
Finally, in the event of a revolution, Locke needs to explain how the state where man evolves to a new commonwealth, a new state of war, could foster a smooth transition to a good government and not cause political anarchy (114.227). In describing the state of war, Locke says, “To avoid this state of war (wherein there is not appeal to heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end where there is no authority to decide between the contenders) is one great reason of men’s putting themselves into society, and quitting the state of nature… there the state of war is excluded and the controversy is decided by power” (16.21). Locke explains that in the state of nature all controversies are decided by power, and this is one of the reasons why man originally enters into the commonwealth from the state of nature, for in the commonwealth he has common consent to decide his disputes. He is less inclined to take his chances in the state of nature since it requires the use of brute force. Man’s natural inclination for tradition draw him towards his prior form of having some arbiter. Also, the people possess more of a common interest than when they first started the commonwealth, for they have specific provisions from their new legislative. So, instead of just forming a commonwealth based on the needs of specific individuals, a unifying issue exists for people to agree upon and to come together with new laws in a new commonwealth.
In the end, man’s property paradoxically becomes the issue, which ultimately forms and destroys a commonwealth. He joins the commonwealth to preserve this property that he thinks will make his life better. And when this property is taken, man accordingly possesses the right to end the government. In showing this connection, Locke helps to show a stable political society can coexist with the citizenry’s right to revolt.
Want to reach me? E-mail me at nickhil@nickhil.com
