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I. The divergence of Lockean arguments
- As indicated in the notes entitled
Property, Locke’s political philosophy does not preclude, as a matter of fundamental
rights, a great deal of government involvement in economic life or the redistribution of
income or wealth. But since Locke wrote, many political philosophers have argued that,
given his fundamental principles, he should have presented a moral standard by
which to regulate government efforts to regulate the economy or redistribute income.
- These political philosophers argue we should extend Locke’s strategy of limiting
political conflict by determining the proper ends of politics to issues concerning
redistribution.
Locke, on the other hand, seems to leave room for political debate and discussion
about the issues and for their resolution by the constitutional procedures of any polity. a. Perhaps he saw that the attempt to eliminate all political conflict by
finding agreed principles of political morality was bound not only to fail, but to
exacerbate such conflict. (Think, for example, of how Supreme Court decisions, e.g. about
abortion, can sometimes heighten political dispute and call our institutions into
questions.)
There have been a variety of views put forward about what implications for economic
policy and for redistribution should be drawn from Locke's political philosophy. Arguments
drawing upon one or another of Locke’s ideas can be given for and against extensive
government involvement in economic life and for or against the redistribution of property
from rich to poor. Leftists, who favor a greater role for government in economic life and
who support redistribution, and rightists, oppose these policies, have both used
some Lockean principles to defend their views.
Why is Locke’s political philosophy open to such divergent developments?
- The fundamental tension in Lockean political can perhaps be captured by suggesting that
Locke offers two, partly incompatible, sets of ideas about the proper relationship between
politics and economics and about what justifies economic inequality. Arguments against a
greater government role in the economy economic hold that economic relationships should
remain governed by individual rather than collective action. Arguments for a
greater role for the government in the economy hold that, in civil society, economic
relationships should be partly governed by collective rather than individual
action. Arguments against redistribution hold that justice consists in mutual
advantage. Arguments for redistribution hold that justice consists in impartiality.
II. Government and the economy
- Lockean Individualism
and the proper limits of politics in economic life
- On this view of the proper role for government in the economy, government should never
interfere with the results of individual interaction in the economy. The economic life of
our polity and society should be the result of individuals exchanging, trading and
contracting with one other.
- This is what they do in the state of nature.
- Locke emphasizes the independence of economic life from politics by showing us that
money, and the inequality that results from it, is consented to in the state of nature by
a process of individual consent
- On this view, once government is created, it should have the limited role of preventing
theft and enforcing contracts
- For it only for these purposes that government is created.
- And it is only these ends that are fully shared by everyone.
- To go beyond these ends is to for government
- to favor certain human goals above others.
- to favor certain interests rather than others
- This, for Locke, is illegitimate, precisely because there are no rational grounds
for favoring one such set of ends over another.
- Given the right to liberty, collective action of some sorts (such as in union
organization or the creation of planned communities ) is a legitimate form of economic
activity. But it loses its legitimacy when government coercion is necessary to sustain it.
- Extensive government regulation of the economy or provision of public goods has a strong
tendency to lead to government policies that serve not the common good but the special
interests of the politically well-connected (such as the rich and large corporations).
- Lockean Collectivism
and the proper limits of politics in economic life
- On this view, the right to liberty allows human beings to take collective as well as
individual action to attain their economic ends
- Thus, in the state of nature, those of middling income and the poor could conceivably
withhold their consent to money, that is, go on strike for higher wages
- While government is created to protect the property of individuals, once it is created
it is a legitimate tool by which individuals can further their shared interests by acting
in common.
- While these shared interests should not rest on any particular conception of the good or
happiness, it is a fundamental premise of Locke’s argument that income and wealth are
instrumental goods desired, to some extent, by all.
- Public policies that make everyone richer thus do not violate the Lockean inspired
notion that government should not favor one view of the human good over another.
- Thus government can legitimately take action that would
- further the economic interests of everyone by providing or subsidizing public goods that
have social benefits greater than the sum of benefits received by the individual who might
purchase these goods. Without subsidy or government provision, these goods would not be
produced to the degree that makes for the greatest economic efficiency. Examples of such
goods are education, roads, civic arenas and convention centers, etc.
- redistribute income from some individuals to others. Many people are more willing to
give tax money for redistribution than give their own charity precisely because government
redistribution forces everyone to contribute.
- Government action is coercive, in that some individuals are forced to pay for goods that
they may not desire or value greatly. But, on this view, coercion is justified because
- people should pay for those public goods form wich they benefit even if they do not
recognize this benefit
- there is usually no way to insure that all of those and only those who benefit
from some public good pays for it.them.
- While the provision of public good and direct redistribution takes the property of some
people more than that of others, this is just so long as
- everyone benefits in the long run from public goods (this is the collective version of
the principle of mutual advantage.)
- and / or redistribution is justified for its own sake.
III. Redistribution
- Justice as Mutual advantage
: Lockean arguments against redistribution hold that
economic relationships are just when all those who take part in them benefit.
- On this view, men and women who are independent in the state of nature come together to
form relationships of exchange for their mutual benefit
- They would not form these relationships if they did not all benefit
- So long as no one is forced to take part in these relationships, they are just.
- The inequalities that result from these economic relationships benefit everyone.
- Inequalities in income and wealth serve to
- direct workers to jobs and investment to opportunities that will most efficiently
provide people with the goods and services they desire
- stimulate people to work hard and smart
- Thus redistribution will discourage economic efficiency
and economic growth.
- Justice as impartiality
view: Lockean arguments for redistribution hold that that
economic relationships are just when they are fair to everyone
- On this view, justice requires that exchange relationships not only be mutually
advantageious but, also, take place against fair background conditions
- Fair background conditions are those which respect the moral equality of human beings,
the rights of human beings, and the initial common ownership of property, all ideas that
are important to Locke’s political philosophy.
- Locke suggests the importance of fair background conditions by his insistence that the
appropriation of common property leave "enough and as good" for others. Those
who take the mutual advantage view of justice hold that enough and as good is left for
others so long as everyone’s absolute standard of living is not lowered by trade and
exchange. But those who take the impartiality view of justice hold that enough and as good
is not left for others if the relative standards of living diverge for inappropriate
reasons ortoo far (that is, when inequality is too great).
- This principle justifies redistribution on a number of grounds.
- The right to life is not secure if some people are unable to produce enough to care for
themselves.
- This principle leads to redistribution from the rich to those who are ill, disabled, too
old or too young to care for themselves especially when they have no family members who
can (or can be expected) to care for them. Locke suggests such a view in the First
Treatise)
- While background conditions are usually fair in the state of nature, they need not be
once exchange and the invention of money have allowed for great inequalities.
- In the state of nature both before and, to a large extent, after trade and money first
come into being, the extent of our property is determined by our effort and talents
- Once trade and money have been long established, everyone benefits from exchange, but
the extent to which anyone benefits is determined by many other factors in addition to our
effort and talents such as:
- The inheritance we receive from our parents.
- The education we have received due to the efforts of our parents and, where schools are
publicly but locally provided, the quality of education where we have grown up.
- The relative scarcity of our natural and developed talents.
- The general economic conditions under which we live, such as the unemployment rate, the
extent of national and international trade, the level of technological development, the
weather, and so on.
- Thus to be fair to everyone is to try to minimize the effects of those factors that are
less important in the state of nature—those factors other than our effort and
talents— on the extent to which we benefit from exchange and trade by
- creating equality of opportunity: Everyone should have roughly the same opportunity to
develop their talents and abilities by gaining access to appropriate forms of training
education.
- limiting inequalities in income and wealth beyond that which is necessary to encourage
the efficient use of economic resources and economic growth
- limiting windfall income and profits as well as losses, which can be done without
incurring the bad consequences of redistribution
(see above)
- Windfall incomes and profits are those that are unnecessary to encourage people to work
hard or in certain occupations or to invest in the production of certain products. The
same economic activity would, in these cases, result even if incomes or profits were
lower.
- Windfall incomes and profits can arise due to
- changes in economic conditions leading to temporary shortages of products and of workers
with certain talents and abilities.
- the scarcity of workers with certain talents and abilities due to inequality of
opportunity and the unequal distribution of natural talents.
- winner-take-all markets which reward those at the very top in an occupation dramatically
more than the next best
- Windfall losses can arise due to
- high levels of unemployment
- changes in economic conditions leading to temporary surpluses of products and of workers
with certain talents and abilities.
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