Like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke discusses the idea of the commonwealth, or as he more frequently titles it political or civil society. Locke believes that man is born with a title to perfect freedom. This concept of freedom is a power given by the law of Nature to man for the preservation of, his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men(Locke 350).
Man is thus given the power to judge and punish those who have infringed upon his rights. Wherever a group of men quit this executive power of the law of nature, and give it to the public, political or civil society will emerge. And this puts men out of a state of Nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on Earth, with authority to determine all controversies.(352) Man chooses to enter into this civil society with the belief that it will make laws that are for the public good. By doing this man is consenting to the rule of the political body and has vowed to submit to the determination of the majority.
It is here only by mans consent that he can be part of civil society. Locke feels that absolute monarchy is inconsistent with this concept of civil society and therefore can never be a form of civil government. It places no common authority over all and thus, by investing the authority in one person, the entire system suffers. Locke feels that only through a commonwealth can man live in peace and harmony with his fellow man without the threat of harm or theft of property from others.
The concept of consent is extremely important to Lockes theory. Without this consent man cannot be subjected to the political power of another because by nature, men are all free, equal and independent. By confirming to unite into a community man strips himself of his natural liberties and consents to the laws of civil society. Therefore, Locke asserts, For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority.(353) Meaning that each man gives up his own private judgments in favor of those of the majority. There are two forms of consent according to Locke, express and tacit consent.
Express consent is that which man enters into a society to become a subject of that government. Tacit consent is referring to what should be considered consent where the individual hasnt made any indications of it at all. Locke explains that tacit consent to the community is given when a man possesses or enjoys anything from the jurisdiction of that government. Since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over the landonly as he dwells upon, and enjoys that: the obligation any one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit to the government, begins and ends with enjoyment.
(355) Once man gives his consent to be a part of the commonwealth he is bound to remain permanently a subject to it, unless it becomes dissolved.
If men in the state of Nature have the right to property and freedom, then why would they concede everything to be under the control of a greater power? Locke answers this as man being fearful of the dangers others may impose upon their property. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which however free, is full of fears and continual dangers(356). Man joins into this civil society because the goal of the body is that of mutual preservation of the life, liberties and estates of its people. The great and chief end therefore, of mens uniting into commonwealthsis the preservation of their property(357). The preservation of property is the intention of the community to preserve mans property and liberty for only the common good, which in the state of Nature could never exist.
Locke states that by a commonwealth he does not particularly mean democracy; rather he uses the term to underscore the point that the community, regardless of its form of government, exists for the commonwealth, for the good of all. The preservation of the society and of every person in it is the first and fundamental natural law. As is the establishment of legislative power the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths. This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it(359).Locke identifies the legislative power as being the most important part of the government. No one may challenge the power of the legislative body, or pass laws of their own; the majority invests all such power in this body and every member of society must adhere to the laws laid down by the legislative body.
There are limits though to the power the legislative body possesses. The first is that the legislator cannot be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fate of the people. Their power in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power, that has no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave or designedly to impoverish the subjects(360).
Moreover, the rules that the legislator makes for other mens actions must be comparable to the law of Nature. Secondly the legislative is bound to dispense justice. Thirdly, without the consent of man, the supreme power cannot take away his property. The last limitation of the legislator is that the legislator cannot transfer the power delegated to him of making laws to another.
Despite the high powers of the legislature, the people are still supreme over all, and have the power to remove or alter the legislation, as they deem best. There can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them(365). Locke explains this act by the legislature to be one of bringing the people into a slavish condition and that the people are to rid themselves of those who invade their sacred law of preservation. This power of the people can never take place until the government is dispelled because within the government itself, however, the legislature always stands supreme.
When speaking of conquest Locke does not feel that it leads to the creation of new government in the conquered lands.
He also states that an unjust conqueror will never have the right to rule the conquered. Unjust conquest is always unjust in Locke's model, whether by petty thief or a despot. But when the war is lawful, the conqueror obtains power of the conquered. Those who have helped him conquer, he does not gain control over because those that help the conqueror conquer cannot suffer from having given their aid; rather, they should benefit from it. Also, The conqueror only gets power over the government that waged the war, not the entire populace, unless the populace explicitly sanctioned its government's unjust war. Secondly, I say then the conqueror gets no power but only over those, who have actually assisted, concurred or consented to that unjust force, that is used against him.
(367) Finally, the conqueror obtains a power over those he overcomes in a just war that Locke refers to as despotical. This means that he who has conquered has an absolute power over those who relinquished their lives by waging in war. But Locke states that the conqueror does not have right to their possessions for the family of the conquered may share them.
Locke describes usurpation as a domestic conquest in which the usurper is always unjust. He defines usurpation as, where one is got into the possession of what another has right to(370). If the usurper is to extend his power past that of the right belonging to governors of the commonwealth, than the usurpation becomes tyranny.
As usurpation is the exercise of power, which another has a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.(371) Meaning that when the power placed in the hands of the legislator is used in the opposite manner as preservation, there it becomes tyranny. A just leader is bound by the laws of the legislative and works for the people, whereas a tyrant breaks the laws and acts on his own behalf. Locke then goes on to state that the power of the commonwealth is not to be opposed by anything except when it uses unjust and unlawful force.
In his concluding remarks, Locke discusses the ways in which the dissolution of government can occur.
The first example is that of a foreign force making a conquest upon a government. The union of this body will cease and every man will return to the state they were in before joining the commonwealth. This will dissolve the society and thus the government of that society cannot remain. Governments can also be dissolved from within. When the state ceases to function for the people, it is dissolved, and may be replaced. This occurs when the legislative is changed or usurped by a tyrannical executive power, when the legislative or executive breaches its trust, or when the executive ignores its own duties and renders the law meaningless, reducing society to chaos.
The Second Treatise of Government places sovereignty into the hands of the people. The government has no sovereignty of its own, for it exists to serve the people. Wherever the law ends, tyranny begins according to Locke. Locke ends by noting that, as long as society lasts, the power that each individual gives it cannot revert back to the individual, and, so long as any government lasts, the power that the society gives the legislative cannot revert back to the society. Either of these institutions may be destroyed by the reversion of the powers vested in them, people always being free to "erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new hands, as they think good."(380)
Words
/ Pages : 1,792 / 24
