JOHN LOCKE'S THEORY OF RIGHT OF PROPERTY, THEORY OF REVOLUTION AND VIEWS ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.

JOHN LOCKE THEORY OF RIGHT OF PROPERTY

" The sole purpose for which man has created commonwealth is the preservation of property"
.- Locke

• Locke is the thinker of capital class. He mainly represented the interest of capital class he define the right of property unlike Hobbes he argued that the Sovereign is not the creator of property, thus he can't impose any tax or cannot take away anyone's property without consent.
• For Locke, a person is sovereign on his body and labor; Pr6perty is created when he or she mixes his labor with natural resources.
• The only thing he needs to ensure is that enough is left for the use of others and also for common use for everyone.
• He further argues that State is responsible for the protection of Private property. 
• However, he also acknowledges that the Right to Property and not absolute, thus put some restrictions upon it.

Locke puts three specific limitations on the right to property:

1. 'labor Limitation; Property should only be earned by use of labor and it also includes the labor of horse or slave. It should not be acquired by force fraud.
2. Spoilage Limitation: Property should be enjoyed and not spoiled.
3.  Sufficiency Limitation: Acquire only that much you can use and leave the rest to others. Your acquisition should not result in the deprivation of others.

MCPHERSON'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE

1. Overemphasis on the Right to Property.
2. With the invention of money, the spoilage limitation has become irrelevant. The value stored in form of currency, gold, and silver does not decay.
3. the sufficiency limitation loses relevance when the property is diverted for other productive purposes like building a factory. In that case, if a person acquires a large amount of property to build a factory, then he can be éxcused from the sufficiency limitation since by building the factory-he is creating opportunities for others also to acquire new property i.e. workers and supervisors getting paid due to the existence of factory in the first place.
4. Finally, Locke allows labor to be sold in the market. When labor is sold, its product becomes the property of the buyer. Fort McPherson, Locke's defense of property rights was in fact defense of unrestrained accumulation of the capital and the advance of capitalism.

McPherson believes that Locke's justification of the right to property was intended to promote the interests of the newly emerging capitalist class. Locke argues that every man is rational but his theories portray that those who have property are more rational than those who do not have it. In the eyes of McPherson, Locke is an advocate of the capitalist class.

THEORY OF REVOLUTION

In order to understand why Locke provides the scope of revolution to citizens, one needs to understand two things:

1.  According to Locke, human beings have a reason, conscience, and morality, they have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong; also the government is also created by the people, so it is responsible towards them. Locke argues that government must work according to the consent of people as per the law; but when Government violates the law and does not work with the consent of people. People have the right to revolt against the government. In this way, Locke justifies the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
2.  However, Revolution does not mean violence for Locke; for him, Revolution means peaceful change. He argues since human beings are rational creatures they will avoid violence and advocate peaceful change.

Conditions in which revolution by citizens are justified:

• When government does not act as per the wishes of the people.
• When the executive does not allow the legislature to function.
• When the executive does not rule according to the laws made by the legislature.
• When a government puts people under foreign rule.

"The end (aim) of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom".
:- John Locke (Second Treatise of Civil Government

According to Locke citizens are householder who employs night-watchman to guard their house. Then he himself remains constantly vigilant to see that the night watchman neither neglects his duty nor cheats the householder.

VIEWS ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.

• Locke talks about religious toleration in his book 'A letter concerning Toleration'. As per Locke, the state should be tolerant towards citizens when it comes to their religious choices.
• While Hobbes ensured that even religious and conscience-related matters are under the control of the state, Locke chose to leave it to individual choice.
• Locke is not in favor of using force towards any individual in order to change his or her belief.
• However, he was not tolerant of atheists.
• Promises, Covenants, and oáths which are bonds of human society can have no hold upon Atheists. :-

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