The Comparison of Rousseau and Locke’s Theory

卢梭与洛克两位都是17世纪西方杰出的思想家，作者从人权和财产权来讨论卢梭与洛克理论的异同。洛克的思想是人权和私人拥有财产是统一的,卢梭强调另一方面,有关财产和构建自己的与洛克不同的理论体系

The Comparison of Rousseau and Locke’s Theory

In the seventeenth-century, the first British bourgeois revolution broke out, which influenced Locke's whole life and his political and ideological position. At the same time, he also became a defense tool for parliamentary bourgeois state. In the book “The First Treatise of Civil Government”, Locke criticized the feudal monarchy, stating that God has no authority beyond the natural signs of other people to elect someone. That construction provided the bourgeois parliamentary foundation for “The Second Treatise of Civil Government”, which led us to explore this book about why we need a government, what kind of government we need, what kind of rights we need, and how we achieve our rights with such a government. As a famous representative of modern bourgeois liberalism, John Locke’s most their outstanding contribution was the link of possession of property and liberty. On the one hand, it laid the moral foundation of property rights using freedom; on the other hand, it gave freedom a positive and substantive content using property rights.

Locke hypothesized, “what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom” (Second Treatise of Civil Government, p.9). The reason that this state was free was because people were able to determine their actions and dealt with their body and property by appropriate method they consider. It aimed to promote peace, protect human, and teach people that they are equal and independent. In this natural state, people were not just free, but also equal. No one needed to obey other’s will and authority.

In such a state of nature, Locke thought that people had the right to be talented, and the society had the three basic values: the right to life, liberty and property, which Locke referred to as ownership. First, Locke expanded the personality rights into property rights through labor and laid the humanity foundation for property. He said:

The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. (Second Treatise of Civil Government, p.20)

And based on the private ownership, Locke expounded a classic theory of property rights:

Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. 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. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.(Second Treatise of Civil Government, p.20)

In this way, private property rights acquired rationality as a product of human labor. Second, Locke achieved freedom by setting political power and protecting property rights. Locke thought that protecting people's property would equally protect human freedom.

Also as the modern social contract theorist, Rousseau did not value and affirm property as Locke did, but revealed the negative affection of possession of private property on human equality and freedom from the opposite direction. Locke defended and affirmed property based on human freedom; but Rousseau connected the possession of property with the loss of private and freedom, and denied it. On the fundamental values of property rights, the former was a liberal, while the latter was a thorough democrat. Compared to Locke idea that the property rights are as human’s rights, Rousseau believed that private ownership was a historical product when human developed to a certain stage, which was not eternal. Rousseau believed that private ownership is a production of social development and a symbol of human society from barbarism into civilization.

Rousseau did not think property is inviolable. Freedom and life belonged to the same individual and could not be transferred. He said:

The right of property being only a convention of human institution, men may dispose of what they possess as they please: but this is not the case with the essential gifts of nature, such as life and liberty, which every man is permitted to enjoy, and of which it is at least doubtful whether any have a right to divest themselves. By giving up the one, we degrade our being; by giving up the other, we do our best to annul it; and, as no temporal good can indemnify us for the loss of either. (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p.41)

In other words, freedom and life was the only and the same fundamental values, while the property was separate from human beings. Property was materialization, but not equal to the people themselves. Pure Relationships under natural state was good, but once a plethora of material got involved, the relationship between people would be transformed into the relationship between substances. The emergence of private property had become the start of a man’s depravation. With the development of private ownership, the relationship between human rights tended to become property relationships.

On equality issues, Locke believed that men were born equal. However, equality should not be a aim of social system and a higher fundamental value of political system. Because equality was not possible in society; in fact, inequality existed everywhere. But Rousseau believed that equality should be the basic values of society. This equality was not only reflected in the equality of political rights (which fully reflected the people's sovereignty in Rousseau's thoughts), but should also be reflected in the equality of economic rights. On the issue of economic equality, he did not advocate absolute economic equality, and also recognized the inevitability of economic inequality. However, Rousseau's ideal society was to minimize the gap between rich and poor. Because excessive wealth and excessive poverty would both undermine the right of everyone to enjoy of freedom and equality, and undermine the stability of the country.

In contrast with Locke’s idea of unity human rights and private possession of property, Rousseau emphasized on the opposite side, and built his own theoretical system concerning property. That is, private ownership of property was external to the human rights, the private ownership of property was the starting point of unequal and loss of freedom, and instead of protecting property rights should be limited.
REFERENCES

[1]   Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, and Donald A. Cress. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Hackett Publishing, 1992.

[2]   Locke, John, and Crawford Brough Macpherson. Second treatise of government. No. 31. Hackett Publishing, 1980.

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