Second Treatise On Government
(John Locke)
Second Treatise on Government
John Locke
In this piece, John Locke approaches the nature of government and its roles by beginning with humans and the role of the intellect. Locke writes that all humans are endowed with a ?natural law? or an ability to intuit, that which is right. This universal ?right? is an objective truth but comes naturally to the human mind that thinks reasonably. When at the beginning of society, man had not government nor social structure, Locke writes that it is perfectly right to carry out justice or at least the justice that one intuits. Of course, as life becomes more complicated and pure independence cannot last, people begin bartering for goods and when bartering becomes too complicated, a common currency is created so as to aid in the barter. Of course this increases economic activity, capital ownership and land ownership of course which then causes people to rethink their own safety and life.
At the second stage of development, people enter into an organized society in which they give up some of their natural rights and natural laws so that they can be protected as a group. This is to ensure that their growingly complicated social and economic interactions are protected and sanctioned by the community en mass. This assurance is given by the community with the stipulation that the individual does not breach natural law and what then becomes codified into law.
Locke envisions a tri-partite government- executive, legislative, and judicial with the most power given to the legislative. Government is for the people, Locke writes, because it is fundamentally composed of a pact that is the by product of man?s naturally endowed intuitions and rights. Any government that becomes destructive to these values is an anathema and must be cast out in revolution.
Thus, Locke lays out much of what can be considered, the roots of Western democracy and American democracy, especially.
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