After reading John Locke's views on property and also the views of Ward Churchill, I feel that the distribution of property in America is not legitimate.
According to Locke, something becomes one's property when it is taken from nature and mixed with 'labour' of the body and 'work' of the hands. In speaking in terms of land as property, you are only supposed to take what you need while leaving enough for others, and you are also not to let any of the land spoil so you must use it wisely. "As much as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property" (Locke). God has given the world to all mankind, and as long as man works the land and makes good use of it, it is his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him".
The reason why there is a controversy over who the US really 'belongs' to is because "…in situations in which the dominant-or dominating- population comprises either the representatives of a foreign power or immigrants (settlers) who can offer no such assertion of 'aboriginal' lineage to justify their presences or ownership of property in the usual sense" (Churchill). This is representative of how the land that came to be the United States was taken away from the early Native American settlers many years ago by a dominating population of people.
While the United States has tried to make things better by 'resolving things internally' through new doctrines and laws, nothing can make up for the fact that this land is not our land. In the words of Churchill, 'the United States does not now possess, nor has it ever possessed, a legitimate right to occupancy in at least half the territory it claims as its own on the continent.
Throughout history, the United States had come off as a stubborn nation that would take what they wanted at any cost. This was prevalent in both cases of expansion as the Americans risked war and national safety for the sake of gaining land, or even merely for proving a point. During the early years of expansion, the Americans had pushed aside the Native Americans and whoever else inhabited the land they wanted. They believed that the land was rightfully theirs and that every one else was merely squatting on their territory. This idea was continued into the early twentieth century as the Americans looked to the oceans for new territories to their kingdom. This idea is greatly exemplified in document 'E', in which Senator Albert J. Beveridge delivers a speech to Congress, saying that, "...and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world..."
The United States saw its territory more than double in the first three decades of the 19th century. Bursting with nationalist fervor, an insatiable desire for more land, and a rapidly increasing population, the western frontiers of the United States would not remain east of the Mississippi. The eventual spread of the American nation beyond the Mississippi into Native and French land, referred to as “Manifest Destiny” by John O’Sullivan, was rationalized as a realization of their God given duty. The Louisiana Purchase set the precedent for unrestricted westward expansion in America, and allowed for others to follow in his footsteps. Characterized by racist overtones, a lack of the “consent of the governed, and ethnic cleansing, there is no valid distinction between this American continental expansion and the international expansion sought by Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and is clearly imperialist in nature.
While the US may have prided themselves in the fact that we didn’t practice imperialism or colonialism, and we weren’t an Empire country, the actions conquering land in our own country may seem to rebuff that claim. In the 19th century, the West was a synonym for the frontier, or edge of current settlement. Early on this was anything west of just about Mississippi, but beyond that is where the Indian tribes had been pushed to live, and promised land in Oklahoma after policies like Indian removal, and events like the Trail of Tears. Indian’s brief feeling of security and this promise were shattered when American’s believed it was their god given right, their Manifest Destiny, to conquer the West; they began to settle the land, and relatively quickly. And with this move, cam...
Part of the nation believed that it was part of their Manifest Destiny to take advantage of this land and enhance its political, social, and economic impacts. The other view point that many people believed, was that it would be unconstitutionally wrong to take over this new
Classical Liberalism, the Enlightenment, was a political movement that has impacted countries and their policies over many generations. The Enlightenment emphasized the notion that men are inherently good by nature (Bentley). The Enlightenment gave people the idea that a king was not necessary to rule over the people because people are not inherently bad. If anything, the people need someone to guide them but not have absolute rule over them. Revolutions have been based off of Enlightenment ideals because they are used to benefit the majority not the rich elite.
Throughout the existence of man debates over property and inequality have always existed. Man has been trying to reach the perfect state of society for as long as they have existed. John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Martin Luther King are three great examples of men who broke down the basics of how property and inequality are related. Each historical figure has their own distinct view on the situation. Some views are similar while others vary greatly. These philosophers and seekers of peace and equality make many great arguments as to how equality and property can impact man and society. Equality and property go hand in hand in creating an equal society. Each authors opinion has its own factors that create a mindset to support that opinion. In this paper we will discuss the writings of John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Martin Luther King Jr. and the factors that influenced their opinions on inequality and property.
At the core of their theories, both Locke and Rousseau seek to explain the origin of civil society, and from there to critique it, and similarly both theorists begin with conceptions of a state of nature: a human existence predating civil society in which the individual does not find institutions or laws to guide or control one’s behaviour. Although both theorists begin with a state of nature, they do not both begin with the same one. The Lockean state of nature is populated by individuals with fully developed capacities for reason. Further, these individuals possess perfect freedom and equality, which Locke intends as granted by God. They go about their business rationally, acquiring possessions and appropriating property, but they soon realize the vulnerability of their person and property without any codified means to ensure their security...
From the beginning of the United States’ government, Indian tribes were given rights to be treated as nations, and their rights be respected according to the Constitution. For instance, Henry Knox, Secretary of War in 1789, wrote to President George Washington that, “The Indians being the prior occupants, possess the right of the soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by the right of conquest in case of a just war” (Document B). By this, the US government confirmed the authority of Indians on American land as they are the “prior occupants”, and their land should never be taken unless they agree or they lose in a war. Although the US government sounds just and fair in attitude, for years, Indians were intentionally tricked into treaties that ceded huge amount of territory to the whites.
Throughout history, there has been abundant ways in where philosophers try to change people’s perspective on certain topics. One of the well known men was John Locke; he was an English philosopher (1632-1704) who had different positive views regarding human nature. In addition, Locke strongly believed in natural rights of life, liberty, & property, and thought that all humans are all the same and that we are all born free, to do what we all desire without having to ask for permission to anyone, and also equal which meant that no none is to have no natural or political authority over one another. Thus, Locke believes that we are all born with three natural rights. He also held the belief that government has a moral obligation to guarantee
First, Locke believes that everyone has the opportunity to cultivate the land that they own, which ideally is a proportionate share of the surrounding environment, and nothing more (Locke, Sec. 36). Locke’s theory of property is not just relative to physical entities, it can be an intellectual entity as well. An individual may have certain experiences and knowledge, develop theories and come to their own conclusions. Publishing said works are seen as property in the eyes of Locke as well. Another strength would be the logic of Locke’s argument, if you input your labour, that commodity becomes your own. Truth of this can be seen in section 33 of Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, when Locke suggests that labour increases the value of land exponentially because when people own land themselves, they are more likely to increase the productivity of that land. According to Locke, the true value of land does not stem from the land, rather the labour invested in it. Locke’s theory however, does not take into account the processes in which someone becomes an owner. One of the main stances Locke outlines in his theory of property is that he equates property to being a natural right. Locke deems the right to private property to be equally important as life and liberty, however they cannot be
In order to examine either philosopher’s views on property and its origins, it is necessary to go back to the beginning of human development, as it were, and discuss their different conceptions of the state of nature. As opposed to Hobbes whose vision of the state of nature was a state of war, Locke’s state of nature is a time of peace and stability. “We must consider what State all Men are naturally in, and that is, a State of perfect Freedom…A State also of Equality, wherein all the Power and Jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another.” (Locke, Second Tre...
In this state of nature, according to Locke, men were born free and equal: free to do what they wished without being required to seek permission from any other man, and equal in the sense of there being no natural political authority of one man over another. He quickly points out, however, that "although it is a state of liberty, it is not a state of license," because it is ruled over by the law of nature which everyone is obliged to obey. While Locke is not very specific about the content of the law of nature, he is clear on a few specifics. First, that "reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it" and second, that it teaches primarily that "being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life liberty or possessions." Hence, right from the beginning, Locke places the right to possessions on the same level as the right to life, health, and liberty.
As Thomas Paine stated in his influential pamphlet, “it is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island” and the colonists keenly felt the disparity in size (Paine 5). Thomas Jefferson succinctly said this when paraphrasing John Locke’s natural rights and changing property to “the pursuit of happiness”- the colonists did not just believe that the King denied them farmland, but ultimately that he denied the path to happiness for them (Jefferson 2). Later, these arguments on extension of settlement came to form the basis of Manifest Destiny and the romanticized west, rugged settlers against savage Indians and the wild. These settlers had a god-given right to the land they deemed the Native Americans did not use correctly in the quest for prosperity and success and if a monarch could not deter them, then neither should the native inhabitants of the
John Locke’s Natural Rights stated that all men have three rights they are born with: life, liberty, and property. The first right is life. When a person is created, they are given life. They have the freedom to do what they want with themselves. The next right is liberty. People are given liberty. When someone is born they are automatically given the liberty to move, breathe, talk, etc.; however, some liberty must be earned. The last right is property. While having property would make most people happy, some people may not be as satisfied. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson pulled these three main ideas from Locke and incorporated them into the document. While the life and liberty rights stayed the same, he altered the idea of
Locke theorizeds extensively on property, privatization, and the means an individual can use for increasing his property. Initially, in the state of nature, man did not own property in the form of resources or land. All fruits of the earth were for the use of all men,“and nobody has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state” (Locke 353). In this state, people could appropriate only what they could make use of. It was unfair for one person to take more than he could use because some of that natural commodity would go to waste unless another man might have made use of it for his own benefit (360). Locke felt that God gave the bounties of nature to the people of earth and they, by default, should treat these bounties rationally. This rationalistic theory discourages waste.