Tag: voluntaryism

Wrapping up my examination and critique of Locke’s Second Treatise, I focus here on where Locke’s framework fails to achieve his stated goals, and why.

This is it! The final chapter of Locke’s Second Treatise, “Of the Dissolution of Government.” Here, Locke covers a variety of ways that a government or a society can fail, and tries to explain under what circumstances a people forming a society may toss out their existing government and create a new one.

These two chapters cover two ways in which governments can make themselves illegitimate: through usurpation and tyranny.

Locke is careful to separate the two terms, so that usurpation is specifically the transfer of power to one entitled to it (even if that one restricts himself to similar powers and functions as the legitimate government).

Chapter 16, “Of Conquest” finally gets to the details of the hypothetical “just conqueror,” and covers Locke’s ideas of the restrictions and requirements for a conqueror to maintain the legal/moral high ground.

Some of the argumentation in this chapter is a bit confusing, so I start out with Locke’s summary at the end of the chapter, and then return to the more nuanced discussions after that.

Chapter 15 is mostly a short summary and restatement of Locke’s definitions of three different types of power.

However, there are a few nuggets of new ideas here:

1) Locke’s conception of “Despotical” power is not universally negative, as our use of despotic typically is today

2) The three different types of legitimate power here can be distinguished by how they occur: paternal by nature, political by consent, and despotical by forfeiture (due to legitimate self defense against an unjust invader)

3) The three different types of power differ in who they operate on: paternal operates between someone with property (the parent) on someone who is not yet capable of managing property, but will be eventually (the child); political operates between property holders; and despotical operates from a property owner upon one who has been stripped of the right to property.

This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.

Intro music adapted from a piece by Dvir Silver, courtesy Pixabay:
https://pixabay.com/users/sonican-38947841/

Chapter 14 of the Second Treatise is titled “On Prerogative,” and is perhaps the most dangerous concept in Locke’s idea of government, especially from a libertarian or voluntaryist perspective.

According to Locke, prerogative is the ability of the executive to promote the public good without a rule. However, the notion of the executive having powers not strictly limited where the law is “silent” is a dangerous notion, prone to all sorts of bad incentives, which even Locke admits.

Furthermore, we get to see an interesting application of prerogative and how the American founders seem to have actually improved on Locke’s thought, in the notion of eminent domain. It sounds crazy, especially from our voluntaryist perspective, but I explain in detail in the video.

This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.

Intro music adapted from a royalty-free piece by Clavier Music, courtesy of Pixabay.
https://pixabay.com/users/clavier-music-16027823/

Chapters 12 and 13 of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government cover the executive and federative powers, their goals, and their limitations.

The chief point to remember when reading this chapter is that the legislature is supreme insofar as it serves the ends for which the people created it, but the people (in a Lockean system) maintain the power of altering or abolishing the legislature should it fail to serve their purposes.