Money is Broke :(

 Locke argued that property was appropriated by men from the common state of nature through their labor. Men unquestionably owned their labor and as a result, were able to use it as a tool to “annex” something from the common state of nature and possess it. While the amount of labor a man can do is relatively infinite, the amount of property they can acquire is not. The property must be kept “within the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use” and there must be enough of the property left for everyone else to have a “good and enough” amount of it as well (21). In Locke’s state of nature, property usually referred to perishable goods (as demonstrated by him referring to acorns and poultry), so the idea was that one would only have enough property that “any one can make use of [it] to any advantage of life before it spoils.”  

Given that these conditions seem to create an equitable distribution of property, the question arises as to why there is rampant inequality and a vast gap in the distribution of resources in contemporary society. The creation of currency provides an explanation. Money, especially modern-day forms of it, does not spoil, and there is no limit to the amount of money that can exist. No matter how much money someone accumulates, there always theoretically could be a “good and enough” amount for everyone else.  

          As a result of money, Locke’s philosophy is contorted from supporting an equal and distributive distribution of wealth and resources to our modern-day circumstance – where there is a rampant capitalist accumulation of wealth by a select few while the majority of the world struggles to obtain the basic necessities to life. The invention of money preserves one of the requirements of property that Locke outlined – there is enough of it for everyone else to have a “good and enough” amount of it because money is limitless. However, money means that people can accumulate more than they can actually use even over several generations and because money never spoils it is thought to be justified. So, the second requirement of property, that people obtain only as much as they can use, is no longer upheld. As a result, it seems as if the concept of an equitable distribution of property that Locke outlined has been broken by the replacement of perishable goods with imperishable money. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Development as White Saviorism

Sen’s take on viewing development as freedom seems coherent when the developing body is a part of the community that is being developed. There are troublesome aspects (like the implicit acceptance of unequal distribution of freedoms), but those can be justified and or fixed with minor alterations. However, the account’s flaws become prominent when applied to situations where the developing body is external to the community that is being developed. Because Sen does not factor in the context of when the development occurs and does not outline who can even be a developer, his account would allow for white saviorism.  The issue is not with what Sen’s account includes, but what it does not. Sen’s account does not argue for an equal distribution of freedom. While he believes we should expand freedoms in the most effective way, if this does not expand freedoms equally, it is not clear that Sen would view that as a bad thing. This leaves room for marginalized people in society to be even mor
Read more

I used to be a libertarian and i think Nozick is full of shit

In Anarchy State and Utopia, Nozick argues that patterned principles of justice will require “continuous interference with people’s lives” to continually realize their pattern of distributive justice (162). As an alternative, he argues for an unpatterned principle of distributive justice (PDJ) based on the principle of entitlement. I want to examine some of the key assumptions and concepts he makes in his account in this blog post.  Nozick’s entitlement theory views just modes of interacting with one’s holdings as necessarily leading to a just pattern of distribution. Namely, once justice in acquisition and justice in transfer have been achieved, the resulting distribution is just. As Nozick puts is “whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just” (151). He also touches on “the rectification of injustice in holdings” but goes on to say that the exact nature of that principle is unclear and not discussed by him or others (152). This seems like a bit of a dodge to me.
Read more

The other face of the father of capitalism?

I found reading Smith's theory of Moral Sentiments interesting because a lot of it felt nothing like what he's purported to be according to all the "father of capitalism" stuff. I see how he developed something like the invisible hand because of how he develops his theory: based on observation. He makes empirical claims above human behavior in relation to which actions we approve and disapprove based on how much we can sympathize with the actor. Both this theory and the one about the invisible hand seems to be an explanation about an observed phenomena.  While I think that the method he uses to develop his theories are similar, the ideas present in this piece seems radically different than ideas on capitalism. The ideas that he present in Chapter two remind me a lot of Kantian ethics. The specific passage that reminded me of this was:  "When he views himself in the light in which he is conscious that others will view him, he sees that to them he is but one of the
Read more