Although John Locke embraced many of Hobbes theories on the state, nature of government and society he also had opinions and theories of his own. Locke believed that God was the centre of all politics. He believed that individuals when born were given certain rights by God and not by the government. Locke had a high opinion of human nature and believed that before the government was formed that the state of nature would have been a largely happy state. Locke believed that every individual had the right to self-preservation and the right to own property. This right had two conditions, firstly that people may have property as long as their is property for others, secondly that they cannot spoil anything. For this if all conditions are met an individual was granted exclusive rights to an object that they used in their labour. Since the individual was using this object and placing part of the self into the object then it was considered their property. Locke's book the "Two treaties of government" Locke began a detailed account of how a civil government should be structured. Beginning with the state of Nature, Locke concludes that the problems needing to be corrected from this original state are; "There wants an established, settled, known law..", in other words the constitution of rules which establish for all the difference between right and wrong. Secondly "There wants a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according to the established laws".
There is no need for a neutral to judge cases, because men are biased towards themselves and are unlikely to admit to any wrong doing. Thirdly "There often wants power to back and support there sentence when right". It is important that the state has the power to punish the wrong doers, if not, then the strongest, right or wrong, will always have their way. Locke then establishes the boundaries of the state by saying, "'though men when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature into the hands of society'yet it be only with an intention in every one to preserve himself, his liberty and property'the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend father than the common good." Locke said that people who had the ability to accumulate as much property and money were entitled to do so. Locke also stated that when people started using their hard earned money they also had to agree to the "disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth". Locke dreaded the state of nature, but he believed that God's law created moral imperatives preventing humans from being greedy and having a free for all like Hobbes suggested. According to Locke people would not sacrifice all their rights to an authoritarian government. Instead they would form two distinctive groups or agreements, these are the contracts of society and the contract of the majority of society and government or "trustee relationship". This contract of society is formed when people give up their total freedom and move from the natural state into society. This society would roughly be split into two. There would be the property owners and the non property owners. As Marxist calls them the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In this society property owners who were industrious and hard working were given the right of suffrage and the non property owners seen a non- industrious were not. In order to fulfil contracts within society and government the society contracts an impartial third party to act as the government. This contract as mentioned earlier is sometimes known as the trustee relationship because the government has no rights but works for the good of the people. The government is given its power to act by the property owning portion of the population, and not by the society as a whole.
Locke's theory also differs from Hobbes because the society has the power to overthrow the government. Locke stated that since the society made the government they have the power to abolish it, whereas in Hobbe's theory the government was all powerful and the people would dread going back to the state of nature that the leviathan will not be overthrown. This is also because the leviathan being solely powerful will only check against itself. Locke however feels that the government could be abolished without returning to the state of nature because the social contract would be upheld. If the government was abolished then another would be elected through a majority vote. This has the idea that the government is accountable to the people. The above themes show that Locke favoured a limited government whereas Hobbes favoured an authoritarian one. Lockes society is designed to protect property, but Lockes definition of property is not the same as everyone else's. overall then, we are left with a society that is designed to prevent the abuse of power and to let people live peacefully and prosperously in an equal society. Hobbes however wanted the citizens to be restrained and have no say in the way the country was ran. Hobbes wanted there to be a dictatorship where decisions were solely in the hands of the sovereign and not the people whom lived in the democracy, so was this theory was actually liberal democracy. Bibliographyhobbes by jason gray governing the state by samuel edwards Words: 1760
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