Two different ideas are presented in John Locke’s, The Second Treatise on Government and Karl Marx and Frederick Engel’s, The Communist Manifesto. In The Second Treatise on Government, Locke explains that man’s state of nature is a law of nature which is generally good. Men give up some of their rights to enter into a social contract with a government whose purpose is to protect their rights (property), life, and liberty. If the government does not do their job, the people have the right to overthrow it. The Communist Manifesto on the other hand tries to explain the goals of Communism. It takes us through the class struggles of the bourgeoisie and proletariats. The bourgeoisie are the middle class citizens that are at the top of the social ladder. They control property and money which gives them the power in other situations such as politics. The proletariats are the laborers that work for the bourgeoisie. The Communist goal is to promote the proletariat revolution over the bourgeoisie. Property, liberty and government are important symbols in these two books. Property is a mean of social control in the Communist Manifesto and something to be protected by government in the Second

Treatise. Jack believes that Locke’s views on the value of property and its relation to freedom and government are correct while Mary believes that Marx’s view on the relation of liberty to property and government. John Locke and Karl Marx differ in their ideas on private property and its relation to liberty and government.

The relation of liberty to property can be seen by taking a look at the rise of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie transformed the feudal world into a world of freedom. This freedom is known today as market freedom or free trade. Today we know free trade as a trade between nations without custom tariffs. In those times they meant simply trading amongst people without any rules or limitations. There are only two groups of people the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. The bourgeoisie are the owners of all property while the proletariats are the laborers. Free trade allows the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariats. “And in place of the numberless and feasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom-Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” (Marx) If a proletariat is in need of a pill to save his life and a member of the bourgeoisie is the sole owner of this pill, there is nothing stopping him from taking all that the laborer owns in exchange for this pill. This exploitation goes farther than that. In the industrial age the bourgeoisie own the factories in which the proletariats work in. What the proletariats make in the factory belong to the bourgeoisie for it is them who own the factory and the raw materials that made the goods. In return for this labor the proletariats are given wages. These wages in turn are given to other bourgeoisie in return for food, clothing, etc. The freedom that the bourgeoisie have given themselves can only make the r

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