All proceeds from this labor go toward the benefit of the common land.
The seventeenth-century author, John Locke, seems to agree with socialists and communists that the earth is common to all men, but he argues that "every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has a right to but himself" (Locke 19). Locke then goes beyond this idea to suggest that men have a right to private property. This concept serves as the foundation of Locke's theory of property rights.
How can a man obtain property which he does not have to share with all his fellow men? The answer is simple: through his own labor. The labor of one's body is unquestionably one's own. Consequently, "whatever. he removes out of the state of nature that nature hath provided and left it in," Locke tells us, "he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property" (Locke 19). Here Locke is saying that in a state of nature, when man works on the land, he is putting something of himself, his labor, into the land, and thus making it his own. But for Locke labor goes much further than merely drawing the line between what is private and what is public. Labor creates value and makes worth out of something which is otherwise completely useless. Land without labor, desolate and fruitless, is worthless. It is the labor that makes land and other things have worth (Locke 25-26). Furthermore, the possibility of obtaining private property through labor actually motivates men to labor to improve the land. "Since God gave it the earth them for their benefit. it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated" (Locke 21). Without labor to improve land, the earth remains common to all men and will not be used to its full benefit. .
It may be objected that, if men are allowed to appropriate any piece of property they choose through their labor, they will eventually acquire more property than they need and not leave property for anyone else.