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John Locke


            Throughout time there has been a constant struggle between the ideas of social control and the rights of the individual. Even at the present time there are conflicting opinions on how much power the government should have and how much power the individual should have over themselves. John Locke, like many before him, had an idea of how government and society should run. He attempts to devise an argument that will define the limits of political power while establishing the rights of resistance. Locke has many points that come together to create his argument. These are primarily based on the basic principles that natural equality when combined with legitimate authority will lead people and their property, out of a state of nature and into a better, stronger, and more stable society. Locke's main point on property is that all human bodies are property of that person. He illustrates this view when he states, " Through the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, ye!.
             t every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself"(p. 19). It is clear that Locke's idea of property does embrace the notion that the self is the property of the person and only that individual person. Locke furthers his argument by explaining how a human can have actual material property. In order to obtain material property one must mix whatever one wishes to own with the labour of their body. He defines labour as something that makes common private. He puts certain limits to actual material property by saying that someone can only own as much as they can use to any advantage without spoil and they must leave enough and as good for others. Locke also touches on the institution of slavery. Slavery in the voluntary or non-voluntary sense is prohibited under Locke's argument. His reasons for why this act is prohibited are that when someone has ownership of another person they have the power to do with that person's life what they please.


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