e would live in anarchy, violence and a selfish pursuit of their own ends, that men act out of passion, not from motives based on reason and justice. Locke's theory that liberty is a property, linked the idea of liberty with the idea of possessions and the later liberal tradition that we are responsible for making our own way in the world without interference from governments – so long as we respect each others property. In The Second Treatise of Government Locke states his belief that all men exist in "a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, (II: 4).Locke defines property as “to mean that property which men have in their persons as well as (their) goods. (II:173) and that “Man being born … ‘hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate…. (II: 87).This is a very wide definition of the word “property”, not the meaning we normally give the word in everyday speech. Yet, as many commentators agree, in Chapter 5 of The Second Treatise of Government Locke uses “property” to mean “land”, on almost all occasions. This ambiguity allows different scholars to interpret him in different ways. For Gough he is a mercantilist, for Macpherson a bourgeois apologist for capitalism and for yet others a collectivist. Mills debt to LockeLocke was the founder of classic Liberalism in his views on civil government. Civil government, according to Locke, is founded on a "social contract" among citizens who give up some of their rights to form a civil society. But, according to Locke, no central authority has any business restricting the actions of any of the individual citizens except to prevent harm to the society as a whole, or to an individual. ...
