nment titled “On Property”. In this chapter, Locke says when man uses his labor to remove something out of the state that nature has provided this thing becomes his property (18). For example, if a man cultivates a piece of land, the food that he produces and the land will be his property. His labor “made a distinction between them and common” (19). Labor is necessary for nature to become any real use to humans (24).Locke believed that the preservation of property was the main reason that humans left the state of nature and formed governments. He argued that natural things generally require great amounts of labor in order to be useful to humans. In order to gain property, a person must mix their labor with nature (18). Locke does not really believe there is a scarcity problem. He says that it is irrational to allow what we get out of nature to rot. “Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy” (20). A person can only acquire so much before it spoils though, which is where money comes into play. By tacit consent of humans, money allows humans to accumulate great amounts of wealth, and also leads to great inequalities. Locke, however, believes that even with these inequalities, people were better off than they were with the inconviences in the state of nature. Rousseau’s reply to the enlightenment was that reason leads to civilization and corruption. According to him, reason doesn’t really discern the order of nature- humans have to look elsewhere (their feelings and emotions). For Rousseau, men in civil societies are slaves. “It is impossible to enslave a man without having first put him in the position of being incapable of doing without another. This being a situation that did not exist in the state of nature…” (Rousseau 59). Therefore, Rousseau says that the first man who claimed a piece of land his own could have saved the human race from R...
