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Daily · Philosophy

Second Treatise of Government

John Locke · political philosophy, 1690·4 hrs in the original·original at gutenberg.org
The 30‑second version4 hrs → 50 sec
  • Natural equality and the law of nature: In the state of nature all people are born free and equal, governed by reason, which forbids harming another's life, health, liberty, or possessions, and gives every person the right to punish violations of that law.
  • Labour as the origin of property: Because every person owns their own body and its labour, mixing that labour with common resources creates private property, bounded by the spoilage limit and later extended by the consensual use of money.
  • Consent as the only source of legitimate government: Political society is formed only when individuals voluntarily surrender their natural executive power to a community, making majority rule the operating principle and the preservation of property the supreme end of government.
  • Limits on legislative and executive power: The legislature must govern by standing, promulgated laws applied equally to all, may not take property without the people's consent, and cannot transfer its delegated authority elsewhere; absolute monarchy is incompatible with civil society because it leaves subjects no impartial judge to appeal to.
  • The right of revolution: When rulers invade property, subvert elections, or otherwise betray their trust, they put themselves in a state of war with the people, who are thereby absolved of obedience and may erect a new legislative, an outcome Locke frames not as rebellion but as the rulers' own forfeiture of authority.
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•Why it earns a slot

Published in 1690 to justify England's Glorious Revolution, the Second Treatise supplied the foundational vocabulary of consent, natural rights, and limited government that directly shaped the American Declaration of Independence and modern constitutional theory.

Locke argues that legitimate government rests entirely on the consent of the governed, whose natural rights to life, liberty, and property pre-exist any political authority. He traces how people leave the state of nature to form civil society, what limits constrain the legislative and executive powers they create, and under what conditions those powers may be dissolved and replaced. The treatise concludes that when rulers betray the trust placed in them, the people retain the supreme right to resist and reconstitute their government.

This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.

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