Locke's theory of property, C.V. Macpherson writes, both "established a natural right to unlimited amounts of private property" and the thesis "that men agree to establish civil society and government" for the purpose of protecting "this natural unlimited right" (xvii; emphasis added). Locke himself writes that the productive efficiency achieved by the division of labor shows both "how much numbers of men are to be preferred to largeness of dominions; and that the increase of lands and the right employing of them, is the great art of government" (V.42). Is it fair to say that the logic of Locke's theory of property is one that justifies a form of government in which the political power of the state is aligned with the interests of property owners who employ wage laborers and seek to establish colonies abroad? Why or why not?
John Locke's Second Treatise on Government?
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