Question

Locke and Marx each discussed the role of private property. Why did Locke defend it and why was Marx critical of it? What were the effects of private property on society and politics in each case?

Answer 1

Private property refers to tangible and intangible things owned by individuals or firms over which their owners have exclusive legal rights.private property may consist of real estate, buildings, objects and intellectual property.

Different economists and thinkers have expressed different views about private property.Two prominent figures among them are Karl Marx and John Locke.

Locke was a late 19th century Philosopher, who wrote before the industrial revolution.Hence he aimed to justify the pre- industrial property. Form of property in its personal form.Marx on the other hand wrote after the industrial revolution in a society going through change.

Let's have a look at Locke's theory of property. According to him property is a natural right.He had provided the justification for using public property.

1.Man can't live with out eating. But in order to eat it's necessary to appropriate common property and to make it our own.Thus the right to property follows from right to life.

2.when common land becomes someone's private property, it is able to produce much more and it benefits everyone.

3.Labor gives title to land.we have property in our bodies,thus in our labor. We mix labor with land,making that land our own.

Marx came up with severe criticism against this theory

He opined that capitalists are always under the utge to exert their influence in the society and possession of property is one of them.

* Right to property is a limitation on all other rights.

*Property will make an individual view his fellow man as an enemy standing in his way of acquirement or preservation of property.

* individual will accept his materialistic goals as his personal goals to secure his personal property and other rights.

*Marx feared that capitalists through their control of property, will be able to control the state and exert their influence on others.

We can see that Both John Locke and Karl Marx provide private property an important role in their theories,yet the theories they construct on the basis of their respective views are entirely different based on the social and political environment they lived in.

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