Lockean proviso

 ( Classical Liberalism ) 

The Lockean proviso is a feature of John Locke's labor theory of property which states that whilst individuals have a right to homestead private property from nature by working on it, they can do so only if "there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use".John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter V, paragraph 33.

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Locke's formulation Preliminary wording central to Locke's concept of property is set out in Chapter V, paragraph 27 of his Second Treatise of Government:

His proviso is then formulated as follows:

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Agreement The phrase Lockean proviso was coined by American libertarian political philosopher Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 175. It is based on the ideas elaborated by Locke in his Second Treatise of Government, namely that self-ownership allows a person the freedom to mix his or her labor with natural resources, converting common property into private property. Locke concludes that people need to be able to protect the resources they are using to live on their property and that this is a natural right. Nozick used this idea to form his Lockean proviso which governs the initial acquisition of property in a society, but in order for his ideas of ownership of property to get off the ground and be cogent he devised the criterion to determine what makes property acquisition just, which is the proviso. The proviso says that although every appropriation of property is a diminution of another's rights to it, it is acceptable as long as it does not make anyone worse off than they would have been without any private property.

In Georgism, the possession of land is proper only so long as the market rent is paid to the relevant community. If a plot of land has a positive rent, that implies that there is not land of similar quality freely available to others. Locke's proviso has also been used by socialists and universal basic income advocates to point to land acquisition as illegitimate without compensation.

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Critique American libertarians of the modern Austrian School and anarcho-capitalist traditions, such as Murray Rothbard,

(2025). 9780814775592, NYU Press. . ISBN 9780814775592

have accepted Locke's other views on property whilst rejecting the Lockean proviso. Some take the American anarcho-capitalist economist Walter Block and his rejection of the Lockean proviso to be grounds for a Blockian proviso more in line with the very "logic of homesteading". French researcher Ai-Thu Dang criticized Nozick's reading of the Lockean proviso, saying it denatures its meaning, especially Locke's "articulation to moral rules governing enrichment".Dang, Ai-Thu, "Libéralisme et justice sociale: la clause lockéenne des droits de propriété". In Revue française d'économie, volume 10, n°4, 1995. pp. 205–238 [1]

Socialist critics of the proviso, such as G. A. Cohen, point to the issue that the proviso does not take into account previously existing inequalities. Cohen describes the Lockean proviso's first-come-first-served approach as "morally dubious". He uses the example of someone claiming a beach as "their own" and charging admission in exchange for lifeguarding service. This would satisfy the proviso because it does not make anyone's life worse but fails to consider how much better off everyone would be if someone owned the beach and charged only 50 cents for better service. He continues that this superior alternative is never considered under Nozick's proviso.

Karl Widerquist and Grant McCall argue that even weak versions of the proviso, such as the one used by Nozick, are unfulfilled by contemporary societies. The poorest people today, even in wealthy nations, are worse off than they could reasonably expect to be in a stateless hunter-gatherer band that treats the environment as commons that cannot be owned by anyone. They write, "Establishing hunter-gatherer quality-of-life as the baseline for comparison sets an extremely low bar. The tragedy of state societies today is that for all their wealth and achievement they have so consistently failed to surpass that bar."

Thomas Pogge doubts whether "enough, and as good" was available to all in Locke's time: "It is hard to believe that Locke’s claim was true in his time." "In any case", in proposing an alternative global order needed in current times, he argues that "it is surely false on the global plane today".Pogge, T. (2001), Eradicating Systemic Poverty: Brief for a global resources dividend, Journal of Human Development, Volume 2, No. 1, p. 64, accessed on 16 April 2025

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See also

• Classical liberalism
• Estate in land
• Geolibertarianism
• Land (economics)
• Land law
• Land reform
• Land value tax

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