Welcome back to the new Thinkery. My name is David Barr. It's always my good friend. I was pretty sure he's in Alice.
Not too hot. Are you? Not too hot either. We'll go sick.
And so, it's a great year to the Health email attack. How are you, Greg? Healthy like a horse. What's up?
Yeah. It's the only physical trade I share with a horse. You saw the mess-dash. Is the mess-dash something you grow every November?
Yeah, we're raising... Maybe I'll put something on Twitter, actually. We'll be too late, maybe. We're...
Some guys I work out with, we're doing a Move member. We're raising money for... I heard a Move member. I heard a Move member.
It's a real thing. We've raised $500 so far. What's it going to? It's used for men and prostate cancer for men.
Correct. It's not to prevent it. Is this a legitimate charity, Greg? Actually, don't know.
Welcome. It's Dr. McBrayer's prostate exam. My wife wants me to start getting those.
You're not at that. Well, are you at that? No. You're apparently I am.
They've lowered the age. I think it's 40, right? 45 is what they're saying. You're not there yet.
Just like a month away. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a good thing we're all in high energy because we have a barn burner of an episode today.
We're like Jeb up here. John Locke and property. Boy, I've never heard this one before. Well, we uncovered it.
If you put some of your sweat equity into something, you build a fence. It's mine. Is there more to the story? Am I missing something?
I guess my other folks. That's all you need. That's all you need. It's like, you guys, so like, look, all right, you put your labor into something.
What's wrong with your voice, Alex? So my students didn't read the right reading. So you yelled at them? I had a lecture for an hour and 15 minutes, three times.
Oh my God. The surveillance of the working man. Wait, what did you assign them? Was it your fault?
Well, I told them to change it, but they're not diligent enough. And I had two high expectations of them. So, yeah, in a way, it's my fault. But yeah, in a lecture.
Oh, and it's your fault. Just folks don't come here. It's your fault that you expected too much of them. That's the extension we do with the attention to the attention.
Yeah, yeah. I remember these. If you guys ever been in job interviews or they asked you what your weakness is. Work too hard.
Yeah, yeah. So I always, I never signed the answer. I've kind of met two or three times. I always just make a joke.
I was like, oh, I work too hard. Oh, door door door door. That makes me joke. And a few times people just didn't find it funny.
But if you're going to ask me such a dumb question. What's your real answer, David? Well, it's just some days. I feel incredibly lazy and I feel like doing it.
I'm just going to put on my sombrero and take a nap. I'm just going to take a nap and you're sombrero. Yeah. Yeah.
It's the ex-tombrero man. It's got steam right into my hands. Folks don't can't see this. I don't know if it's fair and Jake can cut this if you want.
But you're not wearing a sombrero. What in fact are you wearing a bar? I'm wearing a onesie. Pizza onesie.
That's what I wore for Halloween. Well, aren't you? I wanted to say something about labor. Right.
You put your labor into something like says and what should we do? It's yours. Right. I don't buy this.
If that's true. That's true. That's equity. That's a lot of sweat equity.
More off to us. Even though he's the bull. Even though he's the bull. No.
He's got so good that he greases them up just for sport. Jeez. He's got your jerks. All right.
Listen, we should always, I feel like the folks at home, we should always begin very simply and then get deeper as we go. You know, you should start slow and methodical and then eventually go deeper into the material. And so can you just start for us? Who is John Locke?
He was a British philosopher. Okay. Most famous or having written the second treatise. Some people contend that the founding fathers adopted a lot of his philosophy and transposed it into some of our founding documents.
Others contend it was Aristotle. Right. I think both contend it was Locke. Some people think Locke is basically Aristotle.
A Locke style. But no, I mean, Locke. When roughly, what are we talking? I don't know.
Almost a life. Eighteenth century. Seventeenth century. Seventeenth century.
Yeah. So Locke actually, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he writes a lot. Why, why do you get him? I just find him really boring, but he, he, there are parts of his, his writings that are interesting.
He worked so much there. Yes. Second discourse just isn't our property. It's, uh, on many different things.
And second treatise. Second treatise. I'm sorry. Second treatise.
He's not boring. You can use them with Rousseau's not boring. Yeah. Oh, I also wrote a treatise on education.
Right. That influenced a little bit Rousseau. It was so reactive against some of it in the amule. And didn't he write a discourse on knowledge or?
Yeah. So, uh, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, like, a essay concerning human understanding. It's actually like, Hackett didn't even publish the whole thing. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's hundreds of pages. I'm just confused that in the title of human stuff.
They're like, it's huge. And, and it's, it's interesting when you look at Locke's works as a whole. Yeah. He has, you know, various kinds of education, like the, his, uh, work on education that you mentioned is meant for like a gentleman's education, but he also has an everyone's education.
That's, I didn't know that. What's the other one, of the conduct of the understanding that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. tree system education, basically, or ones, tree system. What's the type of... What's called thoughts concerning education, and that's the published in his lifetime.
The other one that was only available in manuscript form. And that's what that one's for gentlemen? Yeah, that's the thoughts concerning education. It's more for gentlemen.
But of the conduct of the understanding is meant to give the every man a kind of basic way or sort of basic set of instructions about how to think and how to notice logical fallacies, basically create sound thinking so that they conduct their business and their end to process. Wait, the toy call has a book on it? No, that's the... Well, he has an edition right of both together.
Is that right? I think he's a terrific artist of the understanding that's in that is abridged. I might be wrong. Right.
It's a wonderful edition. There's one thing I do genuinely like is a letter concerning toleration. And there are multiple versions of that too. Well, kick me in the Jimmy Craig.
Yeah. Why are some less atheistic than others? I've only really studied the first, and then he's out, but I think there are three of that. Is that right?
Are there three others concerning toleration? That's essentially arguing the separation of church and state. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah.
Speaking of church and state, you also wrote something... I've written in Eric Dempsey at University of Texas Austin is working on... I only read these briefly. I was a couple of years ago, I started them, but then put it down just because other things got in the way.
But he wrote commentaries on Paul's... Some of Paul's epistles. Locked it. That's a really interesting thing.
So I'm interested in Eric writing up something so I can just get the Cliffs Notes version instead of having to read the thing itself. It's not an advisor, David. Prepping for the podcast. Right.
He's on createssaver.com. Wait, is that actually a kind of student place? It is actually a kind of student place. It is actually a kind of a student place.
It is actually a kind of student place. It's on a different side. Is it chapter four? Right.
Five. Five. I do remember something on property. I do remember it.
Whatever. I was over a chapter four. So it's the question. It's not my question, pal.
It's your question. Why are we doing this? Why is it so important? Because the dictator of the show told us we're doing it.
That's why. Very unlucky. Are we going to get into it? No, no, no, no, no.
No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. No, sir.
Let me explain to you how those things work. David texted the group and says, I'm good to go tonight. We're going to do it. An hour later, Greg says, wait, David can't do it tonight.
I said, you just said, you can do it. I mean, I'm just trying to keep the ship afloat guys. If you would all like this, donate to Alexpreu.com. That's your own website, Alexpreu.com.
Yeah, go to it. Donate. Let me start off with it. Let me start off with the question.
I know we'll do a brief overview. But the discussion of property and property rights is as old as man. We see lengthy discussions in Scripture. So is block comes along in the second treat as is there some sort of innovation?
Or why is this important for us to study now? I mean, we have settled law in the United States. It seems like we're past these kinds of discussions. Why don't we just, why aren't we just content with what are legal systems in the United States?
Why do we need to return to locks understanding of property? I mean, I think lock is interesting on this and on other questions because, you know, he's, well, he's remarkably influential on the founding. So it's always important for self-understanding. But beyond that, I think, you know, lock is part of early modern thought.
And he takes a lot of the scientific and political thought from, you know, well, the scientific thought coming out of bacon and then Descartes. And then the political thought coming out of Hobbes. And he synthesizes a lot of it in a novel and I think very powerful way. I mean, the way I like to think about it is that he married natural science, modern empirical natural science in its sort of fragmented Cartesian form where you're working on this problem.
I'm working on that problem, et cetera. And everybody's kind of figuring it out. And he married it to a political and economic system that has since become a very powerful combination, which is to say, yeah, I'm going to discover something. I'm going to figure it out.
And Descartes thought, you know, just give it to other people, just out of curiosity. I think Locke saw that that's just not tenable psychologically, at least in the modern era. So better thing for me to do is to utilize it, invent something, sell it, make somebody, you're happy, I'm happy. And that combination of scientific innovation and classical liberalism or free market capitalism, right, is an extremely powerful combination that has been nothing but attacked for now, like a couple centuries.
And yet has not gone away and has not had any really powerful, equally powerful alternatives that can address some of its problems. And maybe we'll get into that. And so I think reading Locke often feels like reading somebody who prophesy, describing however you want to put it, inventing or founding, but certainly had a vision of what our world is like now. And so you can see some of the arguments and see some of the basic concepts in much more of the reasons I'm interested in Locke.
I also find him boring, like David, but important nonetheless. So I do think first thing, I don't find Locke boring anymore. And it's because I've been teaching him the last few years. And before that, I remember sort of having similar view of that.
So like, I mean, it's because it's so close to us. I do think that he's deeply influential on American minds that we sort of, it's not very controversial to us. But reading it, I was sort of teaching this class where the departments sort of expected that I would teach Locke seriously. And so I did, and I sort of reluctantly did it because I thought there's not much here.
But now that I've done it, I really think there's much more radical, much more sort of innovative than we might understand. And maybe it's a cut against that. But I think the other reason that he's so important is that he seems to have been, I'll say this in my own name, and I'd be happy to have push back. He might be the most successful political theorist, political philosopher of all time, as far as actually getting a regime put into practice based on his principles.
Who else could you argue? Maybe Marx, I suppose, but I've got a modest excuse. A modest excuse, deeply influential on America, but I would say much less directly so. And I grant that to be sure.
And I grant that to be sure. But we're not really a modest excuse in regime. I guess we're commercial in our regard. Isn't he called to Wildman's Cube in the Federalist Papers a few times?
That Warrathol is referred to as an oracle in Warrathol's papers. That's not that. He's quoted in extensive. I still think Greg is right.
I mean, and this is one of the things that's difficult. I think often we find it, I think, we're boring, so that it is a close to home. This is kind of like when we did the Christmas Carol for it's worth. Like we all thought I was kind of boring, and we were like, oh man, this is actually a really good book.
I think it suffers from being sort of close to us. I think that's right. And so I'll cut against that just a little bit. So I'm saying he's innovative and maybe the most successful plot, if you're judging it by actually having an effect on the world.
But then the second thing I'll say is, well, I think he's one of the reasons he's so successful or what's impressive about him is that he seems to make more palatable other earlier modern political thinkers chiefly Hobbes. So one of the interesting things is I think he's basically Hobbesian, or Hobbesian. I can't remember how to stop or say we're supposed to say that, but. Obisian.
Hobasian. Hobasian. No. And this has been a source of some controversy or actually not much controversy.
It's there were a handful of scholars, Strauss among them, who sort of saw that Locke was deeply into Hobbes and this was sort of resoundingly rejected by most modern scholars and tell recently a letter was discovered Alex can you tell folks and how about. So my thesis has always been when I teach this, I always tell students, you guys remember these shredded mini week commercials from like the 80s and 90s where like it was just a piece of wheat and there's like a frowny face cartoon piece of wheat and then be like, it's the same thing and he turns around and it's just the frosting on the other side and he's smiling. So it's like the mini wheat and the frosted mini wheat. So it's like the flip side of the same coin, exactly the sugar coating.
So Locke is basically Hobbes with the sugar coating. That's how I teach it to students. We're talking about that. Oh, to the boring point, something you said, you know, on the one hand, thinkers seem boring because what they argue for is just so obvious and taken for granted.
But if you make bacon, the car, like it's not boring. It's really interesting because you hear, because they had to actively argue for the thing we take for granted. The thing with the thing with Locke is that he both argues for the thing we take for granted, but then you go back and he just still seems hub drummed like he doesn't. He doesn't reveal his sort of more radical roots in the way that Hobbes does.
So it's kind of in a way, and I know Greg will get into this later. I saw it with his abacus out doing some duology before. I actually literally was. How did you know?
But I mean, but you know, he is in many ways of the modern sort of Western thinkers, one of the most esoteric in the sense that he deeply covered. Maybe Machia D'Ovisley is super esoteric. But I mean, he manages to seem so naive. And part of it is, you know, he sets Filmer versus Hooker in his writings.
And he associates with Hooker like, hey, here's my buddy, right? And he's always pointing to him. So let's get to this letter. There was a...
No, but Alex, you write about his how sneaky Locke is. He's boring on the surface and he writes like a gentleman. A few things right there on this. I'm going to keep deferring this letter or diary entry, whatever.
Two funny things. One is the, there's this kind of hilarious account of cannibalism in part one, or is it even the first treatise, which I think is kind of a nod that he's kind of funny. And then the second treatise, there is this sort of roundabout way, his delicate treatment of the question of suicide and whether or not you can kill yourself. Yeah.
I think is where he started. Let's slip some of the problems. But the other reason, by the way, you say this, he seems to be boring and this is highly esoteric. I'm convinced following Strauss that this is not a work of philosophy, strictly speaking.
That what Locke is doing here is this is philosophy masquerading as English, if that makes sense. So he's pretending to be much more conventional than he is. This is to an English audience. And he's arguing from English, he's beginning from common opinions that Englishmen would hold.
And so therefore, there are only these glimpses that he's actually rising above or outside of that. And there's some very clear indications of this as the case where he says, and this kind of attacks this is the way I would write. At the very beginning, he says, this is the book of Englishmen for Englishmen, whoever's publishing it. He's like, I want this in the library at Oxford and Cambridge.
It's pretending to be much more country specific than I think it is. And so one wonders then what would these political principles look like? Have they been adapted to a French speaking people or a German speaking pen? So it seems to be philosophy tailored to a specific people.
And so therefore, it seems more conventional than it is, I think. And that's where I think the film or hooker stuff is really awful because he's got like a bad guy and he's got a good guy. And so I'm with the good guy. Look, we agree.
The principles will be different, right? But if you're just a good Englishman, you'll just agree with Locke and hooker because they've gotten their superior views over against this guy. So we talk about this. This is very short.
So there was a friend of Locke's named James Tyrell, who wrote a memoir. When Locke was a student at Oxford, apparently Locke, quote, despised this is from the memoir, despised science and erudition. Nonetheless, he almost always had the Leviathan by Hobbes on his table, and he recommended the reading of it to his friends. Mr.
So-and-so bought it on his recommendation. However, he, namely Mr. Locke, afterwards, affected to deny the he for Reddit. Right.
So this is, I mean, this is almost exactly just as though Locke accepted to have access to this, right? Just amplify that. That Locke read Hobbes, but suppress the fact that Locke read Hobbes, recommended to people. Other people that went and read it, and when they said, Hey, I read Hobbes, they said, No, you lie.
I said, you're straight up lied. No, I didn't do that. Right. And so I mean, it's like, and so, yeah, so in an interview with Alison Flood Waldman, who is the person who identified the author, described his discovery as the Holy Grail of Locke's scholarship, right?
Nevermind. It was preempted by the decades before that we don't want to get into the whole straws debates, right, about this. But I mean, this goes to show you that Locke, who I believe, Greg, or if I'm wrong, the only timing that's in Hobbes in his published writings is to chastise him, right, to say, call him evil or something. No, he just mentions him by name.
The very beginning of the first treatise he says, gosh, and I'll find it quickly. This is at the very beginning of the preface to her one. He says, I have nothing more to advertise to the reader, but that A stands for author O for his observations on Hobbes, misspelled, Milton, etc. And then he misspells Hobbes a different way later in the test.
So he misspells his name a couple times, which I don't understand. I think there's a time where he actually comets on him at some point. I don't recall. I believe it.
I believe it. It's a lot of prep here. Yeah. Well, this is one, to my point that this is, I'll just, this is in section 52, this is in chapter 6, not chapter 1, but Locke says it may perhaps be censured in an impertinent criticism in a discourse of this nature.
So that's one place where Locke is indicating not necessarily what kind of discourse he's doing, but he's indicating that he is up to writing in a particular manner. And then I have the Cambridge, I would say, translation, but that's not right. Just the Cambridge edition, which I think is very good. And who is it?
Has it? Has it? Yeah, in his footnote to section 52, he says, yeah, he says, compare this and sort of references, Strauss sees in this, I can't buy Locke at the status of this discourse. So even this Cambridge editor recognizes that Locke's up to something here.
He's admitting that he's writing in a certain kind of way, not just straightforward in other words. I think that property and properly is letter on toleration are the, if you were to ask somebody with the most common understanding, rudimentary understanding of the history of political philosophy, and then you ask them what they knew about Locke. I think it's these two things. Yeah, I agree with that.
So why is this discussion so famous? Other than the import, you know, Americans import our understanding of property rights. When I teach it, I always say I think chapter five is the most important chapter of the first and second treatise. Why do I think it's so important?
I think that just like I said, Hobbes is making sure that Locke is trying to make Hobbes respectable. By extension, I think he's trying to make Machiavelli respectable. And so here's what I think chapter five is doing this really quite incredibly. I mentioned that.
What I went to doing on the surface, right? Sorry. Sure. Sure.
Sure. Sure. Sure. Very super, very superficially.
It's justifying equity property, which seems very, which seems completely flat-footed doesn't seem totally biased. Yes. But if you think about the idea that what were the sources of the English mind and you think that one of them is very clearly the Bible, one of the things that Locke is doing and their remarkable achievement is he's making entirely respectable, the life devoted to unlimited acquisition of goods. I mean, the Bible could not, in my view, the New Testament could not be any clearer on the life devoted to unlimited acquisition.
It's not good. It's easier for a rich man to enter the needle of the Ivan Neel, then the living. No, it's easier for his easier for David Barr to pass through an Ivan needle than for rich man. That's right.
That's how I was brought to understand. It's all about the sheets of onesie. So there's an enormous amount of work that's going into showing us that it's both totally reasonable and no problem religiously to have private property in things. And including yourself, by the way, you own yourself.
So that, I mean, I realize it seems kind of small. I mean, I think that most economists and most people want to focus on his labor theory of value, which I think is entirely missing what he's trying to do here, which he's really trying to show us that on the surface, he's just trying to justify how we can own stuff and how that's morally okay. At the deepest level, what I think it is, is a theological account of the world in man's vulnerability in the universe and the recognition that he's the man is left entirely to his own care in the universe and the only good things that he can eke out for himself or the product of his own work. You think that it runs much deeper philosophically than Montesquieu's project to help set up a commercial republic based on commerce?
I don't know if I would say that. I mean, I feel like I have taught Montesquieu many times. I've taken a number of seminars on him. I still don't think I've grasped the whole there and the way that I think I see what's going on at least in the second treatise.
I suspect that Montesquieu is awfully deep as well. So I do think, and similar in Montesquieu, there are these deeper scientific, theological, metaphysical questions that are sort of beneath the surface. Yeah, I think another thing that I think Locke is doing that I think is really consequential in relation to this very point is you're seeing him also in toning down hops as well. Right.
Sugar coating on him. Yeah, sugar coating him or, but I think also offering a tamer version of the state of nature that justifies something that's a bit more like the problem. In the beginning of Leviathan is some people want tons of authority. Some people want tons of liberty, right?
And so he's trying to justify the liberals and the markets at the same time. Locke really pushes harder in the direction of liberalism, right? And expansive sort of domain of your own that you get to govern and magnify and gives it a sort of religious permission as you know Greg. But I think has just made him just so massively consequential.
But I'll also say, so in chapter five, it seems to me, you're right. I mean, you go to Wikipedia, you go to whatever sparks notes, those great saver is going to say, Hob, state of nature, nasty, terrible, brutish, short, blah, blah, locks. Actually, it's pretty fine. Milk and honey, everything you got plenty, no one's fighting.
It's all good. But I think as you progress through chapter five, one of the successful things that Locke does is he begins from this. Oh, no, there's abundance in the state of nature. There's no reason to fight this.
But as you work through chapter five, he's gradually pulling away all of the niceties and you realize, oh my God, we're just in the invasion state of nature, finally. And so there's a rhetorical element that's really impressive. He's managed to persuade people that state of nature is not as bad. So what you lose with Locke is this impetus to get out of the state of nature that's so obvious and Hobbes.
Like, these are so terrible and Hobbes, let's get the hell out of there. But for Locke, it's sort of like, why would we ever leave this place if it's so nice and you start realizing, oh, maybe it's not actually that nice. And then the other thing is Locke does, I mean, the idea with Hobbes, why is it stuff so nasty and state of nature? Because the people are nasty and that they're out there and they're going to get you.
But that's actually not actually true. What Hobbes says is he does not say all people are nasty. What he says is there are nasty people in the state of nature, but unfortunately you can't tell just by looking at them who the nasty people are and who the nice people are. And so the rational thing to do, because you can't tell them apart, is to treat everyone like they're nasty.
And Locke in chapter five actually does a similar thing. He says there are actually these two gatagories of people. They're the nice people in the bad people. He calls the one rational industrious and the other one choralsim and contentious, I believe.
And so there are these people that are problematic and Locke just like they're problematic in Hobbes. And I think you see that part of his project is trying to unite the rational and industrious people to figure out a way to rein in these and ask your types. And that's exactly what Hobbes is doing. So there's a lot there.
And I think it's very similar. I can go through it a moment also the way that he strips away the abundance. That's, I think, the most important part, because for Hobbes, the state of nature is scarce. And Locke begins with the impression that no, no, there's no problem of scarcity in the state of nature.
But then gradually you realize, oh, yes, in fact, there is great scarcity in the state of nature. Yeah, the scarcity increases. I think the big difference is that for Hobbes, he says, there's really no industry, right? You're not going to, you're not going to send any time trying to cultivate any arts because the second you get anything, someone's going to straight up murder you.
But Locke says, no, you can probably get some stuff. And if anybody acts up, these industrious types will probably form some kind of gang and just drop a rock on the guy's head. And then he's done, right? But I think that's the difficulty for Locke is, I think that, and that gets out maybe this is a rhetorical difference, but even as a rhetorical difference, it does seem like Locke is trying to emphasize that you have more industry, right?
Which means if you're going to leave the state of nature, the regime needs to offer you some property rights, because otherwise there's not much of a reason, right? The other way is you don't get anything out of it. Yeah, but as you, I think you're right, as you poke at it a little bit, some of the metaphors you use is like, oh, it's just like, it's just like the way that countries are in relation to the other. That's the state of nature.
It's like they're always boring. Yeah, so what? And there's no games, really. And sometimes as you say, I know this is a strange doctrine, but blah, blah, blah, blah.
You might find this odd, but okay. Yeah, and so another, and maybe this is kind of a tip. So yeah, you want industry and you want to secure those things. And so you get these like robust property rights that emerge, what are you able to do?
Another thing that I think is wrong of thinking about like the label, labor theory of property, right? Is that this theory, I think strictly speaking belongs to a certain period in like human history and this sort of abstract conceptual. Right. You just tell the folks at home, like, we should probably always give the Wikipedia version before we say why it's wrong.
So what is the Wikipedia version of what is Locke teaching us about the, what is the value theory, labor theory of values? I mean, the simplest way is like if you take something and you put your labor into it, it belongs to you, right? Well, the economists would say that the thing that Locke is doing is that Locke is saying that things get their value from human labor. Yes.
Right. That's what our labor is what makes it valuable. Yeah, yeah, but the problem is, is they put the word value rather than property in there, right? And the problem is that the labor theory of property only makes sense at a time when there's a lot of stuff in common, right?
It requires certain things like, for example, I can go work in acre of land and there's a perfectly suitable, many suitable acres for each of you. So that my working, it doesn't take anything from you, right? The problem is, is Locke acknowledges that this is not the current state anymore. And now there is a common land that belongs to everyone, but I can't go to Central Park in New York and start just like telling the soil to plant, you know, whatever.
Probably not a great place to do it. I have a lot of crime, but right. So it belongs to a certain period. And so there's like a historical like world historical developmental account, the advance.
I think the economic reading is just completely enormous, right? Right. And so it belongs to a certain period. And it justifies leading the state of nature only for certain regimes.
It's not the state that we actually left the state of nature for such regimes. In fact, as a historical matter, we did not, right? But it does mean that all political legitimacy is now beholden unlocks account, right, to this, these notion of robust property rights, right? That this is legitimized to a historical account.
Since we mentioned labor, I'll just, that the chapter as I see it, and I'm modifying here some an outline that I got from Strauss, it seems to fall in the five main parts. There's an introduction, which is talking about where does labor come from. And we'll talk about that here in just a second. Then the second part is about the limits on acquisition in the state of nature.
The third and central part of the chapter is about land or more specifically the appropriation of land. The fourth part is the movement from limited acquisition in the state of nature to unlimited acquisition in the state of society. And then there's a fifth part, which is a short conclusion. You'll notice that the third, sorry, I'm getting my abacus out.
The third central part is about land. And I think that that's important because I think that's Locke showing you in which a week is starting in the middle. Locke is aware there's a controversy about property. Why should we allow people to have stuff?
What justifies the fact that we let someone have something and not someone else? And Locke, I think, is recognizing by putting land in the middle that land is the most contentious form of property. We all kind of recognize that you have a property right, so to speak, and a piece of food you're eating. If it's in your belly, if the pizza is in David's belly, it's his.
No one would disagree with that. So the puzzle is when does it come? I'm not until he digests it and it's in his bloodstream. And even then, blood transfusion, I can take that pizza from him.
Yeah. And so the first point, right, I think that it is weird. When does property actually become proper to you? Right.
And what is most properly yours, right? And Locke will say the thing that is most properly you is you, like your thoughts, your conscience, and your body. Right. But then the second area, the thing that's secondarily you is your labor.
And so Locke begins by asking the puzzle, when does something become your property? And he's like, well, take an apple that you eat. When does it become yours? When it actually has five possibilities for when it becomes yours?
And it's yours when you pick it, is it yours when you take it home? Is it yours when you boil it? Why you boil it? I don't know.
Maybe it's an acorn an example. Is it yours when you're digested? And he's like, well, clearly no one's going to argue about digestion. But so something must become yours when you mix your labor with it.
And you picked it and you took it from the common and made it your own. As long as there's enough for everyone else, that's what you should do. So the origin of property is labor. And that's why so many folks talk about Locke having the labor theory about you.
I think a little later he actually introduces another thing that's really interesting, which is... Vanessa. No, he's talking about hunting a rabbit here. He says, and this is the thing is funny.
So like one time I was at a party with David and it was a plate of fried chicken. And there was only one piece of fried chicken left. It was a wing. David likes the wing.
Right. And he was reaching for the wing and in came David's axe a big lady and she stole the wing from Benite and I've never seen him so furious. And I think that's so angry. And beat on this woman with a broom and chased her out of the house.
That's what they were. Is that true? True. Is that his girlfriend true to you?
No, it wasn't true. None of this is true. But I like the example. But there is a lot of these examples of someone hunting a hare.
But there is a sense that if you're in pursuit of something, right? If you're hunting something, if I'm hunting a hare, I think I'm going to fix it up. What else are you hunting? Yeah, I'm pursuing the beaver.
I'm pursuing the beaver. And then what? So David's hunting a beaver. Okay.
And he sees this. This is the least plausible part of Greg really like. Yeah. But he sees this.
There is a sense in which when you're pursuing something, you already have a, I think that's really interesting. And you can think of this economically as speculation. Like, okay, I'm going to mind here for gold. I've staked my claim on this.
I haven't found any gold yet, but I feel like there's something here. I have a right to keep digging for that gold. You can't then come in and now you can say, well, I'm going to plow and I'm going to, you know, farm here. You know, I think it's useful for that.
You haven't used it for anything. Somehow still being on the hunt is a kind of property. I think lockers are saying, I think before you pick it is when you're just looking for something to pick a beaver on. And I think there's, I think there's, but that's like a more economic reading.
I think you go even further. I think there is a sense of commitment or belonging or some kind of meaningful investment of what's energies towards some good when you're just even pursuing it in sort of open speculation. Right. I think I'm going to give it to Socratic reading on this point, when I think of hunting for something to be yours that may or may not be able to become yours.
I tend to think of, of the source of Socratic inquiry. Right. I mean, to the knowledge of the whole, I might not have it, but I'm going. So it makes me wonder whether this kind of opens speculation in an economics sense also in principle justifies open speculation in a more intellectual sense.
You're it. Sorry. You should go pick up Zenithin's Socratic work, the one skilled at hunting with dogs available in Zenithin's short writing. He's a Socratic.
I know, but it's in the shorter. That's a Kratik writing. Any of that. But Alex, he, so Locke doesn't explicitly elsewhere talk about opening query, a limited opening query.
I mean, I don't think in a sense of political legitimacy, I don't know, Greg, it was Locke. You know, in the letter on toleration, I did this a genuine question. I don't know either. He probably doesn't go.
I mean, we put a pen in this and we do the letter on top of it. Yeah, we should definitely do that. That would be a great conversation. You guys mind if I just, we have not, we should.
You guys mind if I do a quick overview of the other four parts real quick. Just take us on the hook. Take us on the hook. Take us on the hook.
Take us on the hook. Then I want to go back and I want to make sure we read the beginning. So as I see it, one of the things that this chapter is doing is trying to answer a puzzle or a problem. What justifies property?
How do we explain why people agree to this thing? Why do we agree to this thing? And then the first part, as I mentioned, the origin, where does it come from and we had the answer to answer is labor. So then, okay, we're on the state of nature.
So your labor is what justifies you taking property in something. So then how much stuff can you acquire? And then Locke says, well, in the state of nature, there's an answer to as much as you can take without it's spoiling. So long as there's plenty for other people.
So he begins from this position of abundance. There's not scarcity. So the assumption built into the model is my taking doesn't harm anyone else. So the assumption there is one of abundance because if there's scarcity, then that would be a problem.
So why can't I take more than what's spoiled? Because that's something that you could eat. But also the funny thing is it's irrational. Like, why should I take more apples than I could consume?
It would be exerting effort in work. In other words, it's not really limiting if that makes sense. It doesn't make any sense for me to acquire more things than I can actually consume for the spoil because that's just work that I would be expended to acquire something that will go away. The third thing is what justifies the appropriation of land.
I'll come back to that in just a moment. The fourth is what justifies the movement from limited acquisition to unlimited acquisition and the answer is money because money doesn't spoil. And so therefore it's okay to acquire as much money as you want. And then it ends with the conclusion that sort of justifies basically says, here's why we accept huge inequalities of wealth because our lives are better often with using these things than if not.
I really, there's a lot of stuff regarding land I'd like to talk about and I'd like to circle back to the very beginning of the chapter. But that's a rough outline of what's going on in the chapter and what's the answer to add. I think the money thing is worth talking about. Yeah.
Right. It's these pre-sparkly metals. Yeah. He's kind of ridicules it and I don't want to go all harry jaff on your asses.
But he reminds me a little bit of how Aristotle is in his discussion of acquisition. I mean, I know they called me tired of the podcast. I've been pushing for an episode on Aristotle. Dictator.
Oh, you did. Dictator. Yeah. No, it's wise rule is often diluted.
D-I-L-U-T-D. Right. So, but I'm really going to go off and tell you Tater Tot actually. Tater Tot?
Nothing. Is that like a pole note joke? I don't know. You're making jokes about like, Aristotle, right?
I think that he is glossing over. I think people might get more than they think they could use even in the state of nature of things that would spoil, even though it might be somewhat irrational. It might be a rational response to, I don't know, the unknown or like just some attempt to overcome your mortal nature by acquiring as much stuff as possible. Even though it might spoil.
Who knows how it could come in handy? I mean, depending on how much work it actually takes to acquire. I don't know. Yeah.
Or if you, you'll mass a hundred apples because you don't know which ten are going to expire first. Yeah. So, this always struck me as it might actually be rational to acquire a bunch of stuff even in the state of nature. Yeah.
I mean, I think it ourselves really good on this. But I just don't start simplistic, phenomenal level. Like when you think about how much money you'd like to have, I wish you don't need to have even from the perspective of security, right? Security, right.
Like what I could possibly use. It's very easy for that number to run high, right? And say, well, yeah, all I need is this much because I only eat this much. It's like, well, what if I lose my job?
What if this happens? What about, okay, well, maybe I need nothing like the rest of my... Well, there's inflation. No.
Okay. And then also the number gets massive because God knows that. And then it doesn't matter how high the number goes, you actually never see. You actually never secure it.
Yeah. I mean, even if you're like a multi-billionaire, right? Something could have it overnight that it all just disappeared. So maybe the illusion with money is not as obvious as it is with apples, right?
Like the answer is not infinite apples because at some point you're like, all right, there's just... I mean, does it make sense? Like it's irrational to unquire unlimited both. But the fact that money seems to be permanent obscures from us that the unlimited acquisition of money is irrational.
Yeah. And that's... I mean, I didn't say that I'm about to bring up this book which you already brought up. So it reminds me of Dickens again, right?
Yeah. But obviously the connection is obvious because it's sort of later sort of description of kind of a sickly-locking man, right? Yeah. But what's his ultimate concern?
It seems like it's... His own mortality. His death and security against death, right? I mean, he thinks...
Back to Hobbes. Yeah. Any kind of charity, right? Yeah.
So you get that Hobbes, you can sort of refer your death, but it's written into property. I think the one thing Locke might say to all this is, yeah, that's fine and I'll say, well, but I actually do end up promoting through these set of ideas, despite the sickly kind of walking types you get. I do end up promoting a kind of better well-being and basic quality of life than you might hurt. For lots of people, not just for the guy who acquires a bunch of money, but for the other people.
But I think this is where the mockery of money is important and gold is important. It's like, look, I'm going to make your life better. You're going to have more goods as we all do now than anybody locks time or Dickens time, right? We live much more comfortable lives.
No question. Don't mistake that money for the end goal, right? You can secure that, but realize that the real amount that you can use is limited and the real goods that are supplied by this are maybe somewhat higher, right? This is where maybe this is some thoughts concerning education is important to...
Can I see? No. We've already had like 50 minutes, just about... I'd like Greg to talk about the Bible.
So can I say you up a little bit? Sure. So the first tree is arguing against film, right? Who gave this kind of justification of absolute monarchy on the basis of Adam being given the right to wool.
No man, he traces all the lineage. Yeah, yeah. So this is by, you know, pre-magnetatur, like King James, whatever that he wants or whatever. So now Locke spends the first tree, he's probably getting holes in this.