Locke's political theory

Lk's views are mainly contained in his Two Treatises on Civil Government.
The first of these attacks Robert Filmer's view that the king is the divinely ordained father of the people, with a line of authority going back to Adam, who had absolute power over Eve, their children and the whole world.  Lk argues that:

The Second Treatise, by contrast, proposes Lk's own views on the nature of political society, and it's our topic here.

1.
Lk's account starts with the description of the state of nature, i.e., the state in which people find themselves when there's no common judge with the authority to settle their disputes (19).
NOTE: The state of nature is the result of a thought experiment and it has two aspects:

  1. a normative aspect: how should these people behave with respect to each other?
  2. a factual aspect: how  would they in fact behave?
The state of nature is not a state of license because we are bound by the Law of Nature (compare with Hb).  One is free, without asking permission to anyone else, to pursue any course of action within the bounds of the Law of Nature , i.e., Reason (14).
Problems: NOTE: The Law of Nature is a moral law, and as such doesn't per se confer rights on its beneficiaries.  For example: I may have a moral duty to be kind to strangers, but one needn't hold that strangers have a right to be tretaed kindly by me.  Similarly, I may have a moral duty not to mistreat animals, but one needn't hold that animals have intrinsic rights.

2.
The Law of Nature teaches us, among other things, e.g., that parents have a duty to "preserve, nourish and educate their children (56) that we have a right:

Although men differ in intelligence, capacities, birth, etc. (54), they have all been equally given the Earth for their use (by God) and have the same faculties; consequently, the state of nature is a state of equality (4).
NOTES:


3.
Since the Law of Nature doesn't by itself give us rights, where do they come from?  One reading is to say that they come from God.  We are God's property, and made to last to God's pleasure (6)  God owns us (he's the freeholder) and we have rights only as leaseholders, as it were.  In other words, our rights are parasitic on God's.
NOTES:

4.
Locke's theory of property opposes both Hobbes and Filmer on the one hand, and Pufendorf's on the other.  Both Hobbes and Filmer (in different ways) held that the sovereign is the source of the right to property; Pufendoerf held that in the state of nature private use of good requires other people's consent.
Although God has given the Earth to all men in common, private property can be justified without appeal to any political compact (that is, private property is logically prior to political society).  Locke gives two arguments:
  1. Seeping argument
  2. Desert argument
NOTES:
Both argument can be strengthened by noting that since God gave us the Earth so that we benefit from it, he clearly meant that we use it industriously and rationally (34).
There are some restrictions placed on the acquisition of property.  I have a right to whatsoever in nature I mix my labor with  provided that


However, in order to facilitate transactions, men agree to introduce money.  But since money doesn't spoil, one can hoard it and in effect circumvent the no-spoilage requirement (46-50).  So, one may own more land or goods than one can use.
NOTE: as for the requirement that enough be left for others, Lk thinks that

    much land is still wild and waiting to be used by us (45)
    the hoarding of property by the industrious increases the amount of goods available and consequently benefits all humankind (37).
Although the right to property logically precedes political society, the latter can regulate the right of property (50). So, we now turn to the constitution of political society.

5.
If A has an unjustified "sedate and settled" design (not merely a hasty one) on B's freedom (and hence B's life), A is in a state of war with B, who therefore has a right to retaliate (16).  In particular, if A's act deserves death, or B vanquishes A in a "just war", then B has the right to enslave A. However, A can end his state by opposing the will of the master and hence being killed (23-4; 85; 172)
NOTE: A may be in a state of war with B even in a political society (19)
The state of nature is not, per se, a state of war (19).  However, the former leads to the latter because men, moved by passion (e.g., covetousness and greed) and  misjudgment, not only disagree on the content and application the Law of Nature, but often lack the power to apply it (13, 20; 124-26).  Hence, to preserve their lives, liberties and possessions, people enter a social contract with each other by

  1. giving up the power to do what one thinks the Law of Nature allows to preserve one's own and other people's lives, liberty and possessions so that society  may regulate it (128-29)
  2. wholly transferring the power of punishing to the state (89; 129).
Those who don't enter political society remain in the state of nature with respect to the state (95).
Once the people have compacted with each other, they (i.e., the majority unless otherwise specified) set up a government by entrusting it to pursue the good of the people (134, 149).
NOTES: So: At this juncture, Lk considers two possible objections:
  1. There's no historical evidence of a group of equal people in the state of nature forming political society through a compact (100)

  2. Answer: the scarcity of historical record is due to  lack of commodities in the state of nature and to temporal distance; however, there are recorded instances, e.g., the founding of Rome or Venice (101-2).  Moreover, a "Swiss and an Indian in the woods of America" are, with respect to each other, in the state of nature (14).  So, even if some society may develop from a family, it still requires the consent of the governed (110-112).
  3. Since everyone is born under some government, nobody is rightfully free to form a new one by compact (113).

  4. Answer: it's true that who has given express consent to a state may not exit it rightfully (121).  However, a child is born subject of no state; upon reaching the age of discretion, if he chooses to stay gives a tacit consent amounting to a subjection to the state (119).  But who gives merely tacit consent may  rightfully exit the compact and form a new state in vacuis locis.
NOTE:
Political society is different in nature from mere society, which arises from conjugal compact between man and wife and develops into a compact between master and servant (78-86)
 

6.
Basically, Locke provides three arguments against absolutism:

  1. Nobody has abolute power over one's life or anyone else's life (we belong to God).  Hence no such power can be trnsferred to an absolute ruler (135)
  2. Absolute monarchy, in which one person is the final arbiter of all controversies and consequently effectively remains in the state of nature, is incompatible with the ends of civil society, for no protection from the "violence and oppression" of such a ruler could be found (90, 93).
  3. Absolutism is worse than the state of nature (93)
So, since the end of society is the preservation the citizens' lives, liberties and possessions, the power of the state is never supposed to extend beyond what's required to preserve them (131)
NOTE: here the disagreement witjh Hobbes is very sharp: for Hobbes only absolutism is stable
A constitutional monarchy with a separation of the legislative from the executive (in the hands of the monarch) is the form of government Lk preferred (159).  But ultimately, sovereignty remains in the hands of the people, who have a right to rebel when they decide that the rulers have breached the trust which keeps them rightfully in power (140)