John Locke's Impact on Global Democracy

Although there were many different people involved in the creation of the United States, perhaps the man most important in the growth of the US was never even involved in the actual founding of the US itself. His ideas not only transcended democracy, but it transcended political theory for the rest of history. Without the ideas of John Locke, the United States, and all democracies around the world, would never be the way they are today.

John Locke's founding principle was the state of nature. This environment, also cheerfully referred to as "the hippy community," you have one right: the right to secure property. This is a state that has peace and liberty, where there is equal moral judgment for all people. He also took an idea similar to Native Americans in that property has to be used effectively and practically or else you are not making the most of what you own. In many ways, he believed in a liberal state and you had the right to yourself. He believed that only property owners should be allowed to vote and if you were dependent, you demonstrated a lack of power. Not only this, but Locke's mantra was very simple: "rights are always against the state." This means that your rights are for you that the government cannot violate. That means that anyone else, whether a neighbor or superior in your office CAN violate your rights and you cannot sue them stating your rights have been violated, unless you are working for the government in which the state would be violating your rights, not a private employer.

The idea of property he exemplifies lays the groundwork for the future of all democracies. He shares the sentiment that in order to create property, humans must mix themselves with natural things in order to create property. In essence, anywhere or anything you work on is your property. In case of emergency, where there could be social unrest, there was concern at this early colonial times of war, and this idea was exemplified by another philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, who believed that citizens had to submit to a superior authority. But both Hobbes and Locke have the same general thesis about all states: the object of the state is to secure property. In the United States, it is a given freedom that Americans have a government that will protect their property and prevent anyone from seizing it unlawfully. This simple principle has been responsible for arguments across all different types of property, including slavery and slaves being considered as property. Many slave owners argued that the government had to protect their property, and since slaves were considered property, the government could not seize slaves until they were considered as humans under the eyes of the law, i.e. adding a new amendment to the Constitution.

John Locke may be the one person responsible for helping plan the ideas that began western democracy, but for what he conceived, he is severely under recognized. He may not be the most memorable person, but his ideas exist in the live on in the ideas that are applied and used by billions of people all across the world.


Credit: Columbia University Summer Program - Constitutional Law