What is Locke's justification for private property? Does it work in contemporary conditions?

Locke believed that private property was a means to an end and that by investing labour into an object, the individual appropriated that object. However, Locke’s theory does not work in the modern world. The technological and economical advances have rendered Locke’s theory obsolete.

Locke believed the human race was born into a state of nature. This meant there was no government or higher authority and each individual was autonomous. Each man had the right to do what he wanted as long as he preserved peace and mankind in general. He also had the right to preserve himself and therefore, he had the right to those things that would help him and make him happy. Locke believed that God gave mankind all the resources and materials for man’s preservation and all man had to do was use them. By applying labour to the resources, man would bear the fruits of his labour and would be happy. For example, God has provided fields for mankind to use and all man has to do is farm the fields and he can enjoy the crops that are yielded as a result. Locke proposed that since individuals completely own their own bodies, it would only follow that they should own what their bodies and labour produces too. Therefore, Locke believed that appropriation came by investing labour into something. By gaining the fruits of investing your labour into property, Locke believed that private property was the means to an end. However, Locke also proposed some restrictions because God wants all of his children to be happy. Man should only take into possession something if it does not harm another in doing so. He should not take into possession more than what he can use and leave the rest for others to enjoy. Unfortunately, the world is afflicted with immoral men who violate these natural laws. To prevent this from becoming a problem for the moral men, we come together as a community and create and enforce laws that better guarantee protection of our property and other freedoms.

Locke wrote the Second Treatise in 1689, and the world has drastically changed since the 300+ years of its publication. Locke’s notion of private property by investment of labour has grown scarcer with the rise to political, social and technological advances. In modern western society, very few things are crafted with only the individual labour of one person. For example, when building a car in a factory, multiple people work on the same, but at different stages of it. One person will install the tires on the car, while another will install the engine. Each person plays a sole part in a whole assembly line. Also, technology and machines would be doing a great deal of work for the individual. This leads to difficulty in Locke’s theory because technically each person that has worked on the car has invested their labour into the car and owns a portion of it. Also, that same person has worked on multiple cars doing their own job. This leads them to own a portion of the car for many cars according to Locke’s theory. However, the factory is owned by a company or corporation and legally speaking, they own the entire car until it is sold. Locke’s theory no longer applies to the modern world because of the rise of companies and corporations that hire individuals to work for them and then claim the fruits of their labour as the company’s or corporation’s. In a sense, the fruits of labour are stolen from the individual by the employer they work for and the individual is reduced to nothing more than a machine in terms of rights to the fruits. The employee themselves gets turned into a means to an end in modern society. The people who reap the fruits hardly ever invest their own labour into building anything. In conclusion, Locke’s theory of private property does not apply in our contemporary world due to the lack of individualism in investing labour and the lack of employee’s rights on their labour.