Reconstruction of John Locke’s View on Private Property In chapter 5 of Locke’s Second treatise on Civil Government, Locke gives his view on property. He starts off stating that the earth serves as common property to all man. However, he starts the chapter with the main question of how one’s own self property came to exist. Locke states that the problem that arises is how to differentiate all of mankind’s common property to one’s own. Locke states “there must of necessity by a means of appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man” (Locke, 286). Thus, Locke states that man must have a way to claim his or her own property through a certain manner where they can now claim it their own, and not all of mankind. This thing is done through labor. “The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provide, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and therby makes it his Property” (Locke, 287-288). Each individual has their own body and therefore owns their own labor since it is produced by their body. Mixing one’s own property, such as their labor, with a common property or foreign property shared amongst others then makes that specific property one’s own. Locke further mentions how labor puts a distinction between what one owns and what is shared by all mankind. He gives an example of when an individual goes to the woods to collect nuts for eating. He says that the act of eating and digesting does not make the property one’s own. The act of labor is what “put a distinction between them and common” (Locke, 288). Each person has the ability to go and appropriate their own goods by their own will. However, when does acquiring property become unreasonable? Locke