Most people think of dusty old philosophy books as something to be endured in a sophomore year survey course and then promptly forgotten. But honestly, if you live in a Western democracy, you are basically breathing John Locke's air every single day. His John Locke Second Treatise of Government isn't just some relic. It is the literal source code for the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the very idea that a leader can't just do whatever they want because they feel like it.
The year was 1689. England was a mess. King James II had just been kicked out in the Glorious Revolution, and everyone was trying to figure out why they were allowed to do that. Locke didn’t just write a defense of a specific political coup; he rebuilt the entire concept of human society from the ground up. He started with a simple, terrifying question: What would humans be like if there were no laws, no police, and no government at all?
The State of Nature isn't a Mad Max Movie
Locke calls this pre-government world the "State of Nature." A lot of people mix him up with Thomas Hobbes here. Hobbes thought the state of nature was a "war of all against all" where life was nasty, brutish, and short. Locke was a bit more optimistic. He argued that even without a king, people are governed by "Reason."
Basically, we have a natural law that tells us we shouldn't harm others in their life, health, liberty, or possessions. It’s not chaos. It’s a place where everyone is equal and nobody has a natural right to rule over anyone else. You're born free. You stay free.
But there’s a catch.
Without a central judge, if someone steals your cow, you’re the one who has to go get it back. You are the judge, the jury, and the guy swinging the sword. That gets messy fast. People are biased. You might think your cow is worth ten of theirs. They might think they didn't steal it at all. This "inconvenience," as Locke mildly puts it, is the whole reason we bother with government in the first place. We trade a little bit of our total freedom for the security of having a neutral umpire to settle disputes.
✨ Don't miss: Melissa Calhoun Satellite High Teacher Dismissal: What Really Happened
Property: The Weird Core of Locke's Argument
If you want to understand the John Locke Second Treatise of Government, you have to talk about dirt. Specifically, how does a piece of the earth, which God gave to everyone in common, become yours?
Locke’s answer is labor.
You own your body. That’s a given. Therefore, you own the work your body does. When you take a wild apple tree and you put in the effort to pick the apples, or you clear a field and plant corn, you have "mixed your labor" with that land. That act of mixing makes it yours. It’s a powerful idea that fueled the American frontier spirit, but it also has a dark side. It was used for centuries to justify taking land from indigenous peoples who didn't "improve" the land according to European standards of farming. Locke wasn't just a theorist; he was deeply involved in colonial administration in Carolina, and his theories on property served very specific economic interests of the 17th-century English gentry.
The Contract You Never Signed
Why do you obey the speed limit? Why do you pay taxes? You didn't sign a contract when you were born. Locke handles this with the concept of "Tacit Consent."
If you use the roads, if you enjoy the protection of the police, or even if you just stay within the borders of a country for a week, you’ve basically signed the deal. You are agreeing to follow the laws in exchange for the benefits of being in a civil society. It’s a package deal.
🔗 Read more: Wisconsin Judicial Elections 2025: Why This Race Broke Every Record
But—and this is the huge "but" that changed the world—the government’s power is fiduciary. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s held in trust. They don't own the power. We just let them borrow it to keep things running smoothly. The moment a government stops protecting your life, liberty, and property, the contract is void.
When Is It Okay to Start a Revolution?
This is where the John Locke Second Treatise of Government gets spicy. Locke spends the last part of the book talking about "The Dissolution of Government."
He doesn't think you should have a revolution because taxes went up three percent. He’s not an anarchist. But he does argue that if a ruler becomes a tyrant—if they ignore the law, stop the legislature from meeting, or hand the country over to a foreign power—they have put themselves into a "State of War" with the people.
At that point, the people have a right to "appeal to Heaven." That’s his code for picking up a musket.
When Thomas Jefferson sat down to write the Declaration of Independence, he was basically just plagiarizing Locke. Jefferson’s "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" is a direct riff on Locke’s "Life, Liberty, and Estate." The idea that a people have a right to overthrow a king who breaks the social contract comes straight out of Chapter 19 of the Second Treatise. It was the most radical idea of the age, and it’s why Locke’s books were occasionally burned or published anonymously.
💡 You might also like: Casey Ramirez: The Small Town Benefactor Who Smuggled 400 Pounds of Cocaine
What Most People Get Wrong About Locke
One big misconception is that Locke was a secular, modern atheist. He wasn't. His entire argument for human rights is grounded in the idea that we are all "the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker." We are God's property, so we can't destroy ourselves or others. If you take the theology out of Locke, some of his arguments for why we have rights actually get a lot harder to prove.
Also, people often forget how much he focused on the legislative branch. Locke didn't want a strong executive. He thought the "Supreme Power" of any commonwealth should be the people who make the laws, not the person who executes them. He would probably be horrified by the amount of power modern Presidents or Prime Ministers have today.
Putting the Second Treatise Into Practice Today
If you're looking for how this applies to your life right now, look at any debate about eminent domain, digital privacy, or even the right to protest.
- Question the "Why": Next time the government passes a law you hate, ask yourself: Is this protecting my life, liberty, or property? Or is it overstepping the specific "trust" we gave them? Locke gives you the vocabulary to argue that a law isn't just "bad," but fundamentally illegitimate.
- Property and Labor: In the digital age, what does it mean to "mix your labor" with something? When you create data that a company then sells, who owns that? Locke's labor theory of property is being litigated right now in the world of AI training and big data.
- The Limits of Consent: Locke forces us to ask what we are willing to give up for safety. In a world of increasing surveillance, we are constantly renegotiating the social contract. Are we "consenting" to give up privacy just by using a smartphone? Locke would say we need to be very careful about what we're trading away.
The John Locke Second Treatise of Government isn't just a book on a shelf. It's the blueprint for the world we live in. Reading it is like looking at the plumbing of your house; you don't think about it until something breaks, but you're sure glad someone figured out how it’s supposed to work.
To really grasp the weight of these ideas, you should read the original text of the 1689 Bill of Rights alongside Locke's work. It shows the immediate, real-world application of his theories. From there, compare his view of "Property" to modern intellectual property laws to see how his 300-year-old logic holds up in a world of code and patents. Analyzing the tension between individual property rights and the "common good" remains the most vital exercise for any citizen in a free society.