John Locke, A second Treatise on Government. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis and Cambridge 1980. (Gutenberg txt).
Locke's Second Treatise of Government reads like a very different text to Hobbes' Leviathan. It is less mechanical, less orderly, less ambitious perhaps. However, as far as literary merit goes it is certainly the superior, rife with metaphor, emphatic language and clever repetition; Locke set out to make a point knowing that he would have to convince and educate masses of people about their rights as citizens. After all, to become a citizen one had to sacrifice complete independence in favour of relative stability under a majority vote.
Locke’s solution of the majority vote expresses once more his belief in man
as an independent actor. The majority vote does not call for people to compromise and thus give up their opinions. Governments represent a whole range
of different people. The majority vote is the least destructive method of
making sure the general public is given their way. If a voter's party loses the elections, the voter is forced to adhere to laws he/she does not condone, however, there is always the next election, and the one after that. As diverse as the public,
such should be the government. Locke’s advice is that authority should not be
concentrated in one person. The role of authority, after all, is that of
umpire. Objectivity is easier obtained by a group than by an individual.
The danger with Locke’s theory is that, as government is reduced to the
position of umpire, citizens will merely become competing parties, parties who
would rather see their rivals perish than come to a compromise. In a Lockean society citizens have
been granted all these rights, the right to revolution even, if they think that
their property is in danger, but they have not been made aware of their duties.
These duties were present in the pre-political condition, in rudimentary form.
The natural right to enforce the natural law, for example, calls upon a
political wakefulness that benefits not only the individual himself, but all of
the community. As this right is relinquished by the social contract, people are
only asked to look out for themselves; as a result there is no superior goal, no greater
good, and nothing connecting people to each other but animosity. 