Improvement as the Foundation of Liberty

Locke on Labour, Equality, and Civic Membership

Abstract

Many researchers have addressed the question of whether Locke’s individuals are fundamentally self-interested or motivated by the common good. This paper approaches this question by focusing on his views on labour, labourers, industry, and improvement. This approach reveals that Locke envisaged a community whose members are not only concerned with securing individual rights and self-interest, or with performing extra-civic or God-given duties, but should also be motivated to make efforts to improve both material and moral life. To him, labour represented the common capacities of mankind to make use of their “heads” and “hands” industriously, and to thus contribute to one another by making their lives better. Locke’s individuals are active members of society, regardless of status or class. His inclusion of the labouring poor as equal contributors marks the break with humanist political discourse on the one hand, and with the Protestant idea of calling on the other.