john locke | K Morris

Sitting here in my home,
That I am proud to own
I ponder on this thing called property,
This mine and yours
(Protected by the laws)
That makes you and me
Free.

Even the dog will defend his territory
And the wise will leave his manky old bone
Alone
For Fido’s teeth
Have brought many a man to grief.

Lock said that property rights are inate
And a man owns what he does create.
The state
Should expropriate
The capitalists Marxists said
(and marked the expropriation with the dead).

Ownership of property
Makes a man free
But what of those
Who have only the clothes
On there back
And lack
A stake in society?
If there number grows
They will trample on the toes
Of the rich
(and the comparatively so)
Many of whom I know
Would die in a ditch
To preserve their plot,
However fairly or ill got.

In my quiet
Study I enjoy
What the mob would destroy.
I remember riot
When people who little or nothing had
Went mad
And broken glass did greet
Me in the street.

As I sit here enjoying the silence,
In my flat overlooking the park, violence
Seems a distant prospect.
Yet those who have no stake
(And therefore feel no respect
For property,
That makes us free),
May one day take
Away my quiet
In riot.

Hobbes
Lobs
Bricks at Locke,
While Lenin’s work
Is excoriated by Burke.

Friedman stands aloof
Believing he holds the absolute truth,
While Engels continues his long wait
For the end of the Capitalist state.

—

1. I studied history and politics at University College of Swansea and read all of the below works during the course of my studies. The books still reside on the bookshelves which live in my spare room, which I glorify with the name of study!

2. Thomas Hobbes was a philosopher who, in 1651 published “Leviathan”, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3207. Essentially Hobbes argues in favour of a government with absolute power as a means of preventing a return to “the state of nature” which is, for Hobbes a “state of war of every man against every man”. People should not challenge governmental authority as this will lead to chaos (in other words any authority is better than no authority). However, if a government does fall then the populace should give its loyalty to the new authority. Hobbes view of human nature is bleak and in part at least flows from his experience of the bloody anarchy which flowed from the English Civil War which saw the execution of King Charles I.

3. John Locke was a Whig philosopher who in his “Second Treatise of Government” defended the right of the people (if all else failed) to overthrow a tyrannical government. The “Second Treatise” was, in part at least a defence of the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. The “Second Treatise” can be found here, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7370.

4. Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia. One of his best known works is “The State and Revolution” in which he sets out his view on how the Capitalist state will be replaced by a socialist/communist society, https://www.amazon.com/State-Revolution-V-I-Lenin/dp/0717801969.

5. Edmund Burk is often regarded (in a philosophical sense) as being the founder of modern Conservatism. In his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” Burke roundly condemns the French Revolution and argues that such uprisings inevitably lead to anarchy and Terror. Consequently Burke stands diametrically opposed to Lenin. You can find “Reflections” here, http://www.constitution.org/eb/rev_fran.htm.

6. Milton Friedman was a major contributor to the free-market school of economics. In his “Free to Choose” co-authored with his wife Rose, he argues in favour of personal and economic freedom. “Free to Choose” is, in all probability the most accessible of Friedman’s works and is based on a television series of the same name, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose.

7. Engels was Marx’s friend and produced several works of his own, including “Socialism Utopian and Scientific”, in which he criticises what he regards as “utopian” socialism, which he contrasts with what he argues is the “scientific” socialism of Marx. As with Marx, Engels believed that Capitalism would inevitably collapse and be replaced by communism for (according to Engels), the laws of science proved the inevitability of communism’s triumph, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0717801918.