Locke, Labor and Emancipation

Abstract

In the first part of the paper, I describe the role labour, under conditions no longer existent, played for the perfection of individuals in Locke's political philosophy. Or to use a more up-to-date term, I describe labour's emancipatory role. In the second part, I examine the conditions for realizing Locke's aim of a society of autonomous individuals with a minimum of state power and market coercion, starting from a society whose members are becoming increasingly economically superabundant.