Today in class we discussed the final points Locke made, including his thoughts on money. Although many regard money as having value, we must remember that it actually has no intrinsic value. For money to have value there must be a commonwealth set in place to decide what it is worth. According to Locke, property is what we put labor into, and whatever is our property is an extension of ourselves. And because it is an extension of ourselves we must not let this property go unused. If we do take more property than we can use, we are being irrational and hoarding. Money, however, allows us to hoard in a way that is justifiable. Unfortunately, the consequence of money is inequality. As Locke explains, it is okay to hoard money because one could not hoard money unless they were a good laborer. Basically, this theory follows the idea of ‘you get what you earn’. This idea is often associated with the ‘American Dream’, in that if you work hard enough you can become whatever you want, but every man is for himself. This would mean that those who are not able to hoard money, in other words the poor, are not good workers, and should simply work harder and pull themselves up by their own boot straps ( and no one elses). This however, seems entirely oversimplified. Maybe in an ideal world everyone who worked hard would be able to hoard money, but I do not believe this is true for modern societies. The poor are not always poor because they are bad workers. Many social conditions prevent the poor from ever being able to keep a good paying job, such as health, mental stability, race etc. Also, while it can be extremely easy to lose all of your money, it is very difficult to climb back up the social ladder. For one whose family is well off, the value of education and hard work is emphasized one’s whole life. But for those who are not able to afford education, and therefore have a much smaller chance of holding a well playing job, these values are not emphasized. As a result, it seems to become a viscous cycle as generations continue to pass down the values they were taught. Sure, you might be able to say these people just aren’t working hard enough, but it can’t possibly be that easy to break the mold and focus on values (education) that you were never taught, and that no one else around you cares about. If life were as simple as Locke makes it sound, then the inequality money creates would be justified. But I think that the world is much more complex than this, and just because you are poor, does not make you a bad worker. Thoughts?
Post Script: On behalf of the kids who went to office hours today, we would just like to make known that harwoods ringtone is in fact “ Lets get it on” by marvin gaye.
It's the Prince of Motown. What did you expect?
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I agree with Mary's point that Locke's theory does not apply to modern day society. However, it did apply to the society he lived in because at that point in time labor and work equalled money and wealth. This is why is was far easier to achieve the American dream in the past. As Harwood said in class, Locke could not comprehend a society where this wasn't a case because it was true in his life time. Unfortunately, society is no longer like this and very often people who do not work hard at all with trust funds (or something like that) are far better off then those who work two or three jobs and barely get any sleep are still living in poverty. I do not believe this is fair but I do not see how this will ever change. If anything this will just continue to get worse as the time goes on
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Mary in regards to how oversimplified Locke's justification of the inequality that money causes is. I also understand the concept that more than likely, Locke's era was much different than our own in which his justification may be just that, fully justified. However, we are not looking at this from Locke's perspective or from Locke's world - we must look through our own lens at this theory. And with regards to our own society, his theory is vastly oversimplified and ignorant of the fact that what you work for is not always equal to what you will receive.
ReplyDeleteLike Elise said, there are many cases in which those that have money and means are in such a situation because of privilege and even luck. And yet impoverished persons are working justifiably hard (at least as far as Locke justifies labor) in comparison to those who are not impoverished, and still cannot make ends meet.
I think what concerns me most is that honestly, if you were to ask any random person (even those of privilege) if they believe that people CAN be born into unlucky situations and be essentially trapped in poverty - many would say YES. And yet, at the same time, Locke's philosophy of "you get what you work for" is still the ever-prevalent idea of our society - the American Dream. How is it that we can recognize that life and status ISN'T always about pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and then immediately dismiss that fact when referring to our own privilege?
At the risk of boring you I would like to offer a story, a businessman was walking in Greenwich Village in New York and he saw a sketch artist, he told the sketch artist that he would like a sketch done. The artist finished quickly and presented it to the delighted businessman, the businessman said “that’s terrific, how much do I owe you?” The told the businessman that it would cost 80 dollars; the businessman responded “80 dollars! but it only took you 10 minutes.” The artist responded “15 years and 10 minutes.” The point of that rather rambling story is so that I can have a springboard to finish by offering my own opinion. The reason that labor has value is because it is directed labor; just simply expending energy does not constitute labor. Labor is when energy is expended in order to cause some desirable end. It is not that a person is stupid or in some way deficient if they aren't paid a lot it just is that the results of their labor are not valued by society as highly as some other things.
ReplyDeleteAs is the case anytime you make a generalization about the population, there will be gaping flaws in the statement. In this case the same is most certainly true. While it is true that some of the desolate working class do not work hard enough to earn a decent living, it is safe to say that none of the homeless people on the street set out to live a life of poverty that they so strongly desire. Take a hypothetical example that "John" a homeless man living on the streets of Chicago, who scrounges for money to fund his alcohol addiction. Do you really think when he was a ten year old boy that his dream in life included receiving looks of disgust by indignant passersby refusing to support his addiction? At the same time, there are thousands of Americans working their asses off paycheck to paycheck just to support a family. Would it really be fair to say that these people are bad or lazy workers? As another fake example take a dedicated single parent who has a low paying job and two kids to feed. Couple that with an unfortunate occurrence of identity theft, which sank the family even deeper in the red. This would, by necessity, drive the parent to work even harder, but that does not equal an increase in salary enough to buy your dream home, or that new car. In Locke's judgment of whether a person makes what they are worth, he left out one significant factor, life is not fair, and some people just get the short end of the stick.
ReplyDeleteI think people are looking to far into this. The point is that hypothetically labor should equal wealth in the perfect society. However, no society is perfect. Can we really fault Locke for not being completely correct when we cannot find a better alternative? If we did have a better alternative wouldn't we have the perfect economy? So, though I don't think it's fair that some people will work very hard and still not be able to gain wealth, I do not think that is the point Locke is necessarily trying to get across
ReplyDeleteI agree with this point - to expand on it, I feel that the only way the 'American Dream' can actually work out, where an American betters their position in society/moves up a social class is if they have at least most of the means necessary to. For instance, as college students now we're probably not generating a lot of income, but with our hard work in school we'll get our degrees and because of our work get jobs, make money, etc. But that's only because we've been provided with the means to improve ourselves. I definitely agree that there are levels of poverty that are impossible for people to escape - for example a single parent trying to raise a family with only a minimum wage job is not going to get far at all even if they're working as hard as they can. In theory Locke's argument sounds good, but especially in our world today , not everyone gets equal return for what they work for.
ReplyDeleteMary, we already discussed this after class the other day so you know my thoughts, but I will share them on here too. I think to some extent Locke is correct in saying that our lives built and depend on how hard we work. Of course not everyone is born into the same situations and some have it easier than others. I do believe in the "American Dream" as well. In many cases, it really depends how much effort you put in to life. Unless you are extremely fortunate or just lucky, nothing can be accomplished by those that are idle. To some extent, I believe that people are to blame for their misfortunes in life especially when they are people that don't work to improve them.
ReplyDeleteSovereign's Note: I would like to correct a misquotation attributed to me in the above comments. I DID say that Locke's understanding of and structure concerning property was based partially upon his contemporary circumstances. I did NOT say that it was easier for individuals to achieve wealth (or the "American Dream") during Locke's time. Incidentally, it was much more difficult for individuals to achieve wealth at the time; the gap between the rich and poor has expanded tremendously, but the number of additional positions between these two has increased enormously. My reference was to Locke's incapacity to imagine the shortage of resources that can and has lead to individuals actually controlling the very means by which individuals could "make their living." As far as Locke could tell, the earth's bounty would always exceed the people's needs, thereby ensuring that labor could produce wealth if the individual so chose. Thus, his naivette is based less on the practical opportunities available to the poor at the time, and more on his belief that resources could never be so scarce as to be in the hands of the few.
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I found it interesting that money is the only thing that we can rationally hoard. It does not belong to anyone because it is a simple communal agreement; it's a representation of labor. Because money changes hands so often, it is not considered an extension of our bodies, like other properties. This is why we can justifiably hoard it.
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