Locke, decolonial and Rousseau

Locke’s statement of his project: Second treatise §1

We “must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power" against the "foundation of perpetual disorder" brought about by power being "the product only of force and violence."

Locke’s State of Nature §6
(“no one ought to harm another in his life, his health, his liberty, or his possessions: for…”)

“men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker - there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us”

Locke on a state of liberty but not a “state of license” §6

"servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order.”

Locke - State of War §17

(one who would take away my liberty "would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else.")

“He who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him.”

Locke Labour theory of property §27

“The labour of his body, and the work of his hands are properly his…whatsoever then he removes out of the state of nature…he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property”

Locke on enlarging the common stock §37

(“the provisions serving to the support of human life, produced by one acre of enclosed and cultivated land, are ten times more than those which are yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness lying waste in common”)

“He who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind”

Locke on who God intended the Earth for §34

("Thus, we are born free, as we are born rational." §61)

“God gave the world to the "industrious and rational" for their benefit and cultivation, rather than to the "fanciful or covetous.”

Locke - consent as the only ground of subjection §95

“Men being, as has been said, by Nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this Estate, and subjected to the political Power of another, without his own Consent.”

Locke on exiting the state of nature (§123)

(state of nature "is very unsafe, very unsecure” —→ “This makes him willing to quit this Condition”)

“for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property”

Locke - why men enter society (§124)

And there be rule set to “to limit the Power, and moderate the Dominion of every part and member of the Society” (§222)
(“understood as "the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property.”)

"The great and chief End… is the Preservation of their Property"

Locke on the legislative and the executive §143-144

The legislative is "put into the hands of divers Persons" who, when separated, are "themselves subject to the Laws, they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them." A standing executive is necessary because laws need "a perpetual Execution."

Locke on slavery §23-24

Slavery is "the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a captive”

Locke on Natural liberty and consent §22
(“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth… “)

“The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established by consent, in the commonwealth”

Locke’s defense of colonial expropriation §45

“There are still great tracts of ground to be found, which lie waste, and are more than the people who dwell on it do or can make use of, and so still lie common.”

Mill’s justification for despotism over “barbarians” (p.22)

(“Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end”)

“Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion”

Mill on who counts as a "civilised" bearer of the liberty (harm) principle. (p.22)

The harm principle applies only to "human beings in the maturity of their faculties" and not to "those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage.”

Mill on why representative democracy is not available to the colonised.

| Source: Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
(“To govern a country with a people different from those of the rulers only allows for a choice of despotisms; …”)

“it does not admit of the possibility of democratic representation.”

Charles Mills’ Racial contract p.12

The Racial Contract "is a contract between those categorized as white over the non-whites, who are thus the objects rather than the subjects of the agreement.”

Rousseau's diagnostic opening line.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.1 Ch.1

“Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.”

Rousseau's fundamental aim.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.1 Ch.6

“Find a form of association that defends and protects the person and goods of each associate with all the common force… yet each one, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before”

Rousseau on civilization’s corrupting effect
| Source: Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, p.5

“The sciences, letters, and arts… spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains which weigh men down”

Rousseau on how the rich trick the poor into the first (illegitimate) contract.

| Source: Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p.97–98

“gave the weak new fetters and the rich new forces… irreversibly destroyed natural freedom, forever fixed the Law of property and inequality, transformed a skillful usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjugated the whole of Mankind to labour, servitude and misery”

Rousseau on savages in the State of Nature (Only Amour de soi)

Source: Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

“the savage desires only food, sexual satisfaction, and sleep, and fears only hunger and pain”

Rousseau's "forced to be free" passage.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.1 Ch.7

“In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula…whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free.”

Rousseau on what is lost and gained in the social compact.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.1 Ch.8

“What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses”

Rousseau on the inalienability of sovereignty.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.2 Ch.1

“Sovereignty, being nothing less than the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated, and… the Sovereign, who is no less than a collective being, cannot be represented except by himself: the power indeed may be transmitted, but not the will”

Rousseau on the self-dissolution of a people who merely "obey."

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.2 Ch.1

“the moment a master exists, there is no longer a Sovereign.”

Rousseau on the legitimacy of acts of sovereignty.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.2 Ch.4

“It is legitimate, because based on the social contract, and equitable, because common to all; useful, because it can have no other object than the general good, and stable, because guaranteed by the public force and the supreme power”

Rousseau on law-breakers as enemies of the state.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.2 Ch.5
(“By violating its laws he ceases to be a member of it… ")

“in putting the guilty to death, we slay not so much the citizen as an enemy”

Rousseau on law as the register of our wills.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.2 Ch.6

(“Laws are, properly speaking, only the conditions of civil association. The people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their author”)

“It can no longer be asked whose business it is to make laws, since they are acts of the general will”

Rousseau on elective aristocracy as the best form.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.3 Ch.5

“it is the best and most natural arrangement that the wisest should govern the many, when it is assured that they will govern for its profit, and not for their own.”

Rousseau's critique of English "freedom."

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.3 Ch.15

“As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing”

Rousseau on the inherent defect of the body politic.

| Source: Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk.3 Ch.10
(“sooner or later the prince must inevitably suppress the Sovereign and break the social treaty”)

“As the particular will acts constantly in opposition to the general will, the government continually exerts itself against the Sovereignty”

Rousseau in the Social contract book 2, chapter 7: Substituting the individual for the whole. Changing human nature from the individual to the citizen

“In a word, he must take from man his own forces in order to give him forces that are foreign to him and of which he cannot make use without the help of others.”

Rousseau on “each” and “all” SC bk 2 ch. 4

“Why do all consistently will each one’s happiness, if not because there is no one who does not appropriate the word each to himself, and think of himself as he votes for all.”