A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

the other, and deprives him of the possibility of realizing his right to sustenance,
since “enough, and as good” is not “left in common for others”?
What happens if this private ownership destroys those goods
which nature and previous generations have passed onto us? First of
all, we should note, John Locke postulates the grand utopia of individual
property – or acquisition – under conditions of societal and natural plenty.
But it is interesting how his utopia is transformed into the opposite in
light of his own arguments.
The next section of the same essay expands upon this thought, and asks
whether such property requires the acquiescence of all others. The already
stated justification for private property lets Locke speak more
freely than before. This is expressed first of all in his turn of phrase,
which becomes personal in a very special way. First, Locke speaks of
the property of some neutral other, of “his” property, to which “he” has
a claim, using the personal and possessive pronouns in the third person
singular. Then however he switches to the first person plural, to “we”.
Thus does Locke assume the position – which he apparently considers
completely natural – that is shared by his own social group, and writes
“We see in commons, which remain so by compact [!], that it is the taking
any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature
leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is
of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the
express consent of all the commoners.”
Behind the reference to the concrete case of the commons, which existed
before Locke’s very eyes, was a centuries long struggle that had
begun as early as the thirteenth century, and was to continue for another
150 years after Locke’s death. By then, virtually all agricultural land in
England and Scotland had been definitively removed from common
ownership, and privatized by the large landowners. Peasant rebellions
such as that under the leadership of Kett in 1549, or of Midland in 1607,
shook England. The violent transformation of commonly used land in
the form of open fields to pasture land, particularly for raising sheep,
with the goal of raising wool for export, destroyed the foundations of
life of millions of free peasants, and transformed them into an excess
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