Acrewoods Library

For Locke property is not an inalienable right; we are clearly free to exchange our products and property. Rather, no one may deprive us of our "capacity to appropriate", this is our inalienable property right. But there is a worry about how one can transfer ownership. (p.306)

The right of ownership doesn't come from a functional unity between owner and owned, which would allow somebody to exchange property merely by ceasing to make use of it. Rather, ownership is gained by a particular individual by virtue of the application of one's labour to an object. Exchange must then constitute "a positive act of releasing the object and the cancellation of the corresponding right to exclusive use". (p.306)

But how can one do this by a mere act of will if we opt for a strong interpretation of Locke's theory, according to which the owned object becomes "a part of the owner", and the act of appropriation joins "something of one's own to the object through the application of one's labour"? Labour has two distinct functions: an exercise of physical force, which all animals are capable of, and a "spiritual operation which endows things with value". Through the latter "it is the quality of the owner's very personality that is embodied in his property". (p.307)

There is an important divergence from Marx here, since for Marx our concrete person, including social characteristics such as class, is embedded in our products, whereas for Locke "the nature of one's holdings is independent of one's concrete personality... the personality embodied in property is ... a legalistic, abstract, and ahistorical self". (p.307)
- So for instance appropriation and exchange doesn't alienate us from the products of our labour, as it must for Marx

But this causes problems for the value-added labour theory. If my labour only results in an abstract and legalistic tabula rasa being embodied in the product then my title can only be one of exclusive use based upon my humanity, rather than being a particular property right as such. We are each individuals, and thus when we exchange goods we do so as (in the eyes of property rights) essentially anonymous proprietors; "the difference between men as proprietors is purely numerical". So it is not that I "release" an object, "remove my personality" or "undo" my labour when exchanging it, but rather than I simply cancel my right to exclusive use through contract or some other legal mechanism. The object remains essentially the same, it has the same value, it is just claimed by another. (pp.309-313)

This creates a distinction between use and exchange value, and commits Locke to the view that the latter is intrinsic and "expresses the homogeneity of human labour", whilst the former is "merely subjective and unstable". (p.313-314)
- Can, then, this "personality theory" interpretation of the labour condition be compatible with Hegel and the doctrine of moral rights, as suggested by Hughes?.