Sandwichman — Ownership,Trade and Equilibrium: Locke, Graunt and Gracian

"It is impossible that the primary law of nature is such that its violation is unavoidable. Yet, if the private interest of each person is the basis of that law, the law will inevitably be broken..." — John Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature

Baltasar Gracian's Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647), John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662) and John Locke's Essays on the Law of Nature (1664) all appeared within the span of 17 years in the middle of the 17th century. Gracian bequeathed to economic discourse the philosophical concept of laissez faire, Graunt laid the foundations for quantitative social science, Locke unambiguously defined the natural law constraint that he later alluded to in the famous fifth chapter of his Second Treatise on Government, "Of Property."…

Philosophy and economics. We are still struggling with these issues.

Ownership is thus opposed to abundance that escapes its grasp. Perhaps Locke was on to something after all when he observed that "it is impossible for anyone to grow rich except at the expense of someone else." But it is not a physical amount that the grasping individual steals "from another man's heap." It is instead a capability and productive potential that the wealthy monopolize and hoard. One of the ways the owners impose on everyone else is by propagating myths about the sanctity of private property, the self-adjusting character of the price system and the fallacy and futility of any attempt by anyone other than owners to regulate or restrict production on behalf of the wider community of non-owners. 

Econospeak
Ownership,Trade and Equilibrium: Locke, Graunt and Gracian
Sandwichman