John Quiggin on John Locke's Classical Liberalism

Weekend reading on liberalism. These are short posts and they provide a good background in many political issues now to the fore in US politics.

John Locke was a proponent of bourgeois liberalism aka propertarianism. In this view the sole purpose of civil government is the protection of private property. John Quiggin exposes this idol of liberalism as having feet of clay. It also explains how many of the American founding fathers from the slave owing states saw no conflict between liberalism and slavery, which otherwise might seem a puzzling oversight or rank hypocrisy. Locke justified it for them because he was one of them, albeit in absentia.

Short Summary: John Locke, an enemy of freedom – John Quiggin

John Locke Against Freedom | John Quiggin - Jacobin

John Locke’s Road to Serfdom | John Quiggin - Jacobin

Locke’s Folly | John Quiggin - Jacobin