The Origin、Transformation And Political Logic Of Property

Property as the same as freedom, democracy and justice are the core concepts of Western politics. Combing the history of the Western concept of property is an important but difficult task, because it has a different connotation and extension in different historical periods and different political thinkers. From the grand narrative of western history, the concept of property and political logic have a strong intrinsic fit and both have a transformation from the ancient to modern. So the transformation from property to wealth is a breakthrough to understand the political logic.The modern concept of property and modern political logic both originated from John Locke, therefor the purpose of this paper is to combine through Locke’s property theory and rights theory, point out the aspects showed the transformation of the concept of property in Locke’s property theory, explore the conjunction point between the concept of property and political logic on this basis, and finally reveal the transformation of western political logic from the ancient to modern.Locke’s property theory is the cornerstone of his rights and political theory buildings, and the natural state is the logical starting point of Locke’s whole theory. The individuals in the natural state not only hold the right of self-preservation, but also have the obligation of religious and moral to preserve others and the mankind, because Locke was a Protestant with theological background. What’s more, the individuals in the natural state who are the works of God, are equal, free and non-subordinate with each other, and all human beings hold the rights to use the natural world, rather than one person alone has the right to rule the world.Locke justified the origin of private property by Private labor, and also justified that private property was the natural right existed prior to the social state, and pepole’s purpose of transition from the natural state to the social state was better to possess and preserve personal property, which was also the perposes of political power, the government and the state. Locke’s property rights included not only tangible goods, but also many "natural rights" closely related to the human rights such as freedom and life. Based on the sanctity of property rights, Locke built some system program, such as limited government, separation of powers theory, the rule of law, to control the scope and strength of the powers, and also justified the right to overthrow or dissolve the invalid government, and totally laid the foundation of the liberalism rights theory.At the same time, Locke’s property theory also reflected the profound transformation of the concept of property from the property to wealth, including three following aspects. Firstly, in the content of property there were from immovable to movable, from the persistent to the process, from the world to the private. Secondly, in the value of property there were from use value to exchange value, from the survival motive to the profit motive, from the limited possession to unlimited possession. Thirdly, in the position of property there was from the mean of leading to the public sphere to the purpose of political life.Along with the transformation of the concept of property, the economic activities of family freed from the private sphere, up to the public sphere, and become the matter of collective concerned. As a result, the economic activities that originally embedded in the social relations began to disembed from the society, becoming the center of the world. Reversal of the economic and social relations, also changed the meaning of civic life and personal, and the ideal citizen changed from political man to economic man. The political man actively involved in the political life of the city-state and showed their numerous virtues in the public sphere, and this was the political logic called "moral supremacy". On the contrary, the economy man estranged politics and treated politics as a business, and the purpose of their political participation is to protect the private rights,such as life, liberty and property, and this was the political logic called "rights supremacy". At last, the western political logic occurred the transformation from the ancient to modern.