De la propiedad privada en Locke

Algunas matizaciones

«Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it, it hath by his labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.»

Locke The Second Treatise of Government 1689,

1

Escrito durante la Exclusion Crisis (1679–81) para promover la revolución, cf. Laslett 1960. (senda investigativa continuada por Cranston, Franklin y Ashcraft)

Ch. V Sect. 27

Sin embargo, esta última clausula (aka «condición lockeana», Nozick 1974) sólo aplica al estado de la naturaleza, haciéndola obsoleta la eficiencia de los medios de producción y la invención del dinero:

«though men had a right to appropriate, by their labour, each one of himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use: yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was still left to those who would use the same industry. To which let me add, that he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for the provisions serving to the support of human life, produced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak much within compass) ten times more than those which are yielded by an acre of land of an equalrichness lying waste in common. And therefore he that incloses land, and has a greater plenty of the conveniencies of life from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred left to nature, may truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind: for his labour now supplies him with provisions out of ten acres, which were but the product of an hundred lying in common.» V.37

«Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it upon what was common, which remained a long while the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind makes use of. Men, at first, for the most part, contented themselves with what unassisted nature offered to their necessities: and though afterwards, in some parts of the world, (where the increase of people and stock, with the use of money, had made land scarce, and so of some value) the several communities settled the bounds of their distinct territories, and by laws within themselves regulated the properties of the private men of their society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the property which labour and industry began; and the leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms, either expresly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the others possession, have, by common consent, given up their pretences to their natural common right, which originally they had to those countries, and so have, by positive agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts and parcels of the earth;» V.45

«Now of those good things which nature hath provided in common, every one had a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use, and property in all that he could effect with his labour; all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in, was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples, had thereby a property in them, they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look, that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not uselesly in his possession, these he also made use of. And if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselesly in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour; or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life he invaded not the right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of any thing uselesly in it.» V.46

Resumiendo, aunque la propiedad privada comienza o se origina en el trabajo, no termina o se limita a él, si no que se expande mediante acuerdos y leyes. Es más, la acumulación del capital es posible, pues la producción de perecederos es intercambiable por imperecederos como el dinero. Más aún, la sobreproducción del sistema capitalista garantiza que la población general, aun no disponiendo de medios de producción ni recursos naturales, puede subsistir de los excedentes de quienes sí los poseen y explotan, por lo que los oligopolios también quedan legitimados.

Por tanto, dudo mucho, como he visto argumentar, que Locke se opusiera a la fortuna de Bill Gates: aunque quizá no sea el producto directo de su trabajo, y menos una vez afianzado y jubilado, lo cierto es que conocer el mundillo de los aficionados a la electrónica de los 1970s, y reconocer el impacto que tendría el Altair 8800 (1975) —y más en particular, la bajada del precio del hardware— en el mercado del software, y aprovechar esto para diseñar (junto a Paul Allen) el interprete Altair BASIC, y etc. construyendo en el proceso una red de conocimiento, contactos y empleados autosostenida, sí es producto de su trabajo, en tanto que primer motor aristotélico, si se me permite el símil.

Por contra, diría que los primeros argumentos cuestionando la legitimidad del dinero de Gates hay que buscarlos en la teoría marxista de la alienación,

2

En el caso de Gates, un millonario hecho a sí mismo —y más en general, para cualquier CEO que tome decisiones empresariales a alto nivel—, el problema ya no es que se limite a poseer los medios de producción sin aportar nada (pues su contribución puede ser, de hecho, más que significativa), como criticaba Marx de los burgueses —que quizá podríamos repensar hoy como a los accionistas, especialmente si delegan el trabajo de seleccionar sus inversiones—, sino que la redistribución de los beneficios de la empresa y demás decisiones no técnicas están centralizadas en una sóla persona, privándole al resto de trabajadores de su agencia. (destaco este punto por ser novedosamente preeminente en la era de las start-ups, no porque la teoría clásica de la alienación no aplique: el Gates-empleado no está enajenado, o no de la misma manera que el resto de sus trabajadores)

y no en Locke, quien de hecho se beneficiaba similarmente como secretario de la Board of Trade and Plantations y la Lords Proprietors of Carolina, de las que era miembro, y como uno de los inversores mayoritarios de la Royal African Company en 1771, que traficaba con esclavos.

3

Cf. Philosophy Tube, Locke: State of Nature & the New World (2017-6-30)

Así, insisto, teniendo en cuenta tanto su obra como su vida, considero impropia de Locke una lectura literal de V.27: si cualquier excedente (entendido como todo exceso innecesario para mi supervivencia) fuera ilegitimo, entonces el comercio (o la industria de V.45) no sería posible, obligando a alternativas (que dudo que Locke tuviera en mente) como el trueque o la redistribución equitativa en una sociedad cooperativa en vez de competitiva. Y me parece una lectura igualmente equivoca la de querer extender su restricción de no acaparar recursos perecederos a una limitación de la acumulación de capital, como queda claro en V.46. Y tampoco creo que tras la sobreproducción de V.37 se esconda un sentimiento filantropico a la Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, lo que en cualquier caso tampoco lo haría menos problemático.

4

Cf. Renegade Cut, Downton Abbey - Aristo-Trash (2020-2-7).

Aun con todo, no voy a negar que el tratamiento de Locke de la propiedad privada sigue siendo controvertido, llegándose a usar para defender desde el laissez‐faire hasta el socialismo completo pasando por el estado del bienestar.

5

Cf. George H. Smith John Locke: The justification of private property 2015.

Y en cualquier caso, tampoco hay que olvidar que su objetivo último era circunscribir el poder y la soberanía de los gobiernos monárquicos absolutistas, que deben limitarse a proteger los derechos a la vida, la libertad y la propiedad privada.