Restoring the Commons: Toward a New Interpretation of Locke’s Theory of Property

Rebecca P. Judge

Land Economics, 2002, vol. 78, issue 3, 331-338

Abstract: John Locke’s theory of property, described in his Second Treatise on Civil Government, exerts a strong but often unacknowledged influence on environmental economics, providing justification for many of our discipline’s norms and practices. This paper examines how Locke’s Enlightenment-era thesis has informed our understanding of the relation of the individual and the state to environmental amenities. While Locke has been used to justify a libertarian view that treats any form of environmental regulation as a ‘‘taking,’’ elements of Locke’s original argument can be understood to subject individual rights claims to constraints requiring intra- and intergenerational sufficiency and sustainability.

JEL-codes: K11 Q2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:landec:v:78:y:2002:i:3:p:331-338

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