Locke the egalitarian? Or Locke the libertarian?

The key passage here is Par. 50, in which Locke appeals to tacit consent to the use of money.  The libertarian reading of Locke takes this tacit consent to the use of money effectively to avoid violating both the spoilage and the sufficiency ("enough and as good") provisos on justified holdings, allowing for legitimate radically unequal holdings in the state of nature, even for the impoverishment of some.  This also sets up the libertarian understanding of the state as established simply to police such a radically unequal distribution, not to engage in redistribution. 

Anderson's egalitarian reading of Locke takes this tacit to the use of money only to avoid violating the spoilage proviso.  Inequality in possessions can be justified up to a point through appeal to the work ethic, but any additional inequality that might result in the state of nature after the invention of money, in particular inequality that leads to real scarcity and impoverishment, now VIOLATES THE SUFFICIENCY PROVISO on legitimate acquisition.  People have more than their rightful shares.  So in the state of nature the invention of money will result in violation of the sufficiency proviso -- there will no longer be enough and as good left in common for others.  This injustice requires a remedy, and on Anderson's reading the remedy is provided BY entering into government: ""At this point people need to resort to government to find a solution." (35) So part of the point of entering into political society, and establishing a government, is precisely to mitigate the unjust inequalities that will result from the invention of money in the state of nature -- to engage in redistribution in order to satisfy the sufficiency proviso on legitimate acquisition of holdings.

Anderson does a nice job of presenting the libertarian argument, and a pretty good job of presenting her more egalitarian reading of Locke as well.  This provides a fascinating opportunity to see how two different approaches can interpret the same text, but offer radically different interpretations that each purport to be grounded in this same text, interpreted in the appropriate context.

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