"Charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty, as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise."
—

John Locke (via azspot)

This quote is particularly significant for two reasons. First, Locke is the guy who we go back to when we talk about moral justifications for private property. When Locke makes an exception for something, it’s worth listening to. Secondly, Locke uses the language of entitlement. He doesn’t say it would be nice for some people to give to others. He says the others are entitled to as much surplus as would prevent them from extreme want if they have no other means to subsist.

(via squashed)

In his book John Locke: Critical Assessments, Vol. 1, Richard Ashcraft writes:

First, we see that charity places a limit on the right of individuals to accumulate.  Secondly, the claim that one person has on another’s property is limited to a certain level: the subsistence level.  After this level is “satisfied” the second person is free to accumulate indefinitely as long as the process is fair.  Thirdly, this charity is owed only to those few who are industrious but by some calamity find that they have “no means to subsist otherwise.”  Finally, we once again observe that Locke’s property theory is based on a fair historical process which gives rise to a man’s claim to property by means of “honest industry and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him.” (pg. 396-97)

Though Ashcraft quoted Locke’s full paragraph, he split it into two parts.  In the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, January 1965, Henry Moulds quoted Locke’s idea in full:

God … has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods; so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it: and therefore no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise: and a man can no more justly make use of another’s necessity to force him to become his vassal, by with-holding that relief God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat offer him death or slavery.

Moreover, Moulds noted that “One who knew Locke intimately testified that:”

people who had been industrious, but were, through age or infirmity, past labour, he was very bountiful to; and he used to blame that sparingness with which such were ordinarily relieved, “as if it sufficed only that they should be kept from starving or extreme misery; whereas they had,” he said, “a right to living comfortably in the world.”