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Ince, Onur Ulas (2011) 'Enclosing in God’s Name, Accumulating for Mankind: Money, Morality, and Accumulation in John Locke’s Theory of Property.' The Review of Politics, 73 (1). pp. 29-54.

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Abstract

John Locke's theory of property has been the subject of sustained contention between two major perspectives: a socioeconomic perspective, which conceives Locke's thought as an expression of the rising bourgeois sensibility and a defense of the nascent capitalist relations, and a theological perspective, which prioritizes his moral worldview grounded in the Christian natural law tradition. This essay argues that a closer analysis of Locke's theory of money in the Second Treatise can provide an alternative to this binary. It maintains that the notion of money comprises a conceptual area of indeterminacy in which the theological universals of the natural law and the historical fact of capital accumulation shade into each other. More specifically, the ambiguity of the status of money enables Locke to navigate an antinomy within the natural law such that he establishes a relation of necessity between the divine telos and accumulative practices.

Item Type: Journal Article
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > Department of Politics & International Studies
ISSN: 00346705
Copyright Statement: This article has been published in a revised form in The Review of Politics, 73 (1) 2011. pp. 29-54 published by Cambridge University Press https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670510000859 This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. © University of Notre Dame 2011
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670510000859
Date Deposited: 10 Jan 2022 19:27
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/36217

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