Affiliation:
1. National Chengchi University
Abstract
This article explores the current post-colonial critique of Locke, which is primarily based on a Macphersonian proto-capitalist interpretation of Locke’s theory of unlimited property rights. It explores Locke’s Two Treatises, his economic essays on interest rates
and his colonial proposal on Virginia’s administrative defects. I contend that Locke provides a theory of limited property rights which rejects over-accumulation of money and land because it might lead to political subjection to arbitrary power. My analysis helps to explain how and to
what extent Locke’s colonial accounts of Virginia reflect his theory of limited property rights embodied in the Two Treatises.