John Locke’s Quiet Revolution

Rights you keep, power you lend

In June 1685, a soft-spoken English exile knocked on a door in Delft. Inside, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek tilted a tiny glass lens toward the light and let his guest—John Locke—peer at an unseen world: blood cells, enamel, motes of life that law had never named. Locke would leave the Dutch Republic with a different kind of lens: a way of seeing political power magnified down to its smallest particles—individual rights—and judging every government by how it treats them.¹²

Locke was the cautious English doctor who traveled under the alias “Dr. Van der Linden,” writing from rented rooms and keeping his opinions tidy as a physician’s bag.² The question that obsessed him was simple and explosive: When, if ever, do we owe obedience to those who rule us? His answer, set out in 1689 in the Second Treatise of Government, began not with kings or parliaments, but with persons. We are, he argued, born free and equal, already holding claim to life, liberty, and estate (property). Government is legitimate only if we consent to it, and only while it protects those pre‑existing rights.³⁵

His big idea can be grasped with a neighborhood analogy. Imagine a street where families hire a night watch. Everyone agrees to chip in and follow a few rules—lights at dusk, no loud engines past ten—in exchange for safety. The watch has real authority, but it’s borrowed. If the guards begin breaking windows, the contract isn’t sacred; it’s void. Locke’s version is more precise: in the “state of nature” reason already binds us, and the move to civil society is a practical upgrade—outsourcing the impartial enforcement of rights we already possess. As he put it, “being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”³ That single sentence is the seed from which “consent of the governed,” limited government, and even “no taxation without representation” can be grown.

But ideas need their stress test. Locke’s came with the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689, when James II was deposed and William and Mary took the throne on Parliament’s terms. The settlement—a Bill of Rights, regular parliaments, curbs on arbitrary power—tracked the logic of the Treatises: rulers rule conditionally, not by divine right. Locke returned from Holland, published his work anonymously, and added a Letter Concerning Toleration that argued the state had no business coercing conscience.⁴⁵⁷ Yet the revolution’s toleration was narrow (it excluded Catholics), and Locke’s own world drew a harsh circle around its egalitarian claims.

Here the lens must widen. Earlier, while serving the Earl of Shaftesbury, Locke helped draft the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, a colonial blueprint that imagined hereditary nobles—and authorized absolute power over enslaved people. Article 110 infamously declared that “every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves.” Historians dispute how much of that document reflects Locke’s convictions versus secretarial duty, but the dissonance matters: a theory of natural equality coexisted with an empire built on bondage.⁶ The gap between principle and practice is part of Locke’s legacy too.

So what? Three takeaways help you scan today’s headlines.

• Consent must be real, not ritual. Clicking “I agree” on a 30‑page terms‑of‑service isn’t the kind of consent Locke meant. His consent is meaningful only when people can understand terms, shape them, and withhold agreement without ruin. Apply that to municipal surveillance, algorithmic content rules, or workplace monitoring: if there’s no credible choice or voice, the “contract” fails the test.

• Law should enlarge freedom. For Locke, law is not a cage; it’s a fence that keeps the wolves out. A content‑moderation rule, a public‑health mandate, a zoning ordinance—each is justified only if it protects the equal rights of all better than its absence would. Ask: whose life, liberty, or property is made more secure, and at what cost to others?

• Exit matters. The right to alter or abolish a government that betrays its trust is Locke’s safety valve. In our lives, “exit” can mean switching platforms, unions decertifying a contract, or voters replacing officials. Where exit is blocked—by monopolies, gerrymanders, or lock‑in—voice and consent wither.

Locke left us a handy mental model: look through the social microscope. Before praising or condemning a policy, inspect its smallest unit—the person—and run three checks. Did the people bound by it actually consent? Does it protect their pre‑political rights better than no rule at all? And is there a peaceful way to exit or revise it? If you can’t answer yes to all three, the watchman has started breaking windows.