JOHN LOCKE: POLITICAL WRITINGS

let us change it a little. Let the gentleman and scholar employ nine of
the twelve on his mind in thought and reading, and the other three in
some honest labour, and the man of manual labour nine in work and
three in knowledge. By which all mankind might be supplied with
what the real necessities and conveniency of life demand in a greater
plenty than they have now, and be delivered from that horrid
ignorance and brutality to which the bulk of them is now everywhere
given up. If it be not so it is owing to the carelessness and negligence
of the governments of the world, which, wholly intent upon the care
of aggrandizing themselves, at the same time neglect the happiness of
the people and with it their own peace and security. Would they
suppress the arts and instruments of luxury and vanity, and bring
those of honest and useful industry in fashion, there would be neither
that temptation to ambition where the possession of power could not
display itself in the distinctions and shows of pride and vanity, nor
the well-instructed minds of the people sufered them to be the
instruments of aspiring and turbulent men. The populace, well
instructed in their duty, and removed from the implicit faith their
ignorance submits them in to others, would not be so easy to be blown
into tumults and popular commotions by the breath and artifce of
designing or discontented grandees. To conclude, this is certain, that
if the labour of the world were rightly directed and distributed there
would be more knowledge, peace, health, and plenty in it than now
there is. And mankind be much more happy than now it is.
25: 'Venditio' (r695; from the r66r
Commonplace Book)
Upon demand what is the measure that ought to regulate the price
for which anyone sells so as to keep it within the bounds of equity
and justice, I suppose it in short to be this: the market price at the
place where he sells. Whosoever keeps to that in whatever he sells I
think is free from cheat, extortion and oppression, or any guilt in
whatever he sells, supposing no fallacy in his wares.
VENDITIO
To explain this a little: A man will not sell the same wheat this
year under 10s[hillings] per bushel which the last year he sold for
ss. This is no extortion by the above said rule, because it is this
year the market price, and if he should sell under that rate he
would not do a benefcial thing to the consumers, because others
then would buy up his corn at his low rate and sell it again to
others at the market rate, and so they make proft of his weakness
and share a part of his money. If to prevent this he will sell his
wheat only to the poor at this under rate, this indeed is charity, but
not what strict justice requires. For that only requires that we
should sell to all buyers at the market rate, for if it be unjust to sell
it to a poor man at IOS per bushel it is also unjust to sell it to the
rich for 10s, for justice has but one measure for all men. If
you think him bound to sell it to the rich too, who is the consumer,
under the market rate, but not to a jobber or engrosser, to this I
answer he cnnot know whether the rich buyer will not sell it again
and so gain the money which he loses. But if it be said 'tis unlawful
to sell the same cor for IOS this week which I sold the last year or
week for ss because it is worth no more now than it was then,
having no new qualites put into it to make it better, I answer it is
worth no more, 'tis true, in its natural value, because it will not
feed more men nor better feed them than it did last year, but yet it
is worth more in its political or marchand value, as I may so call it,
which lies in the proportion of the quantity of wheat to the propor
tion of money in that place and the need of one and the other. This
same market rate governs too in things sold in shops or private
houses, and is known by this, that a man sells not dearer to one
than he would to another. He that makes use of another's ignorance,
fancy, or necessity to sell ribbon or cloth, etc. dearer to him than to
another man auhe same time, cheats him.
But in things that a man does not set to sale, this market price is
not regulated by that of the next market, but by the value that the
owner puts on it himself: v.g. x
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has an horse that pleases him and
is for his turn; this y would buy of him; x tells him he has no mind
to sell; y presses him to set him a price, and thereupon x demands
and takes 4o for his horse, which in a market or fair would not
yield above twenty. But supposing y refusing to give 40, z comes
the next day and desires to buy this horse, having such a necessity
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JOHN LOCKE: POLITICAL WRITINGS
to have it that if he should fail of it, it would make him lose a
business of much greater consequence, and this necessity x knows.
If in this case he make z pay so for the horse which he would
have sold toy for 40, he oppresses him and is guilty of extortion
whereby he robs him of 10, because he does not sell the horse to
him, as he would to another, at his own market rate, which was
40, but makes use of z's necessity to extort 10 from him above
what in his own account was the just value, the one man's money
being as good as the other's. But yet he had done no injury toy in
taking his 40 for an horse which at the next market would not
have yielded above {20 because he sold it at the market rate of the
place where the horse was sold, viz. his own house, where he would
not have sold it to any other at a cheaper rate than he did toy. For
if by any artifce he had raised y's longing for that horse, or because
of his great fancy sold it dearer to him than he would to another
man, he had cheated him too. But what anyone has he may value at
what rate he will, and transgresses not against justice if he sells it at
any price, provided he makes no distinction of buyers, but parts
with it as cheap to this as he would to any other buyer. I say he
transgresses not against justice. What he may do against charity is
another case.
To have a fuller view of this matter, let us suppose a merchant of
Danzig sends two ships laden with corn, whereof the one puts into
Dunkirk, where there is almost a famine for want of corn, and there
he sells his wheat for 2os a bushel, whilst the other ship sells his at
Ostend just by for ss. Here it will be demanded whether it be not
oppression and injustice to make such an advantage of their neces
sity at Dunkirk as to sell to them the same commodity at 20s per
bushel which he sells for a quarter the price but twenty miles off? I
answer no, because he sells at the market rate at the place where he
is, but sells there no dearer to Thomas than he would to Richard.
And if there he should sell for less than his corn would yield, he
would only throw his proft into other men's hands, who buying of
him under the market rate would sell it again to others at the full
rate it would yield. Besides, as there can be no other measure set to
a merchant's gain but the market price where he comes, so if there
were any other measure, as 5 or 10 per cent as the utost justifable
proft, there would be no commerce in the world, and mankind
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VENDITIO
would be deprived of the supply of foreign mutual conveniences of
life. For the buyer, not knowing what the commodity cost the
merchant to purchase and bring thither, could be under no tie of
giving him the proft of 5 or 10 per cent, and so can have no other
rule but of buying as cheap as he can, which turning often to the
merchant's downright loss when he comes to a bd market, if he
has not the liberty on his side to sell as dear as he can when he
comes to a good market. This obligation to certain loss often,
without any certainty of reparation, will quickly put an end to
merchandizing. The measure that is common to buyer and seller is
just that if one should buy as cheap as he could in the market, the
other should sell as dear as he could there, everyone running his
venture and taking his chance, which by the mutual and perpetually
changing wants of money and commodities in buyer and seller
comes to a pretty equal and fair account.
But though he that sells his com in a town pressed with famine
at the utost rate he can get for it does no injustice against the
common rule of trafc, yet if he carry it away unless they will give
him more than they are able, or extorts so much from their present
necessity as not to leave them the means of subsistence afterwards,
he offends against the common rule of charity as a man, and if they
perish any of them by reason of his extortion is no doubt guilty of
murder. For though all the selling merchant's gain arises only from
the advantage he makes of the buyer's want, whether it be a want
of necessity or fancy that's all one, yet he must not make use of his
necessity t his destruction, and enrich himself so as to make
another perish. He is so far from being permitted t gain to that
degree, that he is bound to be at some loss, and impart of his own
to save another from perishing.
Dunkirk is the market t which the English merchant has carried
his corn, and by reason of their necessity it proves a good one, and
there he may sell his corn as it will yield at the market rate, for 20s
per bushel. But if a Dunkirker should at the same time come to
England to buy corn, not to sell to him at the market rate, but to
make him, because of the necessity of his country, pay IOS per
bushel when you sold to others for fve, would be extortion.
A ship at se that has an anchor to spare meets another which
has lost all her anchors. What here shall b the just price that she
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JOHN LOCKE: POLITICAL WRITINGS
shall sell her anchor to the distressed ship? To this I answer the
same price that she would sell the same anchor to a ship that was
not in that distress. For that stll is the market rate for which one
would part with anything to anybody who was not in distess and
absolute want of it. And in this case the master of the vessel must
make his estimate by the length of his voyage, the season and seas
he sails in, and so what risk he shall run himself by parting with his
anchor, which all put together perhaps he would not part with it at
any rate, but if he would, he must then take no more for it from a
ship in distress than he would from any other. And hen; we see, the
price which the anchor cost him, which is the market price at
another place, makes no part of the measure of the price which m
fairly sells it for at sea. And therefore I put in 'the place where the
thing is sold': i.e. the measure of rating anything in selling is the
market price where the thing is sold. Whereby it is evident that a
thing may be lawfully sold for 10, 20, nay cent per cent, and ten
times more in one plac than is the market price in another plac
perhaps not far off. Thee are my extemporary thouht[s] concer
ing this matter.
0lc
I. I have substitute letters from the Roma alphabt (, y, z)for the Ge
letters used by Loke.
26: Draft of a Representation Containing a
Scheme of Methods for the Emplyment of
the Poor. Proposed by Mr Locke, the
261h October 167
To their Excelleces mLrd Jutc
May it pkyor Excelleie,
Hi Majesty having b apead, by bis ssma, to reuire