Locke's View on Property: Karl Marx and John Locke ...to take advantage of it...as much as anyone [sic] can take advantage of it to any advantage...before it goes bad. Locke states that God gave everything to man that we might enjoy it and that it might help us, but not that it might be wasted. Everyone can gather what he needs and what he is able to use and enjoy, but any amount of property that exceeds his capacity for use and enjoyment belongs to others. I believe, in agreement with Locke, that the desire to own property in order to survive is natural, and that this need for property in order to live is inherent in history. Following Locke's beliefs about property, labor, and the inert duty to survive, consider the colonization of the Americas by the Pilgrims in the 15th century. For peregrines to survive and reproduce, they must create shelter. this might involve, for example, using axes to cut down trees in order to build houses. According to Locke's beliefs, this creation of dwellings using tools (which were the property of the Pilgrims) created the aspect of property in the New World; those who build the houses own them (or at least those who are able to do so theoretically build their own houses) precisely because they can put labor into them. Thus, the desire to possess goods was inert among the pilgrims; they needed to have houses within the framework

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