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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
There are no nations, there are no peoples …. There is only one wholistic system of systems, one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivariant, multinational domain of dollars. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.
—Clarence Jenson Network, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, 1976
When the seats of power and authority have been attained, there should be no more poetic license.
—J. M. Keynes
1 There are several reasons why scholars and activists now find ‘indigenist’ preferable to ‘native.’ The term ‘native’ may be too broad insofar as anyone born in a nation could be called ‘native.’ If ‘native’ is used to specifically designate pre-contact natives, it carries derogatory connotations imposed by invading groups. The term ‘indigenist’ seems to best connote the land-based ethos of many contemporary inhabitants of dependent sovereign states. (See note 39, below, and the discussion of land-based economic issues in Section III of the text of this article.)
2 See Tully, James ‘Rediscovering America: The Two Treatises and Aboriginal Rights,’ in Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context, ed. Rogers, G.A.J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Zack, Naomi ‘Locke and the Indians,’ in The Social Power of Ideas, ed. Hudson, Yeager and Peden, W. Creighton (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995)Google Scholar.
3 Bishop, John Douglas ‘Locke's Theory of Original Appropriation and the Right of Settlement in Iroquois Territory,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 27:3 (September 1997): 311-37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 MacPherson generally interprets Locke as having projected seventeenth-century English market conditions onto the state of nature. As will soon be evident, I agree with him that Locke located money in the state of nature. But the question that interests me in this paper is what Locke means by money. I will show in Section II that Locke's ideas about money in seventeenth-century England rest on the same principles of natural law that apply in his description of the state of nature. The philosophical examination of these principles means that Locke did not so much project conditions of his time onto a presumably earlier state of nature; rather he thought that the same principles governed both the state of nature and seventeenth-century culture. See MacPherson, C. B.The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 197-222, 233-35Google Scholar.
5 References and quotes are from Locke, JohnTwo Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
6 See Zack, NaomiBachelors of Science: Seventeenth Century Identity, Then and Now (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 194-97Google Scholar.
7 In Euro-American terms, this would be the position of ‘deep ecology,’ although respect for the intrinsic worth and right to be left alone of non-human natural entities has been an integral part of cultural practices and beliefs among indigenous people for eons.
8 John Ray, the naturalist, writing in 1691, believed that God had provided enough gold and silver to make trade possible. See Merchant, CarolynThe Death of Nature (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 238, 246-48Google Scholar.
9 On the gold standard and its demise, see: Hawthorne, JennieTheory and Practice of Money (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1981), 191-95Google Scholar; Weatherford, JackThe History of Money (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1997), chaps. 7-12, esp. 12.Google Scholar
10 A general example of Locke's reliance on natural law in this way is his claim that men have life, liberty, and property according to natural law and that their consent is therefore required for the existence of civil government (see in particular: Two Treatises, II, VIII, 119-22 and II,XI, 134 and 138).
11 For biographical discussion of Locke's political and economic posts and his involvement in monetary policy, see Locke, JohnLocke on Money, ed. Kelly, Patrick Hyde (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1991), vol. 1, 1–39Google Scholar.
12 As in the discussion of Locke's economic posts, I am here mainly relying on Kelly's Locke on Money. See 39-67. See also Sir Craig, JohnNewton at the Mint (Cambridge: Cambridge at the University Press, 1941)Google Scholar.
13 John Locke, Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money, in Locke on Money, vol. 1Google Scholar.
14 Further Considerations Concerning Raismg the Value of Money, in Locke on Money, vol.2.
15 Further Considerations Concerning Raising the Value of Money Wherein Mr Lowndes's Arguments for it concerning An Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, are particularly Examined, 1695, in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 418-19.
16 Locke, John ‘A Paper Given to Sir William Trumbull Which was Written At His Request September 1695,’ in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 367-69Google Scholar.
17 Locke believed that the solution to the currency shortage and the crimes that caused it were the same. “There is therefor no sure way to put an End to Clipping but by makeing Clipping unprofitable and so it will be as soon as your money goes only for as much as it weights.” Locke on Money, 369.
18 For Locke's free market views, see Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 323-28 and ‘Guineas,’ in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 363-64; for Kelly's analysis of the immediate situation of depressing the guinea price, see Locke on Money, vol. 1, 33-34.
19 Locke, Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 233Google Scholar.
20 Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 233-34.
21 See The Oxford English Dictionary: A New Dictionary on Historical Principles, ed. Murray, James A.H. (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1933)Google Scholar, s.v. quantity and intrinsic.
22 Locke, Some Considerations in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 213.Google Scholar
23 Locke, Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 212Google Scholar.
24 See Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 267-69, and Further Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 420-22. Locke generally does not seem to have considered that credit, in the form of guaranteed promissory notes or bills of exchange, could and did function as money in circulation:
For noething will pay debts but mony or monys worth, which three or fower lines writ in paper cannot be, for if they have an intrinsick value and can serve instead of mony, why doe we not send them to market instead of our cloth lead and tin? (Locke, Final MS draft of Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 521)Google Scholar
25 See Magnusson, LarsMercantilism: The Shaping of an Economic Language (London: Routledge, 1994), esp. on Locke, 128-30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Locke, Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 231Google Scholar.
27 For economic and historical explanations of these events, see: Constantine Caffentzis, GeorgeClipped Coins, Abused Words and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1989), 17–44Google Scholar; Locke on Money, vol. 1, 39-67.
28 Locke, Further Considerations, Locke on Money, vol. 2, 428-55.Google Scholar
29 Locke, Further Considerations, Locke on Money, vol. 2, 410.Google Scholar
30 Locke, Further Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 410-25.Google Scholar
31 Locke, Further Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 415Google Scholar.
32 Locke, Further Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 2, 416.Google Scholar
33 MacPherson, Possessive Individualism, 206Google Scholar (and n. ibid referring to Some Considerations, 6th ed. in Locke's, Works, 1759, ii. 19Google Scholar).
34 Locke, Some Considerations, in Locke on Money, vol. 1, 223-24Google Scholar.
35 Twentieth-century fiat money is not backed up by precious objects but merely proclaimed to be money by government decree. However, there is an uncanny inversion between Locke's explanation of the intrinsic value of gold and silver and what fiat money apologists have said about intrinsic value. Locke claimed that gold and silver money has intrinsic value because it is pure quantity, whereas the chartalists have claimed that no money has intrinsic value because all money is pure quantity. Thus, the real issues in both cases have been whether certain equations ought to be changed or not. In Locke's day it was an issue of whether the equations between units of precious metals and money ought to be changed; in our century it has been a question of whether the equations between units of money and units of goods- which is to say, prices- ought to be changed by changing the money supply. (For discussion of these issues, see for example, Frankel, S. Herbert on the issues introduced by Keynes, John Maynard in Frankel, Money: Two Philosophies: The Conflict of Trust and Authority [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977], 57–85, esp. 71-72.)Google Scholar
36 Loss of land because the surplus produced on it is not enough to finance other necessities of life or to finance the market value of the land (which is borrowed when the land is mortgaged) could be a case in which farmers do not own their land to begin with, or have miscalculated in putting that ownership at risk. What would Locke have said about farmers in present “third-world” countries who lose land, livelihood, and even life because their governments first allow imports of foodstuffs at cheaper prices than can be offered domestically and can neither compensate the farmers after the imports rise in price nor buy enough imported foodstuffs to feed their populations? For a quick overview on present free trade agreements and their effects on small agricultural producers, see Dawkins, KristinGene Wars: The Politics of Biotechnology (New York: Seven Stories Press [The Open Media Pamphlet Series], 1997)Google Scholar.
37 See, for instance, Mills, CharlesThe Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 9–40Google Scholar.
38 Colonialism and the slave trade were well underway before the biological concept of race had been developed. See Zack, NaomiBachelors of Science: Seventeenth Century Identity, Then and Now (Philadephia: Temple University Press, 1996), chap. 12.Google Scholar
39 See Churchill, Ward ‘Introduction,’ 1–16Google Scholar, and ‘Marxism and the Native American,’ 183-203, in Marxism and Native Americans, ed. Churchill, Ward (Boston: South End Press, 1983)Google Scholar.
40 Means, Russell ‘The Same Old Song,’ in Marxism and Native Americans, 19–33.Google Scholar
41 Deloria, Vine Jr. ‘Circling the Same Old Rock,’ in Marxism and Native Americans, 113-36Google Scholar.
42 Elk, Frank Black ‘Observations on Marxism and Lakota Tradition,’ in Marxism and Native Americans, 137-57Google Scholar.
43 Elk, Black ‘Observations,’ 144.Google Scholar
44 Weber, MaxThe Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. Henderson, A.M. and Parsons, Talcott (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 211-12Google Scholar.
45 This might be easier to do insofar as contemporary Western money no longer has the form of otherwise precious objects, nor purports to represent such objects. Although, even when it was in such such form or symbol, it was unlikely to be as highly valued within indigenist cultures as it was in the West. Thus, Frank Black Elk writes:
I mean, consider the implications of a tradition which compels its people to march across half a continent, engage in a major war to steal the land from my people, engage in genocide in order to preserve their conquest, and all primarily so they can dig gold out of a small portion of that land, transport it back across the continent, and bury it again at Ft. Knox! The virulence of the disease Sitting bull spoke of is truly staggering. ('Observations,’ 145)
