ABSTRACT

In their drive for proper socialization and integration, Hobbes and Rousseau placed heavy emphasis on the religious and political factor. By contrast, John Locke and the social theory of liberalism conceived of man to be able to dispose of himself in a rational way. Man was recognized as the subject of action, who owns himself and has therefore a right to private as well as public freedom. Human action, to be free, presupposes that certain institutions represent an intrinsic part of man's subjective and objective nature. For Locke, the institution of private property was central to his interpretation of civil society, 4 a productive order in which freedom and equality were mediated by productive goals. Consequently in such a concept of social order, which substituted mutual advantage for coercive power, the phenomenon of exchange and its institutions, money and market, took on special significance. By combining the phenomenon of exchange with a theory of specialization and division of labor, Locke anticipated the focus of attention of classical economics. 5 Hobbes wanted to achieve integration and security through moral commitment of the individual to his Leviathan. Locke, on the other hand, assuming civil rather than natural equality, attempted to secure integration by committing the civil government to guarantee the institutions of civil society.