lockean labor theory
Lockean labor theory. The philosopher John Locke’s justification of private property, based on the natural right of one’s ownership of one’s own labor, and the right to nature’s common property to the extent that one’s labor can make use of it. • Locke’s theory, from the fifth chapter of his Second Treatise on Civil Government, is often used to analyze the natural rights of inventors, authors, and artists in their own creations. — Also termed labor theory; Lockeanism. Cf. PERSONALITY THEORY; UTILITARIANISM.