Locke has two opponents to overcome in Chapter 5. First he must show that private property is not inherently immoral. This may have been the view of the Diggers (or True Levellers) a religious/political communist movement led by Gerrard Winstanley:

And is not this a slavery, say the People, That though there be land enough in England, to maintain ten times as many people as are in it, yet some must beg of their brethren, or work in hard drudgery for day wages for them, or starve, or steal, and so be hanged out of the way, as men not fit to live in the earth . . . unlesse they will pay Rent to their brethren for it? wel, this is a burthen the Creation groans under; and the subjects (so called) have not their Birth-right Freedomes granted them from their brethren, who hold it from them by club law, but not by righteousness. . . .

...this buying and selling did bring in , an still doth bring, discontents and wars, which have plagued Mankinde sufficiently for so doing. And the Nations of the world will never learn to beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and leave of warring, until this cheating device of buying and selling be cast out among the rubbish of Kingly power. . . .

Winstanley, "The Law of Freedom in a Platform," 1652

Locke's second opponent is a contract theory of property, that the consent of the community is necessary to appropriate or continue to possess property, and idea discussed in the Leveller and True Leveller movements in the English Revolution.

1. Anyone who uses the products of nature (e. g., food) must use it in such a way as to deny its use to other people.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Someone can only have the right to use a natural product if he can acquire an exclusive right to it.

3. Everyone has the right to use the products of nature for his survival.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Anyone can acquire an exclusive right to a natural product which she uses for her survival.

5. Define 'property belonging to X' as 'that to which X has an exclusive right'.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Anyone can acquire as property a natural product which is used for her survival.

The problem here, how to acquire this property? Locke's answer is through labor, and (later) through transfers for property acquired through labor.

7. You are your own property--you own yourself. ("Possessive individualism.")

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. You own your labor. (You have an exclusive right to it)

9. By appropriating a product of nature, you mix your labor with something to which no one else has an exclusive right, only a common right.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. A natural product which you appropriate by mixing your labor in it contains something which is exclusively yours (the labor) and nothing which is exclusively someone elses.

10. A natural product which you appropriate by mixing your labor in it contains something which is exclusively yours (the labor) and nothing which is exclusively someone elses.

11. If your appropriate by labor a natural product and it does not spoil, you have used that product for your own survival.

12. Your appropriation by labor of natural products violates the rights of others to use the products of nature for their survival only if your appropriation leaves a lesser quality of insufficient quantity for others.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13. Appropriation of a natural product through labor will (a) preserve your exclusive right to your labor, will (b) exercise your right to approriate products of nature for your own survival, and will (c) not violate the rights of others to use natural products for their survival, provided that (d) your appropriation leaves sufficient quantity and at least equal quality behind for others to appropriate, and (e) what you take does not spoil.