Uniting the Left and the Right

I think implementing the Lockean proviso would unit the Left and the Right.

In the Second Treatise of Government (1690), John Locke puts forward his account of how a man may legitimately appropriate goods from the state of nature for his private use by mixing his labour with them: Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for other.

"At least where" means something like "certainly where". To Locke, it's so easy for a worker to make sure he doesn’t make the life of anyone worse off because of his work that he writes his "proviso" as if it was a no brainer and almost a (involuntary) matter of fact. For Locke, implementing the condition seems automatic because he conceives private appropriation as a reduction of the pressure that those living out of the common encounter.

Locke wrote: He who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind. For the provisions serving to the support of humane life, produced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land are... ten times more, than those, which are yeilded by an acre of Land, of an equal richnesse, lyeing wast in common. And therefor he, that incloses Land and has a greater plenty of the conveniencys of life from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred left to Nature, may truly be said, to give ninety acres to Mankind.

Basically, Locke was trying to be a good Christian. A Christian in possession of a surplus has a duty to help the needy, whatever the origin of his surplus (hard work, thriftiness, etc.) and whatever the cause of the vital need (laziness, parasitism, etc.). Implementing this duty is favourable to economic growth and development through international stability and cooperation; in other words, implementing this duty is keeping at bay the law of the jungle where killing to survive is the utmost natural right. Where and when there is not enough for others, stealing a property and parasitism of workers can become a natural right to take what one needs to self-preservation.

Hobbes wrote: Similarly, if individual subjects make private judgments of right and wrong based on conscience, succomb to religious enthisiasm, or acquire excessive private property, the state will suffer. Even a well-designed commonwealth may, over time, cease to function and will be dissolved.

And Plato wrote: In fact, Plato held that guardians should own no private property, should live and eat together at government expense, and should earn no salary greater than necessary to supply their most basic needs. Under this regime, no one will have any venal motive for seeking a position of leadership, and those who are chosen to be guardians will govern solely from a concern to seek the welfare of the state in what is best for all of its citizens.

And also in Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas insisted: ... whatever some have in super-abundance is due, by natural law, for the purpose of succouring the poor... Each is entrusted with the stewardship of his own things so that out of them he may come to the aid of those in need. But if the need be so manifest and it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means are at hand ... then it is lawful for a man to meet his own needs by means of another's property, by taking it either openly or secretly, nor is this theft or robbery.

We also find a closely related proposition in Agrarian Justice, written by Thomas Paine (Published in 1797). This work was based on the contention that in the state of nature, "the earth, in its natural uncultivated state... was the common property of the human race." Yet to better cultivate the land, private ownership was established. Thus Paine views private property as necessary, but that the basic needs of all humanity must be somehow provided for by those with property. This is in some sense is their "payment" to non-property holders for the right to hold private property. Paine proposes a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor, what could be considered as the precursor of the modern idea of citizens or basic income.