Natural, property, and political rights: A comparison of the Leveller movement and John Locke

John Locke, one of the most influential figures in the history of thought, is fundamental to the concepts of parliamentary democracy and political liberalism. In Two Treatises of Government, he proposed political and civil society models based on claims of natural rights, property rights, and political rights. This study compares and contrasts the way of thinking attributed to John Locke in political philosophy and the history of political thought with the conceptual frameworks of the Leveller movement active during the English Civil War and Revolution. In this context, the study was based on the premise that, similar to the Leveller authors, John Locke developed the concept of property and political rights over the concept of natural rights, and research was conducted with this aim. In the first section, the concept of right is analysed through the distinction between legal right and moral right, and then theoretical analyses of property rights and political rights were conducted. The first section's analysis provided the basis for the second section. In the second section, the research in-depth conveys the ideas of philosophers on natural rights, property rights, and political rights throughout the First Age, Mediaeval, and New Age eras. The political pamphlets and drafts of the constitution that the Leveller writers created as a political movement received special consideration. The other pillar of the study, John Locke's articles, as well as all of his works, especially the Second Treatise of Government, have been analysed, and the premise for the comparison in the third chapter has been established. The purpose of the third chapter is to compare, under subheadings, the methods of the Leveller movement and John Locke's approach to the concepts of natural right, property right, and political right, focusing on the study's thesis. As a result, there is no historical evidence that John Locke read the texts of the Leveller authors, including the constitution drafts. Nonetheless, the state of nature design proposed by Locke employing the concept of natural rights and the property rights and political rights claims defended on the basis of this design on the formation of political and civil society are in direct parallel with the logical sequence used in the pamphlets and constitutional drafts written by the Leveller authors and the claims regarding the aforementioned rights.