Every Man Has A Property In

From Chapter 27 of the Second Treatise of Government (1689), in John Locke's account of property. By arguing that each person owns their own body and therefore the labour it performs, Locke grounded natural rights in self-ownership rather than in divine command or social convention. This "labour theory of property" — the idea that mixing one's labour with unowned resources creates legitimate ownership — became one of the most influential and contested arguments in the history of political economy, influencing Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and libertarian philosophers alike.