John Locke

A libertarian governor proposed to his state's legislature that income tax rates be 100% for all citizens.

John Locke's concept of civil society provides redress against the arbitrariness of the state of nature. According to him men enter into civil society and place themselves under the government to protect themselves from the inconveniences and shortcomings of the state of nature. “Civil society also protects men from the arbitrariness of the government” (Locke, p245). The concept of political society is different from that of civil society.

Locke takes up the subject of the dissolution of government, first distinguishing between the dissolution of society and the dissolution of government.“Society is destroyed by foreign conquest; the union that brought men from the state of nature into a commonwealth is now dissolved and they are returned to the previous state” (Locke, p244). The societies are scattered and subdued. When a society is destroyed, its government is destroyed as well; it would make no sense for government to persist without its foundation of society.

Locke now discusses the ways in which government can be dissolved. The first is when the legislature is altered, for it is the will of society and the body in which all members are combined into one. The constitution's creation of the legislature was the commonwealth's first and most important act, and the people authorized it. Whenever a legislature makes laws without authority, the people do not need to obey and can take it upon themselves to form a new legislature (Locke, p267).

“A commonwealth's legislative power is one of three styles: the first is a single hereditary person with absolute power; the second is an assembly of hereditary nobility; and the third is an assembly of elected representatives chosen by the people” (Locke, p266). In the first, the legislative is changed when the absolute monarch goes outside the bounds of the law and either makes new laws or subverts old laws. It is also changed when the prince prohibits the legislature from meeting and debating, alters the election rules without the consent and against the common interest of the people, or delivers the people to a foreign power. It is clearly the prince's fault that the legislature is changed and the government dissolved, because only he has the power and pretense of authority to make these sorts of changes.

A government can also be dissolved when its executive power neglects its job and does not execute or enforce the law. The commonwealth devolves into anarchy. Clearly when there is no administration of justice and the laws cannot be carried out for the public good, government no longer exists. When “the executive uses force or bribery to corrupt the representatives or uses threats and promises to get them to accede to his wishes, he is ruining the legislature and destroying the government” (Locke, p267). This is a breach of trust with the people.

Some may fear that when the people set up a new legislative power because the old one has violated the compact between government ...