'Enough and as Good' for Whom?

 Both Hobbes and Locke describe a state of nature grounded in equality and natural law. Yet, they reach sharply different conclusions about property. Hobbes denies any possibility of owning property in the state of nature. Locke, by contrast, argues that individuals may aquire private property prior to any government by mixing their labor with common resources. By allowing pre-political appropriation, Locke commits himself to moral constraints on ownership. 

Locke introduces these limits through two provisos. The Spoiling proviso requires that an individual only claim ownership over land/natural resources to what one can use before it spoils, critizicing waste as a violation of natural law: "Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy" (21). To me, this limit is relatively clear and intuitive. 

More demanding, however, is Locke's second proviso, claiming that appropriation is only legitimate if "enough, and as good" is left in common for others. At first, this proviso appears to preserve equality by ensuring that no one is made worse off by another's acquisition. Locke seems confident that this condition is easily satisfied, especially because he "who appropriates land to himself by his labor, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for the provisions serving to support human life... are ten times more [than equally rich land left in the commons]" (23). 

Yet the standard this proviso introduces is unclear. For this proviso to truly work, I believe it would require a comparative judgement (worse off relative to whom), and presupposes some baseline of sufficiency, though Locke never specifies what counts as "enough". Locke treats harm primarly in material terms. Through appropriation increases output, it also introduces exclusion. Even where resouces remain availible, being excluded from what was formerly common access may itself constitute a loss that Locke does not fully acount for. 

For example: Person A decides to claim ownership of a field (having mixed his labor with it). Person B, who used to graze his sheep on that common land, now finds himself excluded from person A. Although this excluded person B may not be materially impoverished in the sense of losing access to subsistence altogether, the appropriation may still leave him "worse off": he loses access to land he previously used, and now must change his practices or depend on alternatives. Locke doesn't clearly explain whether a loss such as this counts as being made "worse off". 

From Hobbes perspective, this ambiguity is why there can be no property in the state of nature at all. Without a common authority to determine and enforce standards, moral limits like Locke's provisos lack clear application.