Idle rich and idle poor. Does Locke really want to help workers?

Elizabeth Anderson argues that Locke harshly treats both the idle poor and the idle rich: "It explains Locke's attacks on aristocratic and corrupt... which promote the material interests of the idle rich" (25), and that he "mostly deployed the work ethic in favour of workers" (25). This reading greatly supports her progressive interpretation of Locke's theory of work. Does the textual evidence support this reading of equal condemnation?

Locke does seem to criticize the idle rich, however his criticism of the idle poor and expectations for poor laws are extremely draconian compared to the "redistributive policies" (25) he proposes for the idle rich. On the case of poor children, which Anderson points out later, Locke suggests that poor kids should be sent to factories at the age of three and be fed "water gruel," allowing the mothers to also continue working (60). The asymmetry is concerning: while Locke's solution to idle wealth involves policy reforms like land redistribution, his solution to idle poverty involves coercive labor extraction from toddlers and their mothers.

Anderson acknowledges this darkness in Locke, admitting these proposals contain "the seeds of the ultimate hijacking of the work ethic by capital owners" (25). But framing these draconian measures as "seeds" of  later hijacking dismisses how thoroughly class-based Locke's own policy was. calling these ideas seeds minimizes that these were fully fleshed out and intentional ideas from Locke, and not the machinations of later conservative interpretations. 

If Locke genuinely condemned idleness equally across classes, we should expect comparable state coercion directed at both groups. There was no proposal of sending aristocratic children to workhouses at age three. This clear distinction suggests that Locke had clear class based constraints that undermine Andersons reading.



Comments

  1. Paul HurleyJanuary 28, 2026 at 11:02 PM

    Asher, this is a really interesting challenge. At one point Anderson claims that for Locke the relevant distinction is not between the rich and the poor, but between the idle and the industrious. You provide evidence that the first distinction infuses the second one on Locke's account. This will be interesting to pursue in discussion.

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