Universal Adult Franchise and the Right to Property
Topic: India
John Locke's "Two Treatises on Government" of 1689 established two fundamental liberal ideas: economic liberty (meaning the right to have and use property) and intellectual liberty (including freedom of conscience). According to Locke, the individual was naturally free and only became a political subject out of free choice. Without the consent of the people there could not be formed a civil society/ community. Secondly, Locke emphasized that all men were equal. There was a perfect state of equality with all the power being reciprocal and no one having more than the other. This is a fundamental principle of present day democracy. From it, flows the democratic principle of universal participation. That no man shall be excluded from the political process.

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