What is the purpose of government? This question is not so easily answered by the uneducated or the common man. In today’s drastically changing world, responses to this question would vary from person to person and country to country. Some would say, government is here to protect us. Others would say, government is here to provide social services or protect private property. While those potential answers may help us to see individual areas of an overall mission, we must look closer at the underlying principles of government to really answer the question.

John Locke, an early seventeenth century political theorist first referred to a principle known as the “State of Nature.” The State of Nature is a condition in which there is no government. It is a condition of an environment without law. Furthermore, Thomas Hobbes, the original “Social Contract” theorist, advised that human beings in the State of Nature would behave badly, as that state would lead to a “war of every man against every man” and would make life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

The inherent problem with the State of Nature is that people do not have a device to protect their liberty, estate, or life from others. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the people to unite and form a device or government, to protect their rights as human beings. This theory is further explained by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #15. He states, “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.”

We can further elaborate on this principle. John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government explains that civil society was created for the purpose of protecting property. In this principle, he examines the origin of the word “property,” which when translated into Latin, means “one’s own” or “oneself.” In this, Locke concluded the purpose of government was  to protect life, liberty, and property.