Locke’s commonwealth means any independent political community, not a specific regime
Evidence
By commonwealth, I must be understood all along to mean, not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community, which the Latines signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our language, is commonwealth, and most properly expresses such a society of men, which community or city in English does not; for there may be subordinate communities in a government; and city amongst us has a quite different notion from commonwealth: and therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word commonwealth in that sense, in which I find it used by king James the first; and I take it to be its genuine signification; which if any body dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better. — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 160
Categorization
- DEFINE: Precise terminological fixing: commonwealth = civitas = any independent community, deliberately excluding the modern democratic connotation.
- XREF: connects to: The legislative power’s location determines a government’s entire form — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 159; A nation is held together by consent, not by blood or geography — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2189
Related
Broader Connections
- A nation is held together by consent, not by blood or geography
#corroborates(0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2189