Revision summary
Macpherson read Hobbes and Locke as theorists of possessive individualism: the person as owner of capacities in a market society. The liberal state in that reading mainly protects property and contract. He then distinguished extractive power, which takes benefit from others, from developmental power, which is the ability to unfold human capacities. Democracy should be judged by equal developmental power, not only by elections or negative liberty. The argument retrieves an ethical liberalism and a non-authoritarian Marxism against a thin competitive elite model of democracy.
Model answer
Introduction
C. B. Macpherson read English liberalism, especially Hobbes and Locke, as a theory of possessive individualism: the person as proprietor of his own capacities, owing nothing to society for them. From that reading he built a distinct account of power. Power is not only command over others. It is also the ability to use and develop one’s human capacities.
Body
Possessive individualism
In The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962), Macpherson argued that seventeenth-century liberal theory assumed a market society. The individual owns his person and capacities. Freedom is the right to dispose of that property. The state protects property and contract. Locke’s labour mixing with nature becomes, once money appears, a charter for accumulation. Obligation follows from this proprietary self, not from a richer citizenship. Whoever lacks property then lacks effective liberty, and formal rights hide a class structure.
Developmental power
- In Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, Macpherson distinguished extractive power from developmental power. Extractive power takes benefit from others — capital over labour, a ruling class over the ruled. Developmental power is access to the means of unfolding uniquely human capacities: reason, judgement, creation, and political action.
A society can expand the first while starving the second. Democracy, for Macpherson, should equalise developmental power, not only hold elections. That retrieval is closer to Mill’s higher pleasures and to a non-Stalinist reading of Marx’s species-being than to Schumpeter’s elite competition. Critics said he romanticised community and underplayed tyranny. The point remains: power is also human flourishing inside a property order, not only who issues commands.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PI[Possessive individualism] --> P[Person as proprietor] PI --> M[Market and property state] DP[Developmental power] --> C[Capacities] EP[Extractive power] --> X[Benefit from others] DP --> DEM[Democracy as equal development]
Conclusion
Macpherson’s view of power starts from possessive individualism and then breaks it. Power-over extracts; developmental power is the equal chance to unfold human capacities. Liberal democracy is incomplete while property and the market hoard that chance. The note is a retrieval of democracy as human development, not a textbook list of faces of power from Dahl to Lukes, though it sits near them.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Mention the difference between Italian and German brands of fascism
Next question on this syllabus topic (2025 · Q1(d)). View answer →
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Is Macpherson simply a Marxist?
He used Marx’s insight into class and species-being, but he wrote as a critic inside the liberal-democratic tradition, seeking retrieval rather than a one-party state.
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How does this differ from Dahl’s power as A getting B to do what B would not?
Dahl’s decision-making power is behavioural and interpersonal. Macpherson’s developmental power is a social and ethical capacity that a property order can block even when votes are free.
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