Locke and Kant on the right to private property

The author argues that Locke and Kant develop mutually exclusive justifications of the right to private property. Locke (in the Second Treatise of Government) invents and advocates the view that the right to private property originates from labour, which was "mixed with the things" (hence by the "labour-mixing argument"). Kant, by contrast, sharply distinguishes (in The Metaphysics of Morals) possession from property and deduces the right to private property from the original possesion of all things in common (hence by the "first-occupancy argument"). In addition he explicitly criticises the "labour-mixing argument". The author sketches both theories, shows the limits of their arguments, and points to their relevance for contemporary debates of private property rights.