This problem is raised nowhere explicitly in Locke...

This problem is raised nowhere explicitly in Locke, and the reason may be that Locke takes it for granted that the answer to this question is No; and he is able to take this for granted, because he is able to assume that what the majority do and will accept is an oligarchical government controlled by the property owners, and especially by the owners of large-scale property. Why is he able to assume this? Perhaps because of his doctrine of tacit consent.

Locke writes that “every Man, that hath any Possession, or Enjoyment, of any part of the Dominions of any Government, doth thereby give his tacit Consent, and is as far forth obliged to Obedience to the Laws of that Government, during such Enjoyment, as any one under it; whether this his Possession be of Land, to him and his Heirs for ever, or a Lodging only for a Week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the Highway; and in Effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the Territories of that Government.”37 Thus it follows that the wandering gypsy on the road has consented to the authority of the government, which may therefore legitimately conscript him into its armed forces.

Locke’s doctrine is important because it is the doctrine of every modern state which claims to be democratic, but which like every state wishes to coerce its citizens. Even if the citizens are not consulted and have no means of expressing their views on a given topic, they are held to have tacitly consented to the actions of governments. Moreover, we can see why modern democratic states have no alternative but to fall back upon a doctrine of this kind.

For, like Locke’s Whig oligarchy, they have nothing to ground their legitimacy upon but popular consent; and, as in Locke’s Whig oligarchy, the majority of their subjects have no genuine opportunity to participate in the political process except in the most passive way.

It follows that either the authority claimed by the government of these states is not genuine, and that their subjects are therefore under no obligation to obey them, or that they are legitimated by some kind of tacit consent on the part of the subjects. But for the latter alternative to hold, the doctrine of tacit consent must, of course, be meaningful. Unfortunately-for the state-it is not.