Theoretical error, real-world problems 33 opportunity, even theoretically, either to consent or to withhold consent. In par ticular, this included the indigenous people whose land was seized and those who were enslaved. They were ostensibly written out of consideration because their ways of seeing their relationships with the land and its resources were seen as different to the liberal thinking developing in Europe at the time. But they were also written out because it was convenient to do so. Today it can seem shocking­that­such­acts­were­justified­along­liberal­lines.­And­yet­today­nonciti zens are also excluded from consideration, giving rise to new sets of oppressions that follow the lines of that same methodological citizenism and statusism that justified­slavery­and­colonisation. John Locke’s philosophy also needs to be seen in the context of his own biography – his own located position. He helped to draft the notorious consti tution­of­Carolina­such­that­‘[e]very­freeman­of­Carolina­shall­have­absolute­ power and authority over his Negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever’.22 He was also reportedly a shareholder in the Royal African Company.23 This puts his commitment to extraordinarily illiberal practices into context. But that does not mean that liberalism itself must always be corrupt. It shows how interests and position can cloud the interpretation of liberalism and provides a starting point for rooting out the blind spots that liberalism’s origins have helped to instate. It is important, then, to observe that despite the apparently rational and universalist nature of the arguments, these blind spots were introduced from a racist and protectionist position based on self-interest. It relied upon the acceptability to the readership of the idea that some people could be seen as less than human (though, as we see, their contemporaries also contested this). This has given rise to two structural problems that are important to under standing liberalism today: (1) On the one hand, the exclusions of the colonial period gave rise to, or aggravated, imbalances of wealth and power that are inherited today, skewing the way in which individuals can participate as citizens in the international system of States. ­ (2)­ On­ the­ other­ hand,­ the­ justification­ of­ these­ exclusions­ required­ the­ introduction of blind spots and exclusions to liberal theory itself. If we con tinue to use a theory that emerged from this context without correcting for these­inconsistencies­and­injustices,­then,­it­would­be­surprising­if­we­did­not­ develop a theoretical framework, and a system based on it, that reproduced them. Those exclusions introduced by the modern liberals were based for 22­ ‘The­Fundamental­Constitutions­of­Carolina,­March­1,­1669’,­in­Francis­Newton­Thorpe­(1909)­ Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories and Colonies Now or Here tofore Forming the United States of America, Compiled and Edited under the Act of Congress of June 30 1906, Government Printing Office, Washington DC, see particularly Article 110. See also James Tully (1982) A Discourse on Property: John Locke and his Adversaries, Cambridge University Press. 23 Losurdo 2014 ibid. p. 15.