Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice

[Mark Barrett]

'His Agrarian Justice
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fthomaspaine.org%2Fmajor-works%2Fagrarian-justice.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEOUmUF5XVU3fI443s0J8DM5JuDig>,
written in 1795–96, was Paine’s last great pamphlet and marked the
completion of the social welfare project he had proposed in Philadelphia in
1775. The pamphlet reiterates in clear language Paine’s theory that
inequality and poverty arise not from nature but from society. More clearly
than in Rights of Man Part II, and plainly inspired by the Babouvistes, he
traces the origins of this inequality to private property. Crucially, the
cause of inequality in Agrarian Justice is no longer linked to an
“aristocratic” system of privileges, as in all his previous works, but to
the very institution of property itself.

In the author’s inscription, he states, “There are two kinds of property.
Firstly, natural property,” in the land, air, and water of the earth, which
the Creator gave all humanity an equal right to, and, secondly, “artificial
or acquired property,” the products of labor of which “equality is
impossible,” since that would require “that all should have contributed in
the same proportion, which can never be the case.” He states, “Equality of
natural property is the subject of this little essay. Every individual in
the world is born therein with legitimate claims on a certain kind of
property, or its equivalent.”

He goes on to argue, like John Locke
<http://www.johnlocke.net/two-treatises-of-government-book-i/> had, that in
the state of nature the earth and all its bounties were “the common
property of the human race.” But unlike Locke, Paine insists that this
right is *not*forfeited when land is claimed as private property for the
sake of cultivation — “it is the value of the improvement only, and not the
earth itself, that is individual property.”

He explains that such private property is justified because cultivation so
greatly increases the productivity of the soil, but that in “all those who
have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of
the system of landed property” are owed compensation for that loss by right.

“Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land, owes to the community a
*ground-rent* . . . for the land which he holds,” the funds from which
would go towards a new scheme of social security. Again, Paine insists, “it
is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for.”

The money raised by this ground rent would be distributed out as an equal
payment to “every person, rich or poor” on turning twenty-one, guaranteeing
to each citizen a modest inheritance, “means to prevent their becoming
poor.” This proposal has often been interpreted as the first suggestion for
a universal basic income
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/alive-in-the-sunshine/>, but that
doesn’t seem to be exactly what Paine had in mind.

While a basic income is usually seen as an anti-poverty measure designed to
help the poor meet their living expenses with regular cash payments,
Paine’s proposal takes the form of a one-time lump-sum grant given to each
individual when they reach adulthood. He goes on to say, “With this aid
they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and
[work for themselves] instead of becoming burdens upon society.” Paine
hopes that recipients will use their social inheritance not to buy
consumption goods, but to buy for themselves some *means of production*,
and avoid entirely the precarious and pauperized life of wage labor.

This is a universal capital grant
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset-based_egalitarianism>, not a basic
income. Paine wants to make everyone the owner of productive property.
Republican liberty, after all, requires economic independence and material
security for everyone. '

> Paine proposes not only the abolition of feudal privileges but also the
> introduction of large taxes on luxury goods and inheritances, and the use
> of the funds raised to pay for an elaborate welfare state. This would
> include direct welfare payments to the poor, public education for all
> children, old age pensions, income support for families with newborn
> children, and aid for funeral expenses.
>
> Perhaps most shockingly, this scheme would provided for a network of
> public work houses in which anyone would be admitted for public employment
> with full room and board “without inquiring who or what they are,” where
> anyone is free to “stay as long, or as short time, or come as often as he
> choose.”
>
> To that end, Paine proposes not only the abolition of feudal privileges
> but also the introduction of large taxes on luxury goods and inheritances,
> and the use of the funds raised to pay for an elaborate welfare state. This
> would include direct welfare payments to the poor, public education for all
> children, old age pensions, income support for families with newborn
> children, and aid for funeral expenses.
>
> Perhaps most shockingly, this scheme would provided for a network of
> public work houses in which anyone would be admitted for public employment
> with full room and board “without inquiring who or what they are,” where
> anyone is free to “stay as long, or as short time, or come as often as he
> choose.”
>
> This is not only a remarkably advanced welfare system for 1792 — it’s
> astonishing in its complete rejection of the sorts of paternalism that have
> so often accompanied later schemes of social relief. Paine saw reliance on
> charity and the Poor Laws
> <http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/types/status_page.jsp?unit_status=PLU> as
> inadequate and humiliating. In his system, all the programs are universal,
> with no strings attached, and are “rights” that can be demanded.
>
> In Rights of Man Part II, Paine shows that *society* — specifically,
> “aristocratical” society — creates poverty: “One extreme produces the
> other: to make one rich many must be made poor; neither can the system be
> supported by other means.”
>
> For Paine, the cause of political democracy is inseparable from the
> economic demands of the poor, and the solution is democratic government:
> the poor can escape their wretched condition only through politics. Rights
> of Man Part II sold roughly two hundred thousand copies that year, by far
> outselling any political pamphlet in history at that time. Its message
> quickly reverberated through the “lower orders” of British society, as well
> as the rest of Europe and North America.
>
>
> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/thomas-paine-american-revolution-common-sense/
>
>
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