Editing Thomas Paine (section)

==Ideas and views==
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Biographer [[Eric Foner]] identifies a utopian thread in Paine's thought, writing: "Through this new language he communicated a new vision{{snd}}a utopian image of an egalitarian, republican society".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Tom Paine and Revolutionary America|author=Eric Foner|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|edition=2nd|pages=xxxii, 16|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyFF1M8_VDAC|isbn=978-0195174861|access-date=July 1, 2015|archive-date=October 16, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016044059/https://books.google.com/books?id=OyFF1M8_VDAC|url-status=live}}</ref>

Paine's utopianism combined [[republicanism in the United States|civic republicanism]], belief in the inevitability of scientific and social progress and commitment to free markets and liberty generally. The multiple sources of Paine's political theory all pointed to a society based on the common good and individualism. Paine expressed a redemptive futurism or political messianism.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Jendrysik | first1 = Mark | year = 2007 | title = Tom Paine: Utopian? | journal = Utopian Studies | volume = 18 | issue = 2| pages = 139–157 | doi = 10.5325/utopianstudies.18.2.0139 | s2cid = 149860226 | doi-access = free }}</ref> Writing that his generation "would appear to the future as the Adam of a new world", Paine exemplified British utopianism.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature|editor=Gregory Claeys|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=11–12|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sFCuoqykV9QC&pg=PA11|isbn=978-1139828420|access-date=July 1, 2015|archive-date=October 16, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016044059/https://books.google.com/books?id=sFCuoqykV9QC&pg=PA11|url-status=live}}</ref>

Later, his encounters with the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas]] made a deep impression. The ability of the [[Iroquois]] to live in harmony with nature while achieving a democratic decision-making process helped him refine his thinking on how to organize society.<ref name="Weatherford 2010 p. ">{{cite book | last=Weatherford | first=Jack | title=Indian givers : how Native Americans transformed the world | publisher=Three Rivers Press | publication-place=New York | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-307-71715-3 | oclc=656265477 | page=}}</ref>
[[File:Thomas Paine by Matthew Pratt, 1785-95.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Portrait of Thomas Paine by [[Matthew Pratt]], 1785–1795]]

===Slavery===

Paine was critical of slavery and declared himself to be an [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]].<ref name="hitch2829">Hitchens (2007), pp. 28–29</ref> As secretary to the [[Pennsylvania]] legislature, he helped draft legislation to outlaw Patriot involvement in the [[Atlantic slave trade|international slave trade]].<ref>Hitchens (2007), pp. 43–44</ref> Paine's statement, "Man has no property in man", although used by him in ''[[Rights of Man]]'' to deny the right of any generation to bind future ones, has also been interpreted as an argument against slavery.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hitchens |first1=Christopher |title=Arguably |date=2012 |publisher=Hachette |isbn=978-1-4555-0278-3 |page=162}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kaye |first1=Harvey J. |title=Thomas Paine and the Promise of America: A History & Biography |date=2007 |page=147 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-0374707064 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s6iz3tX-qKIC&dq=%22Man+has+no+property+in+man%22+slavery+paine&pg=PA147 |access-date=August 14, 2022 |archive-date=December 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230044614/https://books.google.com/books?id=s6iz3tX-qKIC&dq=%22Man+has+no+property+in+man%22+slavery+paine&pg=PA147#v=onepage&q=%22Man%20has%20no%20property%20in%20man%22%20slavery%20paine&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> In the book, Paine also describes his mission, among other things, as to "break the chains of slavery and oppression".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Paine |first1=Thomas |title=Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199538003 |page=324 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=slgVDAAAQBAJ&q=rights+of+man+%22break+the+&pg=PA324 |access-date=September 9, 2022 |archive-date=December 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230045612/https://books.google.com/books?id=slgVDAAAQBAJ&q=rights+of+man+%22break+the+&pg=PA324#v=snippet&q=rights%20of%20man%20%22break%20the&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

On March 8, 1775, one month after Paine became the editor of ''The Pennsylvania Magazine'', the magazine published an anonymous article titled "African Slavery in America," the first prominent piece in the colonies proposing the [[emancipation]] of African-American slaves and the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition]] of slavery.<ref name=Rodriguez>{{Cite book|title=Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia|last=Rodriguez|first=Junius P.|year=2007|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=279|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4X44KbDBl9gC&pg=PA279|isbn=978-1851095445|access-date=July 1, 2015|archive-date=September 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904024401/https://books.google.com/books?id=4X44KbDBl9gC&pg=PA279|url-status=live}}</ref> Paine is often credited with writing the piece,<ref name=Rodriguez /> on the basis of later testimony by Benjamin Rush, cosigner of the Declaration of Independence.<ref name="LoA" />

During the American Revolutionary War, the British implemented several policies that allowed [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive slaves]] fleeing from American enslavers to find refuge within British lines. Writing in response to these policies, Paine wrote in ''Common Sense'' that Britain "hath stirred up the Indians and the Negroes to destroy us".<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lRBkDwAAQBAJ&dq=Thousands,+and+tens+of+thousands,+who+would+think+it+glorious+to+expel+from+the+continent+that+barbarous+hellish+power&pg=PT23 | isbn=978-8027241521 | title=Common Sense & the Rights of Man: Words of a Visionary That Sparked the Revolution and Remained the Core of American Democratic Principles | year=2018 | publisher=E-artnow | access-date=March 19, 2023 | archive-date=April 8, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408025539/https://books.google.com/books?id=lRBkDwAAQBAJ&dq=Thousands,+and+tens+of+thousands,+who+would+think+it+glorious+to+expel+from+the+continent+that+barbarous+hellish+power&pg=PT23 | url-status=live }}</ref> Paine, together with [[Joel Barlow]], unsuccessfully tried to convince President Jefferson not to import the [[Slavery in the United States|institution of slavery]] to the [[Louisiana Territory|territory]] acquired in the [[Louisiana Purchase]], suggesting he rather settle it with free Black families and [[German Americans|German immigrants]].<ref>Hitchens (2007), p. 139.</ref>

===State funded social programs===
In his ''Rights of Man, Part Second'', Paine advocated a comprehensive program of state support for the population to ensure the welfare of society, including state subsidy for poor people, state-financed universal public education, and state-sponsored [[prenatal care]] and [[postnatal care]], including state subsidies to families at childbirth. Recognizing that a person's "labor ought to be over" before old age, Paine also called for a state [[pension]] to all workers starting at age 50, which would be doubled at age 60.<ref>[[Harlow Giles Unger]], "Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence" (New York: Da Capo Press, 2019), p. 154</ref>

===''Agrarian Justice''===
His last pamphlet, ''[[Agrarian Justice]]'', published in the winter of 1795, opposed agrarian law and agrarian monopoly and further developed his ideas in the ''Rights of Man'' about how land ownership separated the majority of people from their rightful, natural inheritance and means of independent survival. The U.S. [[Social Security Administration]] recognizes ''Agrarian Justice'' as the first American proposal for an [[Pension|old-age pension]] and [[basic income]] or [[citizen's dividend]]. Per ''Agrarian Justice'':

<blockquote>In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity ... [Government must] create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.</blockquote>

In this pamphlet he argued "All accumulation of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came".<ref>{{cite book |title=Thomas Paine: Collected Writings |date=1995 |publisher=Library of America |page=408}}</ref>

Lamb argues that Paine's analysis of property rights marks a distinct contribution to political theory. His theory of property defends a libertarian concern with private ownership that shows an egalitarian commitment. Paine's new justification of property sets him apart from previous theorists such as [[Hugo Grotius]], [[Samuel von Pufendorf]] and [[John Locke]]. Lamb says it demonstrates Paine's commitment to foundational liberal values of individual freedom and moral equality.<ref>Lamb, Robert. "Liberty, Equality, and the Boundaries of Ownership: Thomas Paine's Theory of Property Rights." ''Review of Politics'' (2010), 72#3, pp. 483–511.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref> In response to Paine's "Agrarian Justice", [[Thomas Spence]] wrote "''The Rights of Infants''" wherein he argued that Paine's plan was not beneficial to impoverished people because landlords would just keep raising land prices, further enriching themselves rather than giving the commonwealth an equal chance.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Marangos|first=John|date=2008-04-11|title=Thomas Paine (1737–1809) and Thomas Spence (1750–1814) on land ownership, land taxes and the provision of citizens' dividend|url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/03068290810861576/full/html|journal=International Journal of Social Economics|language=en|volume=35|issue=5|pages=313–325|doi=10.1108/03068290810861576|issn=0306-8293|access-date=March 11, 2021|archive-date=May 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508082911/https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/03068290810861576/full/html|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Fiat currency===
Paine was strongly opposed to [[fiat money]], which he viewed as counterfeiting by the state. He said "The punishment of a member [of a legislature] who should move for such a law ought to be death".<ref>Griffin, G. Edward ''The Creature from Jekyll Island'' (1994)</ref> As part of his essay ''Dissertations on Government, etc.'', published in February, 1786, Paine included a scathing condemnation of paper money emphasizing "The pretense for paper money has been, that there was not a sufficiency of gold and silver. This, so far from being a reason for paper emissions, is a reason against them."<ref name=":9">Smith, George Ford [https://mises.org/mises-wire/thomas-paine-paper-money-and-morality "Thomas Paine on Paper Money and Morality"] Mises.org</ref>