Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: Laurent Dabos, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Thomas Paine
- Country
- England, United States and France
- Era
- 1737–1809
- Tradition
- Radical republicanism
Pamphleteer who did more than anyone to turn colonial grievance into a case for independence, then repeated the performance in France, and who proposed something close to a welfare state a century before one existed.
01
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Argued in Common Sense that hereditary monarchy is absurd in principle and that independence was the only rational course
- Proposed in Agrarian Justice a national fund paying every citizen a lump sum at twenty-one and a pension from fifty, financed by a land tax
- Called for progressive taxation, poor relief, family allowances and public education in Rights of Man
- Opposed slavery in print from 1775 and helped draft Pennsylvania’s abolition act
- Voted against the execution of Louis XVI as a member of the French National Convention, and was imprisoned for it
- Attacked organised religion in The Age of Reason while professing deism, which destroyed his standing in America
02
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
18
RedistributionMarket outcomes
Evidence: Well documented
The state in the economy
45
Active stateLimited state
Evidence: Documented
Personal liberty
86
Collective orderIndividual freedom
Evidence: Well documented
Tradition and change
90
ContinuityReform
Evidence: Well documented
Nation and the world
18
InternationalistNationalist
Evidence: Well documented
Religion and the state
6
Secular stateReligion in public life
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
88
Concentrated authorityChecks and pluralism
Evidence: Well documented
Crime and punishment
70
PunishmentRehabilitation
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Environment and growth
Sources
- Thomas Paine, Common Sense · 1776
- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man · 1791
- Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice · 1797
Last verified: