Author name: Dane Clouston

Dane Clouston is a modern advocate for Thomas Paine's concept of an "Asset Welfare State," particularly Paine's 1797 idea from Agrarian Justice to provide every citizen with a universal capital grant at adulthood, funded by wealth/inheritance taxes, a concept Clouston revived in British Liberal party debates and continues to promote as a way to combat inequality, shifting focus from just income support to asset distribution.

Universal Inheritance, Universal Suffrage And Thomas Paine

Dane Clouston / January 1, 2004

Thomas Paine Society UK, TPUK 2004 Number 2 Volume 7

Paine suggested in 1796 that every young person should receive an inheritance of capital of £15 at the age of 21, financed by a fund to be created out of a levy on inheritance. I unknowingly reinvented this idea and named it Universal Inheritance.

Thomas Paine’s Agrarian Justice

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