By Harvey Simon
I find in Thomas Paine’s writing his active humanity, intelligence, principles of fairness, action, courage and responsibility for his actions a continuing satisfaction that attracts me to his “voice” every day.
His original, outrageous ideas and arguments in defense of social fairness — regardless of conventional authoritarian obstacles and punishments — were a boon to the human condition.
Then as now, people are people, who need food, clothing, shelter, health, and justice. Why withhold their access to the means for living when a practical solution already exists for ubiquitous fairness? Paine in his 1797 work, Agrarian Justice, proposes a real-world system for funding a universal basic income. He starts with the headline, “Means by Which the Fund Is to be Created.”
Paine’s writing in Agrarian Justice most resonates with my own personal sensibilities. He says, “Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated two ways, to make one part of society more affluent, and the other part more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.”
Paine’s human conscience and experience enabled him to see the forest for the trees. He saw the many benefits of social innovations versus loyalties to the unnecessary cruelties of the status quo, then and now.
As fair to fairness as fair can get, in my own opinion, a social justice system needs to be redirected to benefit its participants, not mostly the system itself .
In his 1802 letter to Samuel Adams about Rights of Man, Paine explains why in France he opposed the execution of the King. He was “laboring to show they were trying the monarchy, and not the man, and that the crimes imputed to him were the crimes of the monarchical system.” This shows Paine’s strong, clear vision of societal justice over mere punishment and hate.
For instance, in Agrarian Justice, Paine writes, “Practical religion consists in doing good; and the only way of serving God is, that of endeavoring to make his creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy.”
Indeed, Mr. Paine, even in the 21st Century, in my experience, religions tend to want to make God happy, not make his creation happy. Hence their flaw and the source of their injustice!
As far as I can tell about any important idea, Thomas Paine always said it first and better, much to my admiration, gratitude and enduring benefit.
Doing good work, indeed, Mr. Paine!
Harvey Simon, MPA, works in public administration. He lives in New York City.