Thomas Paine on Government
Edward J. Dodson
[A comment posted to a
Washington Times commentary on government tyranny; 10
December, 2014]
What Thomas Paine understood is that the system of law adopted by the
new United States of America failed to remove fundamental privileges
carried over from Britain. By the second term of George Washington,
Paine already feared for the Democracy. His fears intensified during
the Presidency of John Adams but became more hopeful when Thomas
Jefferson was elected. However, even Jefferson could not overcome the
forces already at work subjecting the population to the vested
interests of those who enjoyed inherited wealth and inherited
political clout.
The historian Jackson Turner Main analyzed the ownership of land and
other assets in colonial North America and found that already by the
mid-1700s those who owned most of the wealth had acquired it by
inheritance. Paine attacked privilege in all its forms, but
particularly attacked those laws that secured and protected the
concentrated control over nature. In "Agrarian Justice" he
echoed the insights of the French Physiocratic writers -- Quesnay,
Turgot and du Pont de Nemours -- as well as Adam Smith by declaring
that those who control land owe to the community, to society, a ground
rent payment for the privileges enjoyed.
In this same essay, Paine called for many other measures that today
would be considered "progressive" in their effect. If
Jackson Turner Main was to bring his study up to date, he would find
that the ownership and control of the nation's land and natural
resources is even more concentrated. This outcome was predicted by
Henry George, writing in the late 19th century. Corporatism, massive
government and the loss of our liberty are the result. Thus, unless we
rid our society of monopoly privilege by the public collection of the
rent of land we will continue on a path to despotism and tyranny.
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