Thomas Paine is one strand of an ideological opposition to authoritarianism that doesn't devolve into lunacy (unlike modern "libertarianism", communism, etc). He was a good man in a time of bad men. One of the few founding fathers who was genuinely against slavery and supported real egalitarianism to the point of being ostracized for it. He was an honest to god liberal with a capital L, and he, unlike Thomas Jefferson, should be the firebrand representation of the modern democratic party.
He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice), free trade, a land value tax. He was a georgist before Henry George. To this day, I look at Georgism as the only meaningful pro-market and good-for-buisness but unapologeticly left-wing movement we have.
Thomas Paine should be regarded as our best and most read founding fathers and liberal thinkers. He's often a footnote, or forgotten about. Just like Andrew Yang, Henry George, Smedly Butler, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair etc.
Instead our modern "anti-authoritarian" movement, or whatever passes for it, claims ideologically descent and active influence from the likes of charlatans and defenders of authoritarianism like Karl Marx, Hegel, Freud, Foucault, Kant, Nietzsche, etc.
> He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice)
I am, of course, only superficially familiar with his works, but calling what Paine proposed a basic income is extremely stupid.
This is a trivial concept of viewing territories as a natural resource, specifically, land, not productive assets in general. With the logic that land is not a product of human activity, and therefore, by acquiring land as "ownership", a person obtains it at the expense of everyone else, and it's logical to force them to compensate for this.
And it certainly can't be called a basic income if you look at the proposed tax burden. It's simply another form of tax redistribution, and in almost every respect, more capitalist compared to the tax distribution systems of that time, (and certainly of today).
I mean he did literally dissolve into lunacy. He also was shunned for his "blasphemous" views on the role of the church. He died in penury, and largely in disgrace.
But, he should be read more, the rights of man is surprisingly readable, especially given the time and subject matter.
He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice), free trade, a land value tax. He was a georgist before Henry George. To this day, I look at Georgism as the only meaningful pro-market and good-for-buisness but unapologeticly left-wing movement we have.
Thomas Paine should be regarded as our best and most read founding fathers and liberal thinkers. He's often a footnote, or forgotten about. Just like Andrew Yang, Henry George, Smedly Butler, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair etc.
Instead our modern "anti-authoritarian" movement, or whatever passes for it, claims ideologically descent and active influence from the likes of charlatans and defenders of authoritarianism like Karl Marx, Hegel, Freud, Foucault, Kant, Nietzsche, etc.
Remember Thomas Paine.