Thomas Paine’s fifteen-page pamphlet “Agrarian Justice” (1795), put forth the first realistic proposition to put an end to systemic poverty. Paine’s solution manifested in a universal social insurance system consisting of pensions for the elderly, support for the handicapped/disabled, and a lump sum one-time payment to all members of society upon reaching the age of twenty-one. This insurance system would be funded by the “National Fund”, financed by the 10% inheritance tax focused on land. Yet, while this system may sound fanciful and unpractical, Paine goes to great lengths to demonstrate, with calculations based on census, living expense, and property data, that his social insurance/stakeholder plan could end most poverty in England.
Foundational to Paine’s pamphlet was the firmly held belief that poverty can be prevented. Even further, individuals are entitled to not only a relief from poverty, but a right against even being impoverished in and of itself.
“Agrarian Justice” holds relevance to our class in that Paine puts forth an interesting and unique understanding of private property. The English philosopher defended the private property system, while also asserting that universal entitlements must be put in place to limit poverty caused by property-holding inequality.
Paine begins his reasoning with premises that parallel many of the theorists we’ve read this semester: that in the state of nature or anarchy, before positive laws are instituted, everyone is free and equal, no one is subject to anyone else’s authority, and the earth is held in common by everyone. He then goes on to articulate that people will unite in a legal regime only if it promotes their interests more than the state of nature alone. Similar to John Locke, Paine claimed that in the state of nature, every man has a property right to whatsoever he removes from nature through the mixing with his own labor. This act not only establishes the man as its just owner, but also excludes the common right of other men. Both agree that as much land/property can be acquired in this manner, as long as they left “enough and as good” for others, and nothing rotted or went to waste.
Paine deviates from Locke in disputing his claim that the private property regime left everyone with a higher standard of living than what people enjoyed before. In “Of Property”, Locke compares a hundred acres of uncultivated land with ten acres of cultivated, fertile land, concluding, “[Man’s] labour now supplies him with provisions out of ten acres that would have needed a hundred ·uncultivated· acres lying in common. I have here greatly understated the productivity of improved land, setting it at ten to one when really it is much nearer a hundred to one”. Paine stands in stark opposition, deeming that in the original state of nature, no one was poor. Poverty arises only upon the institution of private property in land, which creates two unequal classes, the rich propertied class and the poor working class. Since the poor were worse off under the current system of property laws than people were in the state of nature, they had a just complaint against those laws.
Despite the above, Paine was no enemy of private property. By his examination, the problem lied not in the existence of private property, but rather that the existing property regime repealed a rightful property claim in the state of nature. Those who toiled the land were entitled only to the marginal value added by their labor, not to the land itself. As a result, land had been unjustly taken from everyone else. The solution was not communism, nor was it possible to return the land to its original state in nature, as the population had grown too large compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Instead, Paine proposed to compensate all those excluded from privately appropriated land. Landowners would pay a tax to society (10% of total worth), and this subsequently developed “National Fund” would be the harbinger of the end of poverty. As such, the balance would be restored, and land-less individuals would be once again “better off than in the state of nature”.
At the time, the pamphlet largely fell on deaf ears, considered both overly idealistic and foolishly impractical. Yet today, several developed countries like France and the Netherlands have managed to reduce the number of elderly in poverty to negligible rates due to their comprehensive social insurance system. Perhaps the principles put forth in Thomas Paine’s “Agrarian Justice” could alleviate some of the modern injustices/imbalances that plague private property ownership?
Thank you for bringing this pamphlet into the conversation. To me, it sounds broadly similar to George insofar as there is a recognition that some resources must be taxed to serve the whole body politic. (In George’s case that’s land, but it could be something else, like, for example, labor, which is one of the many things taxed in our current system.) It also reminds me of St. Ambrose, who basically says that the effort to heap up wealth through land needs to be balanced with justice and kindness for others. Bringing into a contemporary context, would you argue for more taxation on property or would you argue for a tax reform that designates more of our taxes toward poverty relief? And what does “poverty relief” look like to you?