Agrarian Justice
Thomas Paine
[Part 3 of 3]
Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated
the particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some
observations.
It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am
pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it
is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and
it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast
of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the
eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care
as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because
they are capable of good.
I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be
miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy
affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so
much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and
the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be
suffocated cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the
felicity of affluence than the proposed ten per cent upon property
is worth. He that would not give the one to get rid of the other has
no charity, even for himself.
There are, in every country, some magnificent claritics
established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any
individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be
relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his
heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but
little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles
as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery
can be removed.
The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately
relieve and take out of view three classes of wretchedness -- blind,
the lame, and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising
generation with means to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do
this without deranging or interfering with any national measures.
To show that this will be the case, it is sufficient to observe
that the operation and effect of the plan will, in all cases, be the
same as if every individual were voluntarily to make his will and
dispose of his property in the manner here proposed.
But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the
plan. In all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more
universally active than charity; and, with respect to justice, it
ought not to he left to the choice of detached individuals whether
they will do justice or not. Considering, then, the plan on the
ground of justice, it ought to be the act of the whole growing
spontaneously out of the principles of the revolution, and the
reputation of it ought to be national and not individual.
A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the
energy that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would
multiply also the national resources; for property, like vegetation,
increases by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the
difference is exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or
with fifteen pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and
implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming
burdens upon society, which is always the case where children are
produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in the way of
becoming useful and profitable citizens. The national domains also
would sell the better if pecuniary aids were provided to cultivate
them in small lots.
It is the practise of what has unjustly obtained the name of
civilization (and the practise merits not to be called either
charity or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor
and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as
a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their
becoming poor? This can best be done by making every person when
arrived at the age of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to
begin with.
The rugged face of society, checkered with the extremes of
affluence and want, proves that some extraordinary violence has been
committed upon it, and calls on justice for redress. The great mass
of the poor in all countries are become an hereditary race, and it
is next to impossible for them to get out of that state of
themselves. It ought also to be observed that this mass increases in
all countries that are called civilized. More persons fall annually
into it than get out of it.
Though in a plan of which justice and humanity are the
foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the
calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of
any plan to show that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The
success of any proposed plan submitted to public consideration must
finally depend on the numbers interested in supporting it, united
with the justice of its principles.
The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It
will consolidate the interest of the republic with that of the
individual. To the numerous class dispossessed of their natural
inheritance by the system of landed property it will be an act of
national justice. To persons dying possessed of moderate fortunes it
will operate as a tontine to their children, more beneficial than
the sum of money paid into the fund: and it will give to the
accumulation of riches a degree of security that none of the old
governments of Europe, now tottering on their foundations, can give.
I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the
countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear
property left of five hundred pounds sterling. To all such the plan
is advantageous. That property would pay fifty pounds into the fund,
and if there were only two children under age they would receive
fifteen pounds each (thirty pounds), on coming of age, and be
entitled to ten pounds a year after fifty.
It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund
will support itself; and I know that the possessors of such property
in England, though they would eventually be benefited by the
protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But
without entering into any inquiry how they came by that property,
let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war,
and that Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised
annually upon the people of England, and that for supporting the
despotism of Austria and the Bourbons against the liberties of
France, than would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan.
I have made the calculations stated in this plan, upon what is
called personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for
making it upon land is already explained; and the reason for taking
personal property into the calculation is equally well founded
though on a different principle. Land, as before said, is the free
gift of the Creator in common to the human race. Personal property
is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual
to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is
for him to mike land originally.
Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a
continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He
cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end,
in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot
be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property,
beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living
in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude,
and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to
society from whence the whole came.
This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it
is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be
found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many
instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that
produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand
perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence.
It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of
labor to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an
apology for the injustice, that were a workman to receive an
increase of wages daily he would not save it against old age, nor be
much better for it in the interim. Make, then, society the treasurer
to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason that,
because he might not make a good use of it for himself, another
should take it.
The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is
as unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it
is the consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state
cannot continue when once investigation begins in any country, that
makes the possessors of property dread every idea or a revolution.
It is the hazard and not the principle of revolutions that retards
their progress. This being the case, it necessary as well for the
protection of property as for the sake of justice and humanity, to
form a system that, while it preserves one part of society from
wretchedness, shall secure the other from depredation.
The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly
surrounded affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving
the possessor of property to the convulsion of accidents. When
wealth and splendor, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite
emotions of disgust; when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it
is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious
appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the
case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of
justice that the possessor can contemplate security.
To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies,
and this can only be done by making property productive of a
national blessing, extending to every individual. When the riches of
one man above another shall increase the national fund in the same
proportion; when its, shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund
depends on the prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man
acquires, the better it shall be for the general mass; it is often
that antipathies will cease, and property be placed on the permanent
basis or national interest and protection.
I have no property in France to become subject to the plan 1
propose. What I have, which is not much, is in the United States of
America. But I will pay one hundred pounds sterling toward this fund
in France, the instant it shall be established; and I will pay the
same sum in England, whenever a similar establishment shall take
place in that country.
A revolution in the state of civilization is the necessary
companion of revolutions in the system of government. If a
revolution in any country be from bad to good, or from good to bad,
the state of what is called civilization in that country, must be
made conformable thereto, to give that revolution effect.
Despotic government supports itself by abject civilization, in
which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of
the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments consider man
merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is
not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the laws but to
obey them; and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit
of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.
It is a revolution in the state of civilization that will give
perfection to the Revolution of France. Already the conviction that
government by representation is the true system of government is
spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be
seen by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its
opposers. But whcn a system of civilization, growing out of that
system of government, shall be so organized that not a man or woman
born in the Republic but shall inherit some means of beginning the
world, and see before them the certainty of escaping the miseries
that under other governments accompany old age, the Revolution of
France will have an advocate and an ally in the heart of all
nations.
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers
cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management would fail: it
is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the ocean that can arrest its
progress: it will march on the horizon of the world, and it will
conquer.
Means For Carrying The Proposed Plan Into Execution,
And To Render It At The Same Time Conducive To The Public Interest
I. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three
persons, as commissioners for that canton, who shall take
cognizance, and keep a register of all matters happening in that
canton, conformable to the charter that shall be established by law
for carrying this plan into execution.
II. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of
deceased persons shall be ascertained.
III. When the amount of the property of any deceased persons
shall be ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the
eldest of the co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age, the
person authorized by the will of the deceased to represent him or
them, shall give bond to the commissioners of the canton to pay the
said tenth part thereof in four equal quarterly payments, within the
space of one year or sooner, at the choice of the payers. One-half
of the whole property shall remain as a security until the bond be
paid off.
IV. The bond shall be registered in the office of of the
commissioners of the canton, and th0e original bonds shall be
deposited in the national bank at Paris. The bank shall publish
every quarter of a year the amount of the bonds in its possession,
and also the bonds that shall have been paid off, or what parts
thereof, since the last quarterly publication.
V. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of
the bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied
to pay the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations topersons
arriving at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and
generous to suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity,
will suspend their right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire,
as it will do, a greater degree of ability. In this case, it is
proposed, that an honorary register be kept, in each canton, of the
names of the persons thus suspending that right, at least during the
present war.
VI. As the inheritors or property must always take up their bonds
in four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will
always be numeraire Icash] arriving at the bank after the expiration
of the first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be
brought in.
VII. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best
of all possible security, that of actual property, to more than four
times the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and
with numeraire continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay
them off whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they
will acquire a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They
can therefore be received in payment of taxes, or emprunts equal to
numeraire, because the Government can always receive numeraire for
them at the bank.
VIII. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent
be made in numeraire for the first year from the establishment of
the plan. But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors
of property may pay ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon
the fund, or in numeraire.
If the payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at the
bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount;
and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon
the fund equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will
create means to carry itself into execution.
Return to
PART 2