Liberal Today, Liberal 220 years ago, Thomas Paine

Oh how I like to laugh at all today’s Libertarians and fiscal Conservatives who try and claim Thomas Paine was a Classical Liberal in the mold of either today Libertarians or fiscal Conservatives.  Then they like to espouse that Classical Liberals are totally different than today’s Liberal and try and use the example that Classical Liberalism was all about the free market.  I hate to tell you guys that the market of the Founders like Paine, Jefferson and Smith was not in any form the free market that you dream about, nor does it have any true comparisons around today.  You should really put down the propaganda and fiction of Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek and Ayn Rand and actually read Adam Smiths, “Wealth of Nations”.   

The Founders used a market with corporate control, regulation and protectionism.  A corporation in our Founders time could not cross state lines and could not last longer than the normal life of a man, only 10 to 40 years.  Adam Smith states this in his “Wealth of Nations” twelve times.  The Founders feared Corporate power as much as a tyrannical government.  They would be appalled at what rights and power the corporations have today.

Today’s Liberals are forward thinking, open minded, cares about the welfare of the people,  their health, housing, education, employment, civil rights, and their civil liberties.   The Founders were very progressive thinkers.   The documents that they authored (Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and Bill of Rights) are based primarily on four “liberal” principles.  1.  Equality of rights and opportunity.  2.  E Pluribus Unum (unity within diversity),  3.  Religious freedom, 4.  The government’s responsibility to protect individual liberty while simultaneously ensuring our collective well-being.  Meaning they were forward thinking, open minded, cares about the welfare of the people,  their health, housing, education, employment, civil rights, and their civil liberties.  Sounds pretty close to me.
 
Then we have Glen Beck who thinks he is today’s version of Tom Paine.  Not even close Glen.  But we do have hundreds of Mental Institutions that have thousands of people who really think they are someone they are not.  Maybe someone should check to see if they are missing Glen so we can get him the mental health care he needs.

Thomas Paine was for progressive taxation, an estate tax and for social welfare.  He proposed Social Security in 1793, supporter of animal welfare, early supporter of feminism and women’s  rights, believed in free education  and government employment that is paid for by the estate taxes.  Sounds like a Modern Day Liberal to me.

For most if not all this information, try reading his “Rights of Man” vol 1 and 2, “Agrarian Justice” and “The Necessity of Taxation”.  You can find some of it online for free of you can buy the book, Thomas Paine, Collected Writings, provided by the Library of America.  You can also download Adam Smiths, “Wealth of Nations” for free in PDF.

Paine’s encounters with the Indians of North America made a deep impression. The ability of the Iroquois  to live in harmony with nature while achieving a democratic decision making process, helped him refine his thinking on how to organize society.

He was an early advocate of republicanism and liberalism, dismissing monarchy, and viewing government as a necessary evil. He opposed slavery, proposed universal, fre     public education, progressive taxation, guaranteed minimum income, and other ideas then considered to be radical.  Republicanism at the time of Paine meant the opposite of monarchy.

In “Agrarian justice “, Paine shows how land is not a human right, but is a possession of humanity in common.  Any ownership must be justified by the payment of taxes for the benefit of society.  He believed the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race.’ In condemnation of land owners who let those without land starve, he declaims ‘… the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.’

Here is some of Paine’s quotes:  

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary  evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

"Government and the people do not in America constitute distinct bodies"

"And therefore it is to the good of the whole, as well as to the interest of the individual, that every one, who can, sets himself down to his business, and contributes his quota of taxes as one of the first duties he owes to his family, to himself, and to his country."

References:

http://political-philosophy.suite101.com/article.cfm/thomas_paines_agrarian_juustice  
http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist-bogan/paine.html

http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/
                        
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

Thomas Paine, “Collected Writings”

Adam Smith, “Wealth of Nations”

Craig Nelson, “Thomas Paine, Enlightenment, Revolution and the Birth of Modern Nations”

Harvey J. Kaye, “Thomas Paine and the Promise of America”