As the 18th century’s most influential political pamphleteer, Paine’s reputation was born with the American Revolution he was largely responsible for creating, and he wanted to spend his last years among people with whom he shared a passion for liberty. FULL ARTICLE by George F. Smith
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/12914/thomas-paine-libertys-hated-torchbearer/
Thomas Paine, Liberty’s Hated Torchbearer
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“There, each spring, convicted peasants were hung with great ceremony…” –> “There, each spring, convicted peasants were hanged with great ceremony…”
Paine led an interesting life. I can’t imagine dealing with the recurring theme of either imprisonment or death. I also can’t imagine living in France during that time. It just sounds crazy. I’m reminded of “The Humanitarian with the Guillotine.”
Every time I read the Federalists’ platforms and accompanying smears to attack opponents it is eerie. They sound like pre-neocons and are similarly insane. I especially thought the section on the “unpresidential” behaviour of Jefferson in regards to Paine was pretty hilarious.
I’ve never read Paine, but I think I will. Thanks for the article. I enjoyed it a lot.
That’s the same Thomas Paine who advocated a policy of proto-Georgism and a guaranteed minimum income! For all the supposed libertarianism of Paine’s writings, in many respects he advocated the worst sort of revolutionary socialism and oppression by a supposedly knowledgable state…
That’s a pretty weak argument. It’s not possible to name anyone from that era who understood value, prices, and capital formation well (including Adam Smith), because during Paine’s time theories about such economic principles were still crude. It wasn’t until later in the 19th Century that solid theories about those things (which include wages — a price like any other) started to emerge (coinciding with the emergence of the Austrian School).
This sounds like Rand’s argument that until a certain point in history (maybe 200-300 years ago?) we dind’t have the ideas (as Branden might say, the “technology”) to understand liberty. I’ve never quite bought this argument. Right and wrong are not too hard to see.
J. Cortez:
“I can’t imagine him dealing…”
Not to belittle his experience in any way but you ought to read up on the life Lafayette was forced to lead after he returned to France and until his death. And, in Lafayette (and I don’t intend to imply that he was any “better” or more important to the cause of freedom) he had the opportunity to stay here a wealthy man, offerred vast tracts of land by several of the states in recognition of his service.
His reason for not staying was “that his work” (meaning the spreading of liberty) was not done.
He is, though, buried in American soil–several tons of it he had transported to France from Jefferson’s Monticello when he visited during the nation’s 50-year birthday in 1826.
That would make 1776 its birth. It wasn’t; 1776 was when it was conceived, but it wasn’t born until 1783. Think about it, using comparisons to countries that were tried but never came to life, like the CSA.
Whig:
You’re absolutely correct but, to put things in perspective, the guy (anyone, actually) deserves a break from those (us) considering his ideas retrospectively. Just for starters, the very idea that there are logically demonstrable arguments against any more than minimalist interference in mens’ affairs is, for the most part, dependent on Menger’s discovery (c. 1850), further development under Bohm, and, for actual practical comprehension, Mises’ 1920 discussion of the “impossibility of a third way” and the “problem of economic calculation in a socialist commonwealth.” And, you, yourself know that these matters are far from common or accepted knowledge even today.
If we wanted to find egregious fault with someone like Paine, we can find plenty of like error in the document (the Constitution) drafted by the guys who actually fought for and won their (and our) liberty; there’s a whole bunch in there that would need thorough reworking were true liberty, especially the economic (including monetary) variety, ever to become the real “law of the land.”
Thanks. Well, I don’t entirely write-off Paine but at the same time I think it’s right to point out his errors. An analogy – Rothbard criticises Adam Smith, for all his good, for popularising the labour theory of value which led to Marxist thought. I think it’s fair to do the same to Paine’s thinking.
I think an intelligent eighteenth century man could see that even without the insights of the Austrian school in economics, just as Burke refuted Paine’s support for the French Revolution. I’m not sure one requires the Austrian school to refute Georgism or guaranteed minimum income ideas, as helpful as they may be. As I said, Paine’s support for the French Revolution should make us very suspicious of him. Give me the gradualist liberty of Burke over the bloody egalite of the French any day!
By the way, I’m a British Whig, just to be clear – and not one of the American school – so it’s your liberty and not mine. I’ve often wondered how much freer the average American of the c19 was than the average, say, Australian of the c19 (excluding slaves, natives and women of course) but then that’s a different issue.
I much admire the American Constitution, but alas I fear no amount of constitutionalism can triumph over a public not fully committed to upholding liberty. More broadly, there’s a dangerous current in much radical thinking of men like Paine and Godwin which often tends towards socialistic thinking. I’m afraid that both sides of Paine’s thinking were ultimately adopted, the liberty-lover and the socialist, and it’s the socialist tendency who have come to dominate in the long run. Still, at least Americans maintain a stronger faith in liberty than the British, although I’m starting to wonder about you!
Recently read the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers by Brion T. McClanahan. I was surprised that Thomas Paine was never mentioned. Technically, I guess you can say that Paine wasn’t a founding father since he didn’t participate in the writing of our Constitution. But his writings were a critical initiative to our seeking independence and the initiation, conduct, and success of the Revolution. Washington benefitted mightily from Paine’s support during the Revolutionary War. Later, Washington, who once thought highly of Paine, did nothing to assist Paine when Paine was waiting execution in prison during the French Revolution.
Plain and simple, this country owes a great deal to Thomas Paine, whether we/you/they like him or not.
I had never known much about Thomas Paine. The more I learn on my own as an adult, the more I realize how inept ‘public’ schooling is. I will seek out his writings. History it seems, is not about places or events, but rather how people like me dealt with those events in the places they lived.
Tom Paine, famed ur-Libertarian, had some curious ideas about property. See this, from his pamphlet ‘Agrarian Justice’:
“It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The reason is that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated.
“When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, art and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state.
“In taking the matter upon this ground, 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.
“But the fact is that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before civilization begin, had been born among the Indians of North America at the present. I will shew how this fact has happened.
“It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.
“But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that parable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.
“Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.” etcetera
The fund is to alleviate poverty and want, on the part of those persons evicted from the land so it may be worked by the privileged. He does, however, equally acknowledge the claim of the privileged to lay claim to the improvements on the land which are of their making:
“Nothing could be more unjust than agrarian law in a country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted, became the property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them, or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. While, therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor to the part which is his.”
So then. God’s green earth, which cannot be owned by man. But ownership of its fruits in the degree that one has worked to contribute toward their nurturing. And a duty of the privileged to owe aid to those less fortunate. No wonder he was considered to be a radical!
Paine was what I call an atheistic humanist. Many people don’t believe in God, but they keep it to themselves and give religion to their children. Such people accept, as it were, their deprived status. They think either that God has not given them the gift of faith or that religious people see something that they don’t see. Atheistic humanists, on the other hand, think that they are more enlightened and rational than people of faith. They think everyone would be better off knowing that life ends in the grave. It is a form of self-deception and is irrational to the point of being emotionally immature. There came a time when human rights and the free market stopped satisfying the emotional needs of the likes of Paine. When this happened they became socialists and such like.
Go easy on them will you? After all pretty much every theist believes that everyone would be better off knowing that there is an afterlife. And not just any afterlife, the particular version of the after-life that as prescribed by their particular sect. In addition almost every religion teaches that people who follow other religions are in some way deceiving themselves.
These atheist humanists you talk about had to live through all that before deciding that they have to ‘help’ those that tried ‘helping’ them by letting them know that there is no god or afterlife. If anything your atheist humanists are drawing on a much older paternalistic tradition. In fact they are very much part of that tradition.
We know that God exists as a matter or reason. We are finite beings because we possess a center of action. But finite beings need a cause. If all beings in the universe needed a cause the universe would not be intelligible. Hence, an infinite being exists.
One of the reasons I believe in an afterlife is that those who don’t believe always give bad reasons for not believing.
This argument is only valid if you disregard emergence. But we observe emergence all around us. Religions are also emergent phenomena.
I also used to think that when people abandon irrational beliefs, they magically become smarter. Turns out it’s not that simple. Religions cater for important psychological needs. If you take them away, the prevaling reaction is to seek other social movements that cater for the same needs and people become susceptible for other irrational beliefs. These are potentially even more violent and harmful. Regrettably, a lot of self proclaimed atheists exibit exactly the same irrational beliefs with regards to something else. The life of a full skeptic, without any religion-like beliefs, is much more challenging, both intellectually and psychologically. For people who are unable or unwilling to face the challenge, a religion is actually quite a rational choice. It eliminates uncertainty and the limits of human knowledge. However, none of this makes religious beliefs true.
I came to the conclusion that the adherance to a religion (or a lack thereof) is a poor indicator of a man. There are atheist communists and christian anarcho-capitalists.
Your views were expressed very recently by Norman Podhoretz. In his lastest book he had a chapter titled, “The Torah of Liberalism.” The book he was referring to was Das Kapital. Why is faith in God and hoping for salvation in the next world irrational? Don’t you agree with the proof of God’s existence? Don’t you think the historical Jesus saved mankind for meaning?
I don’t understand what you are talking about. Socialism is just another religion (see “Politics as Religion” by Emilio Gentile). It is not based on the scientific method (see “Human Action” by Ludwig von Mises). The faith in the supernational is an understandable choice, given the alternative. But that does not make it true. Whether such a reaction is “rational” depends on how you define the term. The “proof” you provided is incorrect. First of all, it ignores emergence just as I wrote, second of all, it does not solve the problem, it merely adds another iteration to the chain of causality (if the universe was created by god, who created the god?). The historical evidence for the validity of the New Testament is poor, it looks like it is based on older stories (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_and_mythology ). And so on.
Even if the Bible was correct, from scientific point of view, that does not provide any answers. There is still a question open how to interpret it. Does “You shall not steal” include taxation? Does “Do not have any other gods before me” include the state? Which day of week is the sabbath? Are all people that died before Jesus was born in hell? And so on.
I consider the debate pointless. It looks like for the foreseeable future, people will seek the belief in the supernatural in any form. We are not Vulcans. You cannot counter the belief in supernatural with logic. Psychology prevents logic from having the desired effect. And even if you manage to persuade them, rather than remaining skeptics, they will seek a new supernatural belief.
“One of the reasons I believe in an afterlife is that those who don’t believe always give bad reasons for not believing.”
Okay, how about this one: It’s not necessary. The world we live in runs quite well without any apparent afterlife. Nothing in quantum physics or outside it requires an afterlife.
Or how about this one: we haven’t the slightest shred of evidence in an afterlife. If we can go around professing total faith in things no one can see, how about that the world is being run by intelligent silverfish? Or that we all exist inside an atom in some giant’s toenail?
Don’t get me wrong. You’re free to believe in whatever floats your boat. This logical train of thought obviously makes sense to you: “We are finite beings because we possess a center of action. But finite beings need a cause. If all beings in the universe needed a cause the universe would not be intelligible. Hence, an infinite being exists.”
It doesn’t to me. To me, the real divide between people is not between Catholics and atheists, or Muslims vs Buddhists. It’s between the people who think such questions are important and those who don’t.
My god, if anyone’s interested, is Life. We made ourselves out of those raw materials we found at hand. And since there’s apparently no One watching over us, we all have to make do for ourselves.
Pedra Sudra says the proof of God is logically flawed and Michael says he doesn’t care whether or not God exists.
Peter does not realize that my presentation of the proof refutes the who-made-God argument. An infinite being can be the reason for its own existence. A finite being needs a cause outside of itself because it can’t exist except as limited. A finite being can’t limit itself.
Michael should concern himself with the proof of God’s existence because of the prophets and miracles. Suppose you are in a jungle and see a pretty flower. It is okay to think maybe the flower is an illusion. But if you see a tiger, you have to decide which way to run. What is the sign of a deep thinker in one case is irresponsible and irrational in the other.
The existence of the finite does not prove the existence of the infinite. That is a logical fallacy. Please be careful with the usage of word “infinite” without a clear definition, it can be deceptive.
Concerning Peter Surda’s comments about the word infinite needing a definition, the first step is to define a finite being. There is no definition in the sense we can define scientific concepts. I am a finite being because I exist and you exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are two different beings. Our existence, as it were, is limited to ourselves. An infinite being is a being that is not finite. It is totally other or not finite.
A deeper definition comes from the analysis of finite beings. Finite beings are a composition of two metaphysical principles: essence and existence. The essence of a finite being limits its existence. An infinite being is a being with only an existence, that is, it has no limiting essence. An infinite being is a pure act of existence.
Again, the same problem. You assume an implication where there is none. Your argument looks much like the teleological argument. For reference in the history of the argument and objections to it please consult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument , it does a much better job than I can do in this confined space.
David and Peter– It’s certainly amusing for the three of us to battle wits as we’re all going by different assumptions. By definition, we can never agree. I for one do not think you can logically ‘prove’ there either is a God or there isn’t. It would be as easy to prove the existence of 66 gods in different heavens, with ascending and descending angels and demons. All that is is mere mental activity, a mind engaging in proofs and logic of its own devising.
Instead, I go with what is demonstrable and can actually be perceived and tested in the real world. In other words I go with whatever is amenable to scientific methods of validation. Which an unseen and omniscient God is not.
For all the rest, I like the words of a fifth century Hindu whose name I don’t recall:
“The world is infinite in every direction; it has no beginning and it has no end,
As it has no beginning, it cannot have been created,
And as it has not been created, there cannot have been any Creator.”
I see no problem.
Peter Surda’s citation of Wikipedia to refute the proof of God is misinformed. The Wikipedia reference he gave is to the argument from design. The argument I gave is called the cosmological proof. The basic idea is that an infinite being exists because finite beings need a cause. If all beings in the universe were finite, the universe would not be intelligible. QED
Your argument is more like a mix of the cosmological and teleological argument. For objections to the cosmological argument, kindly consult wikipedia.
Besides, still, you insist on an implication where there is none, and continue using vague terms like “intelligible”.
“The Existence of God” entry in Wikipedia fails to give a rational definition of God, at least in the beginning of the article. The following is the clearest definition: You exist and I exist, but I am not you and you are not me. We are finite beings. God is a being that is not finite. As to his comment that I can’t define “intelligibility,” that is quite true. Likewise, free will, conscious knowledge, being, and human speech can’t be defined.
Peter Sudra is simply assuming that Wikipedia refutes the proof. It does no such thing.
Some people knowledgeable about the “proof” call it only an “argument.” I don’t agree with this for the following reasons: 1) The proof is logically rigorous, ie, God’s existence is a formal result in metaphysics. 2) There is no need to make a decision about it. The only decision that has to be made is whether God has communicated Himself to mankind.
” The basic idea is that an infinite being exists because finite beings need a cause. ”
The basic problem with this statement is that it distorts the very meaning of the concept “causality”. Put very simply, causality happens WITHIN existence. Your statement implies there exists a cause for existence and that that cause exists outside of existence. Such an implication is rife with contradictions and must be dismissed outright by any rational human being. It leads to the absurd conclusion that existence was born out of non-existence – that something came from nothing. Such a claim can only be called fanciful imagination and not knowledge because the base of all human knowledge is the perception of existents through ones senses. To claim otherwise is to confuse delusions of a fevered mind with knowledge.
The various “proofs” of the existence of “God” are really just so much mental masturbation. The most they ever prove is that “something exists”, and then they go on to call that something “god” and claim to have done something worthwhile — but very people have ever argued that “something doesn’t exist” (i.e., that nothing exists): it’s self-evident that something exists: the person producing the “proof” is something! That person is not, however, god, by any sensible definition.
While I wouldn’t put it as colourfully as the other responders, I agree with the core of their claims. You use vague words and obscure the fact that the implication simply isn’t there. If H has feature f, it does not mean that it was caused by G that does not have feature f.
More importantly though, like I said at the beginning, I consider the question of belief in supernatural or the absence thereof irrelevant from economic and scientific point of view. It does not provide an answer to any of the important questions.
“Members had one thing in common: none owned property, and thus according to English law could not vote”.
The author doesn’t know what he is talking about. Quite simply, there was no single English law governing this, but rather different local customs and privileges in different constituencies. Certainly, in most there was indeed just such a property qualification – set at various levels – but in many there wasn’t, where rather there was an inherited right based on having ancestors who themselves had had the franchise, particularly in the West Country (the first Reform Act actually disfranchised many of these voters even though it enfranchised others, by establishing a uniform property qualification at a lower level than the ones that had applied in constituencies that had them). Later “reforms” removed the limited amount of proportional representation there had been too, by eliminating multi-member constituencies.
Interestingly, Bill Stepp here http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?perm=593056000000001988 says:
“Paine forfeited his copyright in “Common Sense” so that any printer could publish it (this was prompted by a dispute with his printer, if memory servies), but he later defended copyright. For what it’s worth, he also defended the evil Pennsylvania Test Oaths, and expounded a variant of socialism in land in “Agrarian Justice.” A few more libertarians like Paine, and we’ll be laboring in slave camps.
I could never figure out why libertarians are so quick to embrace Paine (ditto for Andrew Jackson, who didn’t put an end to the 2BUS for any high-minded libertarian reasons, but so that its deposits would go into the pet banks owned by his political backers and cronies).”
I agree – see my comments above!
Roemer “Paine was what I call an atheistic humanist.
Too bad Paine was a deist…
Now I wonder why the conservative _theocrats_) who run this website would publish an article which seems somewhat _sympathetic_ to Paine? Well, I guess they need to _pretend_ that they are ‘libertarians’…that gets them more donors or something.
Thomas Paine does seem to have been the embodiment of, and torch bearer for, freedom and truth. My feeling is that an accurate pursuit of truth will never, ultimately, let one down but it does seem that Thomas Paine did not achieve quite what he had hoped. What went wrong? Was there some inaccuracy that allowed the enemies of truth to overhwelm him, and if so what were they? I almost feel I cannot fault anything he thought, but if he loved the truth, where was his vulnerability – his misapprehension of reality? It seems that it would be in his permission of the forces of untruth to dictate his view of the eternal. He allowed the limited secular view, common among progressive thought of his time, to dictate his view of God and the eternal. In truth, if one reads the Bible, it is neither an endorsement of the status quo, neither is it a handbook for revolution. It simply sees beyond the limitations of our materialistic view, which is ultimately governed by covetousness, and looks to the eternal. Jesus’ parable of the labourers hired at different times of the day (Matthew 20), is relevant. There is more to all this than meets the eye that has been limited by a ‘normal’ covetous world view. However, he was indeed, a great and heroic man for truth and freedom.
Bala’s statement that I am “distorting” the meaning of the word “causality” was new to me. It took me some time to figure it out. In metaphysics, there are two separate concepts: “being” or “existence” and “causality” or “reason.” We can use the concept of causality to infer the existence of another being.
We do this all the time. We hear a knock at the door and we infer that a person exists on the other side. In metaphysics, if a being begins to exist at some point in time, another being exists that caused it. Likewise, a finite being needs a cause.
The objections being made to the proof are perfectly reasonable and add to an understanding of the proof. There is no need to make a decision about God’s existence. The only decision that has to be made is whether or not to believe in revelation.
” The only decision that has to be made is whether or not to believe in revelation. ”
This does not sidestep the question of God’s existence because revelation requires an entity that reveals (a.k.a. God) which in turn needs to exist. Thus, to believe in revelation, one has to necessarily believe in the existence of God. If, however, one is not in a position to make a decision about God’s existence, then one is not in a position to believe in revelation.
I have three reasons for believing in revelation: 1) the historical Jesus, 2) proof of God’s existence, and 3) non-believers tend to be irrational and ignorant. It is the whole story that is persuasive. Bala’s objections to the proof are perfectly reasonable and insightful, but it is the entire story that is persuasive. The proof of God is only part of the story. Bala’s objections to the proof are not the same as the objections of such as Richard Dawkins. Dawkins says that the proof is illogical because there can be an infinite regression of finite beings. John Stuart Mill said, “Who made God?” Bala is saying the metaphysical concepts of causality and intelligibility have no basis in reality.
” We can use the concept of causality to infer the existence of another being. ”
To infer thus, you first need to inductively realise that there is a causal relationship between the existence of another being and the production of the stimulus that form the material that we sense and then form a percept of. Both percepts, that of the being and that of the stimulus it produces, are aspects of reality. Our mind integrates them using the power of reason to infer the causal relationship. Once this causal relationship becomes a part of our knowledge, we are in a position to deduce that if a stimulus is perceived, there must necessarily be an existent that produced the stimulus in the first place.
Please note that in this case too, the causality happens only within existence and not outside of it. At no stage is one in a position to reach beyond existence. The causal relationship is a product of our consciousness of reality and cannot lead us to conclusions about anything that lies beyond the reality that we are in a position to perceive (directly or aided by instruments).
In summary, the arguments put forward for the existence of God or for the validity of revelation as the basis of knowledge are fundamentally flawed.
Question for Bala: Isn’t it true that we live our lives as if causality was true in a purely abstract way? Don’t we forget about the inductive basis of the assumption that the universe is intelligible, and consider it to be true absolutely?
Bala’s arguments are similar to the arguments put forth against free will. Many atheistic humanists say free will is an illusion. However, they say this only in philosophical discussions. They live their lives as if they had free will. They fell guilty when they do something wrong, they apologize, and promise never to do it again.
Your characterizations of the Federalist party belie belief, especially loyalty to England, and it shows just what a rightwingnut you are. Ron Chernow’s recent Hamilton bio, a work of scholarly research, tears your beliefs to shreds.
What a joke your organization is, like other right-wing “think” tanks. See if you can get this. When an educated person can guess the outcome of your “research” over 90 percent of the time, that’s not objective, peer-reviewed science, it’s numerology. I had high hopes for this website when I heard about it. What a joke.
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