Reading Notes by Christopher Lay

Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, and Sociology

Thomas Paine's	"Agrarian Justice"
Preface:	"Every individual in the world is born therein with legitimate claims on a certain kind of property, or its equivalent."
Civilization	Civilization comes with benefits (wealth, excess) and costs (poverty, dispossession). Paine seeks to rectify the problems that come with civilization.	"To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation."
Extremes	"The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized."	"Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized."
Natural State	"Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life." "It exists not in the natural state." "On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures."
Poles	"Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state."
The Aim	How to preserve as much of the benefits while minimizing the drawbacks of civilization?	"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."
Cultivation	Cultivation has changed the ownership of the earth.	"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."
Unowned	The Earth is originally unowned.	"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."
Cultivation	Cultivation has improved the earth for human habitation.	"Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention."
Value Added	Cultivation has added value to the earth.	"It has given to created earth a tenfold value."
Cultivation and Poverty	Cultivation has produced a kind of property monopoly. That form of property ownership has produced the evil of poverty.	"But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before."
Rights	"In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for."
Proposal	"To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property: And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age."	"I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race; that in that state, every person would have been born to property; and that the system of landed property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss."
Inheritance	"Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be the best ... is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished."
Enjoying Affluence	"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."
Charity	Charity efforts are not enough. Civilization must be reorganized.	"There are, in every country, some magnificent charities 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."
Benefits	"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 old governments of Europe, now tottering on their foundations, can give."
Private Property	"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 make land originally."	"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."
Debt to Society	The only way that an individual can become wealthy stems from being in a society. Alone on an island, a human cannot become wealthy. "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."	"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."
Labor	"[T]he 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."