Rights of Man
Rights of Man is a book by Thomas Paine first published in 1791, including 31 articles, positing that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people. Using these points as a base, it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in Reflections on the Revolution in France.
It was published in Britain in two parts in March 1791 and February 1792.
Background
Paine was a very strong supporter of the French Revolution that began in 1789; he visited France the following year. Many British thinkers supported it, including Richard Price, who initiated the Revolution Controversy with his sermon and pamphlet drawing favourable parallels between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution. Conservative intellectual Edmund Burke responded with a counter-revolutionary attack entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France, which strongly appealed to the landed class and sold 30,000 copies. Paine's Rights of Man was printed by London publisher Joseph Johnson for publication on 21 February 1791, then withdrawn for fear of prosecution. J. S. Jordan stepped in and published it on 16 March. The 90,000-word book appeared on 13 March, three weeks later than scheduled. It sold as many as one million copies and was "eagerly read by reformers, Protestant dissenters, democrats, London craftsman, and the skilled factory-hands of the new industrial north". William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft helped with the publishing of the book; Godwin declared that "the seeds of revolution it contains are so vigorous in their stamina, that nothing can overpower them".Arguments
Paine argues that the interests of the monarch and his people are united, and insists that the French Revolution should be understood as one which attacks the despotic principles of the French monarchy, not the king himself, and he takes the Bastille, the main prison in Paris, to symbolise the despotism that had been overthrown.Human rights originate in Nature; thus, rights cannot be granted via political charter, because that implies that rights are legally revocable, hence, would be privileges:
Government's sole purpose is safeguarding the individual and his inherent, inalienable rights; each societal institution that does not benefit the nation is illegitimate—especially monarchy and aristocracy. The book's acumen derives from the Age of Enlightenment and has been linked to the Second Treatise of Government, by John Locke.
The fuller development of this position seems to have been worked out one night in France after an evening spent with Thomas Jefferson, and possibly Lafayette, discussing a pamphlet by the Philadelphia conservative James Wilson on the proposed federal constitution.
Reformation of the English government
Rights of Man concludes in proposing practical reformations of English government such as a written constitution composed by a national assembly, in the American mould; the elimination of aristocratic titles, because democracy is incompatible with primogeniture, which leads to the despotism of the family; a national budget without allotted military and war expenses; lower taxes for the poor, and subsidised education for them; and a progressive income tax weighted against wealthy estates to prevent the re-emergence of a hereditary aristocracy.Aristocracy
Principally, Rights of Man opposes the idea of hereditary government—the belief that dictatorial government is necessary, because of man's corrupt, essential nature. Although other late-18th-century writers such as James Murray and Major John Cartwright criticized the outsized role played by the aristocracy in the government, Paine was arguably the first to advocate the eradication of titles and hereditary government. In Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke says that true social stability arises if the nation's poor majority are governed by a minority of wealthy aristocrats, and that lawful inheritance of power ensured the propriety of political power being the exclusive domain of the nation's élite social class—the nobility.Rights of Man denounces Burke's assertion of the nobility's inherent hereditary wisdom; countering the implication that a nation has not a right to form a Government for governing itself. Paine refutes Burke's definition of Government as "a contrivance of human wisdom". Instead, Paine argues that Government is a contrivance of man, and it follows that hereditary succession and hereditary rights to govern cannot compose a Government—because the wisdom to govern cannot be inherited.
Heredity
Edmund Burke's counter-revolutionary Reflections on the French Revolution delineates the legitimacy of aristocratic government to the 1688 Parliamentary resolution declaring William and Mary of Orange—and their heirs—to be the true rulers of England. Paine puts forward two arguments against this view. Firstly, he argues that "Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it." Secondly, Paine counters that the institution of monarchy should not be historically traced from 1688, but from 1066, when William of Normandy forcibly imposed his Norman rule upon Englishmen.Thomas Paine's intellectual influence is perceptible in the two great political revolutions of the eighteenth century. He dedicated Rights of Man to George Washington and to the Marquis de Lafayette, acknowledging the importance of the American and the French revolutions.
Thus, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen can be encapsulated so: Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility; The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression; and The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; neither can any individual, nor any body of men, be entitled to any authority, which is not expressly derived from it.
These capsulations are akin to the self-evident truths concept that the U.S. Declaration of Independence expresses.
Welfare
In the closing chapters of Rights of Man, Paine addresses the condition of the poor and outlines a detailed social welfare proposal predicated upon the redirection of government expenditures. From the onset, Paine asserts all citizens have an inherent claim to welfare. Unlike such writers as James Burgh who sought to limit assistance to the better behaved segments of the poor, Paine declares welfare is not charity, but an irrevocable right. Paine's understanding of welfare seemingly follows his idea of political government. He notes, "Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured". In congruence with his previous works, Paine emphasizes the compatibility between individual rights and societal wellbeing. He fervently contends that crippling poverty undermines the rights of an individual, and consequently the legitimacy of government. Not surprisingly then, Paine staunchly opposed and criticizes the English Poor Laws in place at the time, claiming the laws are highly ineffective and primitive in nature. Paine critiques the societal conditions promulgated by the Poor Laws saying, "When in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong with the system of government". He argues for their complete abolition, and in their place the enactment of a welfare program that assists the young, old, and struggling individuals. Paine's welfare proposal is pillared by education and tax reform; the latter was to be accomplished through progressive taxes on property. Paine contends the poor population consists mostly of children and the elderly, who are unable to participate in the workforce. In addition to the elderly and children, Paine also concedes that there are still some others rendered poor from the economic burden of tax and children. In accordance with his belief that charity as a natural right, Paine presumes only republican or democratic regimes can effectively carry out successful welfare programs. Though Paine does not directly condone or promote an uprising against the British monarchy, and utilizes rather subdued rhetoric in comparison to his other controversial works, revolutionary currents run beneath the surface of the text.An implication that arises from Paine's social welfare reformation is cost. Paine observes, at the time of his writing, England's rough population to be about 7 million people. He also supposes that around one-fifth of the population is poor. The number of poor then, according to Paine's estimations, would total around 1,400,000 people in need of support. Paine contends the remedy for financing such a large welfare endeavor would be to cut military expenditures of the state and redirect the funds towards the people of the state. Paine argues that since the age of revolution rendered a new era of peace, the government no longer need devote so many resources toward monarchical wars. Instead, Paine suggests, the surplus of tax revenue could be reintegrated back into society with the formation of a welfare program. He also estimates that nearly £4 million, out of £17 million in total tax revenues from customs and excise duties, could be salvaged from the government's expenditure and redirected and redistributed to the people of the nation. Paine questions, "Is it, then, better that the lives of one hundred and forty thousand aged persons be rendered comfortable, or that a million a year of public money be expended on any one individual, and him often of the most worthless or insignificant character?" Paine concludes that by his model £3,640,000 will be remitted to the poor. Paine's allotments for the poor and elderly were far more generous than contemporary payments from the poor rates.