Pamphlet: Agrarian Justice

Context and Purpose
Thomas Paine wrote Agrarian Justice in 1797 amid post-revolutionary debates over rights, poverty, and property. He distinguishes his proposal from classical agrarian laws that divided land equally, arguing instead for a compensatory system that reconciles natural rights with the inequalities produced by civil society. The pamphlet addresses both French and British audiences and offers a concrete fiscal plan to secure a baseline of independence for all citizens.

Natural Right and the Problem of Property
Paine’s central claim begins with the earth as the common gift of nature. Before agriculture, no one could be poor, because access to land and its fruits was open. The moment land became private property, those without title lost their “natural inheritance.” Paine defends private property in what labor creates, improvements, buildings, cultivation, but maintains that exclusive ownership of the soil carries an obligation to compensate the dispossessed. Poverty, he argues, is not natural but a byproduct of civilization’s property regime; justice therefore requires a systematic remedy, not alms.

The National Fund and Universal Endowments
To restore part of what enclosure and exclusive possession have taken, Paine proposes a national fund that pays everyone, as a matter of right. Each person, upon turning twenty-one, would receive a one-time endowment of fifteen pounds sterling to begin life with some independence. Each person from age fifty onward would receive an annual pension of ten pounds for the remainder of life. These are universal, unconditional payments grounded in right, not charity. Their purposes are practical and civic: to prevent destitution, to enable young adults to start households or trades, and to preserve the dignity and security of older people who can no longer rely on wages.

Funding Through Ground-Rent and Succession
The fund is financed by a charge on landed property framed as a recovery of ground-rent, the common value derived from the earth itself. Paine focuses the levy at the point of inheritance or transfer of estates, sparing productive labor and ordinary trade. Improvements, the value created by human industry, are exempt; the assessment falls on the underlying land value. He suggests a modest, uniform proportion, about ten percent at succession, would suffice to finance the endowments. This method treats the levy not as a penalty on industry but as a return of part of the common inheritance, paid by those who benefit from exclusive possession.

Against Poor Laws; For Dignity and Stability
Paine condemns existing poor laws as degrading, parochial, and inefficient, producing dependence and stigma while failing to eradicate want. By making support universal and rights-based, his plan removes humiliation and local settlement barriers, reduces incentives for crime born of necessity, and stabilizes society by giving everyone a stake in it. He predicts that such a system would reduce public disorder and private misery, and that governments adopting it would gain legitimacy because they secure both liberty and subsistence.

Property, Liberty, and Civic Peace
Agrarian Justice defends property in improvements while insisting that the value of the earth belongs to all. The proposal neither abolishes private property nor levels fortunes; it redirects a portion of land-derived value to guarantee each person’s foundational share in society’s resources. Paine’s synthesis of natural rights, fiscal design, and republican citizenship anticipates later ideas of social insurance and universal basic income, presenting a practical blueprint for combining economic security with civil freedom.