Joseph Kim
Political Thought/Theory
Thomas Paine: “Common Sense”, and “The Rights of Man”
Main Argument
1) Society is the community’s good, while government is the community’s bad. (government is the
vice of what is negative to the community, and society is the positives of a given community.)
2) The government that governs least is the best government, but it is necessary. (The government
should only seek to restrict and punish those who are harming the community, while allowing
for the pursuit of an individual’s happiness.)
3) Those that are in power are merely representatives of a certain group, and power can only be
granted by the governed. (power to rule is left up to the people, in that the elected can only be
elected into power by an election)
4) Those that are in government do not heed the orders of what has been, and cannot dictate to
what will come. (power is not hereditary, nor can a dead man rule)
Main and supporting arguments made for the argument
1) From “Common Sense”: “Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;
the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by
restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is
a patron, the last a punisher.” (Paragraph 1, sentence 2-4)
From “Common Sense”: “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best
state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one, … Government, like dress, is
the badge of lost innocence[.]” (paragraph 2, sentences 1 & 2)
From “Common Sense”: [Security] being the true design and end of government[.] (paragraph 2,
sentence 4)
2) From “Common Sense”: “Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly
arrived emigrants into society, … they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each
other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of
government to supply the defect of moral virtue.” (paragraph 3, sentence 1)
From “Common Sense”: It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of
REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. (paragraph 4,
sentence 2)
3) From “Common Sense”: This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the
legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are
supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have appointed them. … [It] will be
found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and
that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, … will
establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally
support each other, and on this depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the
governed.” (paragraph 6, sentences 2-5)
From “Common Sense”: Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely a mode
rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; … absolute
governments have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, the
know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not
bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.” (paragraphs 7-8)
4) From “Rights of Man”: “The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most
ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.” (paragraph 1, sentence 2)
From “Rights of Man”: “The [government] or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no
more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any
shape whatever, than the [government] or the people of the present day have to dispose of,
bind, or control those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence.” (paragraph 2,
sentence 2)
From “Rights of Man”: “It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When
man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any
participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall
be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered.” (paragraph 3,
sentence 2)
From “Rights of Man”: “There was a time when kings disposed of their crowns by will upon their
death-beds, and consigned the people, like beasts of the field, to whatever successor they
appointed. This is now so exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and so monstrous as hardly
to be believed.” (paragraph 5, sentences 1-2)
From “Rights of Man”: “Those who have quitted the world, and those who are not yet arrived in
it, are as remote from each other, as the utmost stretch of moral imagination can conceive.
What possible obligation, then, can exist between them; what rule or principle can be laid down,
that two nonentities, the one out of existence, and the other not in, and who can never meet in
this world, that the one should control the other to the end of time?” (paragraph 5, sentences 12)
Assessment of the claim
Although I understand Mr. Paine’s ideas, I have some questions that won’t be answered by Mr.
Paine himself. Firstly, he claims that society is the good of the people, and government is the
necessary evil that puts a vice on the people. What is his view on people and human nature then?
Is he saying that we are only good when we’re with a small number of people, or does he mean
that we are generally good? Because for that, we don’t need a national government then, just
small local communities that don’t need bother with larger scales. Or does he mean that
normally we are good, but we tend to have evil tendencies? Doesn’t that mean we need to keep
our evils in check? If we have a limited form a government, our evils will allow us to find ways
around the government, thus exploiting the government, and that can’t fit into this system of
government.
Second question: How then, according to Mr. Paine, should we actually address government?
Should it stay out of economics, society, and/or anything not related to politics? Or should it
have a say in all of them, but not complete authority, just enough to “vice” the people into not
doing evil?
Thirdly, what about colonies that have started by the exploitation of natives? He gave an
example of an isolated emigration, but what if there was an emigration without the resources
needed? Would the population decide to stay with the government until it can support itself
through trade? What about the occurrences of war? How does Mr. Paine intend to address
those that actually have trespassed society’s boundaries? And if we were to pit it against
modern society, what about all the social and economic issues that we’re faced with today?
Perhaps these questions have already been answered in one form or another. However,
although I feel Paine addressed the issues that were present in his times, I cannot find that
these ideas transcend time and can be applicable anywhere. Perhaps it is because I have been
socialized to accept this modern system, however effective it may be, and when I imagine
Paine’s society, I happen to see that it does not last as this system for a long time. I am under
the belief with Mr. Paine that humans are self-interest first, but I believe that this is the driving
force of all policies implemented, that even if there are a fair representation of the peoples, one
group will ultimately seek to expand power, whether consciously or unconsciously by exploiting
another, more minor group.
Though I have more things I can assess in his articles, I feel that they are redundant to what has
already been said. As a conclusion, I can see Mr. Paine’s points of government and ideas, but I
am conditioned not to accept that these ideals will benefit society, much less actually work.