Thomas Paine, one of the fathers of American freedom, died almost unmourned 200 years ago today. Brendan O’Neill remembers him at BBC​.com:

In January 1776 he published a short pamphlet that earned him the title The Father of the American Revolution.


Titled simply, Common Sense, the work has been described by the Pulitzer‐​winning historian Gordon S Wood as “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire [American] revolutionary period”. It put the case for democracy, against the monarchy, and for American independence from British rule.

Lefties like Harvey Kaye, a professor at the University of Wisconsin‐​Green Bay and author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, like to say

He put the case for political democracy AND social democracy, arguing in The Rights of Man that young people and the elderly should be afforded financial security by their governments. These welfare ideals are under attack right now, in our era of recession.

He has a point, though I suspect that Paine would think that the American welfare state has exceeded the sort of minimal provision for the poor that he had in mind. As for me, I rather like the fact that he proposed to execute any legislator who so much as proposed a bill to issue paper money and make it legal tender. A bit too strong, I concede. But a healthy understanding of what fiat money can do to people who work hard and save their money.


Find some of Thomas Paine’s best writings in The Libertarian Reader.