Essays · Chapter
Means by Which the Fund Is to Be Created explained
Paine outlines a plan for a national fund to compensate individuals for the loss of their natural inheritance due to the system of landed property.
What happens
Paine outlines a plan for a national fund to compensate individuals for the loss of their natural inheritance due to the system of landed property. He proposes a tax on inheritances, paid at the time of property transfer upon death, which would provide every person at age 21 with a sum to start life, and annual payments after age 50. The plan is framed as an act of justice, not charity, and is intended to prevent poverty, reduce social inequality, and support the revolution in civilization that accompanies the revolution in government.
Themes in this chapter
Economic Justice and Agrarian Reform
Paine proposes a fund to compensate for the loss of natural inheritance due to landed property, aiming to prevent poverty and redistribute resources through a progressive inheritance tax.
Natural Rights and Equality
The plan is based on the principle that every person has a natural right to a share of the earth's resources, and that civilization should not leave anyone worse off than in a state of nature.
Revolution and the Right to Resist Oppression
Paine argues that a revolution in civilization is necessary to complement the political revolution, and that justice, not charity, must be the foundation of the new social order.
Key passages
“the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race”
The earth originally belonged to all people collectively, and would have remained so if left uncultivated.
Paine establishes the foundational principle of common natural inheritance.
“it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan”
The plan is based on fairness and rights, not on voluntary kindness.
Paine emphasizes that the fund is a matter of right, not benevolence.
“An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot”
Ideas and moral truths can spread and influence people more effectively than military force.
Paine asserts the power of revolutionary principles to transcend borders.