Rights of Man [abridged]

This book (available as a free .pdf on that link) is a 1792 pamphlet by Thomas Paine, or at least a substantive squashed version of the same edited by Glyn Hughes (the original text is 90,000 words, he makes it 7,200ish). As Paine's reputation and its year of publication suggest it is chiefly concerned with the political fallout across Europe of the French revolution.

   Part one opens with a dedication of the work to George Washington; so far so good, I guess. He then dives straight into a no-holds-barred critique of Edmund Burke's reactionary take on the whole affair - defending the revolutionary French Constitution, with support from a restatement of his view on the unhelpfulness and illegitimacy of all hereditary power. Next he copies out the seventeen articles of the universal rights of man as enshrined in aforementioned French Constitution: these aren't as comprehensive as those we currently have under the United Nations, but one can see clearly that for the time they were invoked they were true game-changers in civil and political liberty. He concludes this first part with a prolonged case for liberal, internationalist, democratic values being the chief product and essential safeguard of public Reason; writing "my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

   Part two opens with a brief letter to one M. de la Fayette. He goes on to praise the American revolution and its core values as an example to all nations. Then follow several chapters on society and government; these are delightfully anarchistic, with Paine dropping bangers like "the more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government" and "it is impossible that such governments as have hitherto existed in the world, could have commenced by any other means than a total violation of every principle sacred and moral." Based as fuck. Next he discusses the nature and purpose of constitutions - which, he says, is nothing more than to concretize and safeguard the true purpose of governments, which is to promote the common good. In his ensuing internationalist ramble there is a possible prophesy of the EU: "for what we can foresee, all Europe may form but one great Republic, and man be free of the whole." I have no surety which side he would have landed on but I know Thomas Paine would have had a great deal to say about Brexit if he were still kicking about. The final chapter is a heartfelt polemic for the need of reform in the taxation system, with the derived benefits going to support the poor. And in his concluding paragraphs there are a couple of sentiments that undeniably pre-echo the writings of Marx and Engels half a century later - he says "the iron is becoming hot all over" and closes on the lovely image that "it is... not difficult to perceive that the spring is begun".

   Overall this is a punchy little pamphlet. Okay, maybe too little as I could have stood to read the full version, but I feel Hughes's editing made a good job that this felt like a complete set of well-put ideas rather than a Sparknotes summary. Anyone interested in the political history of the modern west should at least give this a once-over - it's one of the most controversial and influential texts in aforesaid history and so cannot be ignored, and many of its arguments still hold water as things that we need to pay close heed to today.

Common Sense

This book (available from that link as a free .pdf file) is a 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine, and it is no understatement to say that it's probably one of the most influential and important texts in the history of the modern west. Britain and its north American colonies were fighting a breakup war at the time, and Paine threw his weight into the ring of public discourse with the profoundly optimistic statement that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." He was an ardent advocate of democratic, egalitarian freedom, and as such a key figure for the ideological discussion around the Great Experiment of American society.*

   He begins with a cogent socio-political definitional outline of the nature and necessity of government, arguing that reason leads us to claim representative democracy as the most stable and reliable way to preserve moral value. Next he launches into a scathing critique of the British constitution, as complex and vague as it is, with specific vitriol reserved for the monarchy and hereditary power, which he argues are not only immoral** but impractical and inefficient. What follows is a pragmatic and passionate defence of the case for American independence; a profound strength of internationalist cosmopolitanism*** pervades these passages in ways that often feel far too modern to be from the 18th century. He completely destroys the morally bankrupt commonplace British objections to America's desire to be free of its "mother nation" - as what kind of good mother wages war against her children who wish to fly the nest? An interesting side point here is that he claims it a fact of divine providence that America was discovered by Europeans just when it was, as it provided a perfect new home of promise and plenty to the many tens of thousands of refugees generated in the decades following the Reformation. In his closing passages he considers the necessity and opportunity of America developing its as-then-yet infant naval forces. Finally there is an appendix, added for the third circulation of this most-inflammatory pamphlet, in which he full-on attacks a recent statement by the King on the American situation, and restates the urgency and human potential of the experiment trying to take shape across the Atlantic. In one of his final lines he sentimentally declares, "let each of us hold out to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension" - which strikes me as just as politically ideal as authentically Christian.

   Ultimately this is a text that you will recognise as being as rightly controversial as it was at the time if you have even the smallest grasp of its historical context - but its dogged and clearly-put rhetoric about self-determination and moral government is just as relevant today as it was then. Well worth a read for anyone interested in western history and timeless politics.

* I dread to think what he would've made of the state of things 250 years later.

** His points herein are unexpectedly biblically grounded (he describes the divine right of kings as "the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry"), and robustly supported by cursory glances at the history of these institutions.

*** On not only nationality but creed too; he writes "I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us".