Agrarian Justice

Editorial note

Agrarian Justice is one of the foundational documents of both Georgist and basic income thought. Written in Paris during the winter of 1795–96 and published in 1797, it argues that the earth in its natural state is the common property of the human race, and that the appropriation of land by private owners creates an obligation to compensate those excluded. Paine proposes a National Fund financed by a ground-rent of ten percent on all landed estates, to be paid at death or inheritance. The fund would give every citizen £15 upon reaching the age of 21 (as compensation for the loss of their natural inheritance) and £10 per year from age 50 onward.

This is the first systematic proposal in the English language for what we would today call a universal basic income funded by taxing land value. Henry George acknowledged Paine's influence; contemporary UBI advocates regularly cite Agrarian Justice as the intellectual origin of the citizens' dividend concept.

Public domain status: Published 1797; Thomas Paine died 1809. Fully public domain in all jurisdictions.

Agrarian Justice

opposed to Agrarian Law, and to Agrarian Monopoly

Being a Plan for Meliorating the Condition of Man, by Creating in Every Nation a National Fund, to Pay to Every Person, when Arrived at the Age of Twenty-one Years, the Sum of Fifteen Pounds Sterling, as a Compensation in Part, for the Loss of his or her Natural Inheritance, by the Introduction of the System of Landed Property; and Also, the Sum of Ten Pounds Per Annum, During Life, to Every Person Now Living, of the Age of Fifty Years, and to All Others as They Arrive at That Age.

— Thomas Paine, 1797

Preface

The following little piece was written in the winter of 1795 and '96, and I had intended to have extended it considerably; but a part of what I then intended has been anticipated, by a publication of the Rights of Man by Mr. Thomas Spence, which, I am informed, has been republished, and he has gone further than I intended; and therefore what I have done will serve as a sufficient introduction to the subject.

The subject of land has always been the great question of society; but it has not been settled in a manner satisfactory to liberal minds, or such as will bear the test of reason and justice. I have therefore undertaken to examine it in the most familiar manner I can.

Agrarian Justice

To preserve the benefits of what is called civilised life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.

Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilisation, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected.

The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I am not prepared to go so far as to say that cultivation is, taking everything into the account, worse than the savage state, I think it is right to say that with the improvement being able to bestow more of the produce of man's labour on himself, there are, nevertheless, particular respects in which it has improved itself from that state.

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to the rich. Civilisation, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.

It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilised state, but it is never possible to go from the civilised to the natural state. The reason is, that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilised state, where the earth is cultivated.

From this it follows, that those who have cultivated the earth, or taken possession of it, have received the benefit of it in a greater proportion than their portion of rights entitles them to; and this increase is not always equitably divided. Part falls back, as a common good, upon the community; another part is taken from those who are deprived of their original right to the soil, and who receive nothing equivalent.

I have always considered the present civilised state of the cultivated land as the property of the possessor; and I have endeavoured to trace the origin of that property, and to discover an equitable principle for the just distribution of the benefits arising from it.

On the origin of landed property

The earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every person would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.

It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing as from all the stories transmitted to us, that the idea of property in land began by oral agreement or common consent among neighbours, such, for instance, as — "I have laboured upon and improved this particular spot of ground; you agree that it shall be my exclusive property during my life, and I will, when I die, leave it to such person as we shall agree upon." — And when they arrived at a state of wretchedness, by having lost too much of the common right, they naturally asked, "Is it possible to restore the common right; is it possible to create a fund?"

The proposed National Fund

I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state, was the common property of the human race; that civilisation has deprived the natural born, and I say every person born on earth has a natural right to a portion of the earth's natural inheritance.

I propose, therefore, to create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property.

And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

I do not propose that the lands shall be public property; but I propose to create a fund from what is called the rental of the land, that is, from the produce of the ground after the expenses of cultivation are deducted, and not from the cultivation itself.

This is not charity but a right. Not bounty but justice. It is not the charity of one man to another, but the joint inheritance of the whole species.

How the fund shall be raised

The fund shall be raised as follows: — There shall be paid by every proprietor of land, to the National Fund, a ground-rent of ten per cent per annum on the net value of his land, whether cultivated or uncultivated. "Net value" means the value of the land itself, without the buildings or improvements made upon it.

This ground-rent is not a tax. It is the payment due to the community for its natural inheritance. The proprietor holds the land at the sufferance of custom; the community holds a prior and indefeasible claim.

The fund thus raised will be divided every year, to all persons arriving at twenty-one years of age, and to all persons arriving at fifty years of age, in the proportions already stated.

Objections considered

It will perhaps be said that though I have established the principality of the plan, I have not shown the practicability of it. But this is not necessary. A thing that is just and right will find its own practicability. The question to be first settled is the justice; the practicability will follow.

A plan upon a smaller scale was proposed by Condorcet, in his work written some years ago; but though it went on the right principle, it was too confined in its distribution. I have enlarged it to the extent to which justice and the right of all mankind require it to be extended.

There's no person so poor who does not have a right to a portion of the earth's produce, from the ground upon which the population of the whole earth depends. The poor have been made poor by the monopoly of the earth; and they are entitled to a compensation for that monopoly, not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of right.

Conclusion

The present state of civilisation is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness is like dead and living bodies chained together.

Having now gone through the whole of the plan, it is easy to see the ground-work of a policy that would reduce poverty, which is now the great social evil, to a minimum. The plan, if righteously administered, would be sufficient to extirpate the system of poor laws, which is an ignominious mode of receiving relief, though it is misrepresented into a charity.

When, therefore, I propose a plan to remedy the evils which the system of landed property has produced, I shall not be understood to mean the abolition of that property; on the contrary, it is the security and consolidation of it that I am endeavouring to promote; for when every person shall have had a part therein, the system will be more secure than it is now.

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist, the latter cannot be obtained.

All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilisation, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

The plan here proposed will, to every person living in any country where it shall be established, give the command of the following sums of money, over and above what he may earn by his labour:

To every person at the age of twenty-one years: £15 sterling.

To every person at or above the age of fifty years: £10 per annum, for life.

In a country like England, where the rentable value of the land and property of the whole kingdom, independent of what is called personal property, is, by valuation, equal to about twenty millions per annum, a sum in the proportion of £15 to each person, when twenty-one years old, and £10 to each at fifty, cannot be a charge that the country is not able to bear; and the only reason why it has not been done is because the value of the improvement has been confounded with the value of the earth itself.

The fault, however, is not in the principle, but in the application. By establishing the distinction between the improvement and the natural value of the earth, the error is at once removed.

This is what I have to propose; and it is the most practicable, the most equal, and the most just reform that can be proposed.

— Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice, Paris, 1797