/lit/ - Literature

What do you guys think of this man?

What is /lit's opinion on the political writings of Thomas Paine?

>>9128954
common sense? cute, but try a little harder pls.

If Thomas Paine was born 30 or 40 years later he would have been an anarchist. The fact that right wing reactionaries and conservatives look up to him is pretty fucking funny and only goes to show that they've never read Paine. Paine's ideas are so far removed from the other founding fathers it's no wonder that he's only recently been considered one of them.

He was pro-worker's rights, he advocated for universal basic income and other social welfare safety nets and he viewed religion as an oppressive force. The only reason he wasn't completely anti-state was because during his lifetime America was hardly a state. If he lived long enough to see how the industrial revolution and capitalism shaped the world I think he would have been an anarchist.

Thoughts?

>>6886021
this guy made the world a better place but doesn't get enough credit for it. hail him now

“For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.”