Enlightenment & Revolutions
Thomas Paine
1737–1809 · Republicanism
Government is a necessary evil, tolerated in proportion to its smallness.
In their words
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.”
Common Sense turned independence into a plain argument, Rights of Man defended the French Revolution against Burke, and Agrarian Justice demanded that the value of the earth be returned to those excluded from it. Paine wrote that society is a blessing while government, even at its best, is a necessary evil. He died poor and ostracized for attacking organized religion in the same plain voice.
Why it matters for freedom
He wrote the plainest case for self-government ever put in a pamphlet, in language a farmer could carry to a tavern.
Who they stood against
the British crown, hereditary rule, and the divine right of any family