Common Sense: 250 Years Later

Digital version of my pamphlet on Itch! Investigating the historical context and legacy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, written to proselytize radical liberalism right before the American Revolution.

1. The Colonies

In 1764, the English Parliament began imposing taxes on American colonies to recuperate the costs of the French-Indian War. Although the constitution of England gave all citizens the right to representation, the colonists did not have a voice in Parliament.

“No taxation without representation!” American colonists started boycotting English goods and protesting against the rule of Parliament.

The more they voiced their opposition, the more Parliament punished them, causing protests to escalate into riots. In 1774, Parliament began to violently repress the colonists: restricting trade, housing soldiers in private homes, and imprisoning people without trial.

2. Common Sense

Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense in 1775 at the cusp of revolution, when the original American colonies started to organize against English rule.

Paine was a radical liberal republican, meaning that he believed government should be elected by its constituents and representative of their interests—unlike Parliament which acted without consent of the people it governed and without their interests in mind.

Common Sense was widely consumed by the colonists when it was published and its principles of political liberalism vastly influenced the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What did Paine write that was so popular and how does this relate to our situation today?

3. The Problem

Paine believed that government was a necessary evil. In contrast to society, which is constituted by our relations to each other (in other words, economy), government forms in response to vice inherent to human beings. “The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

The best government in Paine’s view is as small a government as is necessary to maintain society without infringing upon individual freedoms.

Paine thought that the Constitution of England was a “glorious rescue” from the tyranny under which it was written but that its limitations were starting to become apparent: giving the King too much power and not giving the public enough representation.

4. Paine's Solution

Paine proposed the establishment of a republic where lawmakers are elected by the constituents to make decisions with their consent and on their behalf. Paine hoped that such a government would guarantee the will of the people and not devolve into tyranny.

Paine assumed that since government is separate from society, all it takes to found a perfect government is perfect principles. But that’s not true.

The government of the USA has since become like the very government that it first overthrew: limiting free speech, levying taxes without representation, imprisoning people overseas without a fair trial. Thus, it behooves one to ask: what did Paine get wrong?

5. Political History

The difference between society and government is historically recent, only made possible centuries before Paine. The first governments were headed by figures who both ruled their subjects and organized their economy.

Such governments only emerged due to the concentration of property in the hands of a ruling class, whose power over the economy translated directly into power over people’s lives.

Government did not differentiate itself from society until the market overtook the palace for control of the economy. Only after that did government’s task become to maintain society externally of itself. Paine heralded this transition, mistaking it as a return-to-form.

6. Government's Role

As a result of his mistake, Paine didn’t investigate how government relates to society more generally: that in history, society tends to benefit a ruling class, and government tends to punish those whom society doesn’t benefit—or else, they may try to take society’s rei(g)ns from the present ruling class.

Because Paine could not perceive this dynamic, neither could he understand the historical development of societies and governments; nor could he predict how our government would eventually betray the liberal principles on which it was apparently established.

But no government serves principles: each serves a society by shielding its ruling class from conflict.

7. 1775 to 2025

Through this lens, we can interpret the American Revolution not as the return to an ancient form of government, but as the overthrow of the English ruling class by the American ruling class.

Afterwards, although liberal principles served the American ruling class well, these were abandoned once no longer useful to them (and in some cases, like for women or black people, not given until people fought for it).

The American government as it exists now does not govern with the consent of the governed, nor has it ever really, but this problem can’t be solved with a better government. So long as society is dominated by one class, the people cannot fully govern themselves.