Thomas Paine on Agrarian Justice and Reparations

Abstract

The issue of reparations has been one of the most enduring debates in American history. Influential characteristically liberal arguments about natural rights, property, individual autonomy, and moral responsibility are often identified as antithetical to the idea of reparations. In this context Thomas Paine presents an alternative perspective as a natural rights thinker, and as one of the earliest abolitionists in America, who in another context did endorse an ambitious plan for reparations for socioeconomic inequality caused by historical injustice. He did so by making the reconciliation of individual property rights and the common right to the shared benefits of “natural property” the central goal of liberal politics. Most significantly for today’s debate about reparations, Paine’s argument can be adapted by means of non-ideal theory both to critique socioeconomic inequality in contemporary liberal society and to clarify key theoretical issues relating to reparations.