Individual Property

Thomas Paine and the US Social Security System

"There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made.

The value of the improvement so far exceeded the value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right of the individual. But these are, nevertheless, distinct species of rights, and will continue to be, so long as the earth endures.

It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we, discover the boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own.”

Thomas Paine
AGRARIAN JUSTICE (1797)

Few recall now that Paine’s AGRARIAN JUSTICE is recognized as a founding text of the United States Social Security System. You’ll find a full copy of this pamphlet posted at the SSI governmental website linked below this image:

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Here’s the Social Security link in case you had any doubts: https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html