Friday 3 July 2009
[Thomas] Paine advanced the causes of universal suffrage, equality for women, abolition of slavery, separation of church and state, public education, and progressive taxation. He made the first proposal for a guaranteed minimum income. He advised a system of public funding to give starting grants to young workers, and to aid the poor, the unemployed and the elderly. He believed that only well-informed and active citizens could defend democracy, and he roused the hostility of John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and others who were already a rising oligarchy of the wealthiest landowners and merchants. The Age of Paine ☀
