Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, while not unusual for its time as a philosophical essay exploring the creation of a new and idealized form of government, was still seen as a radical and revolutionary document of its day. While Paine espouses frequently discussed ideas by other Enlightenment era contemporaries such as his thoughts on Republicanism, and his echoing of sentiments such as the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, he uniquely advocates for an idea many consider today to have been ahead of his times in the form of a social welfare state.

Additionally, Rights of Man can be interpreted as a rebuttal to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, who remained an adamant believer that the traditional structures of the monarchy and church were essential to holding together a society through maintaining a rigid moral and social structure. Burke postulated that the French Revolution would lead to violence and chaos once the people were without the guidance of these establishments, as they were traditionally the ones responsible for giving and protecting the rights of the people. Paine, on the contrary, argued that rights were not something to be given, but rather an innate attribute of man, and the only form of government capable of preserving those rights was that of a Republic.

For Paine, the duty of the government was simply to protect and preserve those rights, and there was no one better to ensure that than the people themselves. While a monarchy may claim to represent the people, because it is not actually made up of the people, its nature is to continue to expand its power and control out of self-interest, resulting in the progressive impeding upon its people’s rights and eventual devolvement into authoritarianism. To Paine, he felt it best that in this new and emerging era, there should be a moving away from the traditions of a monarchical divine right to rule, under which the economy’s foundation became reliant on war, to move instead toward the formation of a sovereign republic supported by welfare and charity.

In this new social order, the primary aims of a government would be to bring about peace and prosperity, while preserving humanity’s unalienable rights; rights unbound by any social or economic restrictions. Each individual was granted the same level of dignity and freedom irrespective of the designated constructs of status or class, and no one individual would be entitled to inherit any right, status, or obligation unavailable to another. Paine believed the government’s only restriction on the freedom of man should be to act as an arbitrator on the balance to be kept between common interest and individual interests; balancing the protection of man’s rights and freedoms, while maintaining that no individual interest shall take precedence over that of the nation and common good. Paine’s radical humanitarian convictions and ideals for society were pervasive in nature and to this day see him considered one of the most foundational thinkers in the modern political philosophy.