Thomas Paine
322 citations

The earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. As the land gets cultivated, it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is in individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent..to every person, rich or poor...because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who did

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HumanityPolitics

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