ABSTRACT
Central to Agrarian Justice was Thomas Paine's attempt to revive certain natural law arguments about the original community of property established on earth by God. Here Paine relied upon a crucial distinction derived from the natural law tradition but never before discussed by him, between 'natural property', or that given people by the creator of the universe, 'such as the earth, air, water', and 'artificial property', created by mankind. One important element in the theory of society derived from human nature, and specifically human needs. Paine was not, however, a primitivist, but was instead convinced that the more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself. The measures for solving the problem of poverty which Paine proposed in Agrarian Justice, written three years later, are often seen as an improved version of the scheme offered in the Rights of Man.
