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Teaching Tom Paine in the Age of Globalization

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Teaching Tom Paine in the Age of Globalization Teaching Tom Paine in the Age of Globalization Thomas C. Walker Department of Political Science University at Albany, SUNY [email protected] Paper delivered by "A Nation of Immigrants: American Democracy and Civics Education." Florida Atlantic University's Jack Miller Forum for Civics Education, Boca Raton, Florida, January 28-31, 2009 Introduction When Thomas Paine died in 1809, he was a man nearly forgotten and surely abandoned by those who played important roles in the American Revolution. In a quiet ceremony, he was laid to rest in a simple grave on his farm in New Rochelle, New York. He did not, however, rest in peace. In 1819, William Cobbett, a zealous admirer of Paine’s political thought, secretly disinterred the remains and transported them back to England. Cobbett wanted to commemorate Paine’s life with a fitting monument and final resting place. But the monument was never built and what became of the remains has been reduced to speculation. One account tells of how some of his bones were refused for sale at auction in 1835, after which a Unitarian clergyman kept Paine’s skull and right hand in his library (Ayer, 1988:182). Another tells of an old woman who claimed to have 1 played with Tom Paine’s jawbone when she was a child (Fruchtman, 1994:435). This story of scattered remains seems to reflect Paine's incomplete legacy in the American classroom. Paine's Common Sense, published in January of 1776, often serves as the most convincing justification for the Declaration of Independence. Here Paine made his famous clarion call that “we have it in our power to make the world over again….” Many of his later works published during the French Revolution go largely un-noticed in American classrooms. In this paper I would like to emphasize how Paine's later works, primarily Rights of Man, would be particularly helpful in teaching contemporary issues associated with globalization, economic interdependence, and democratization. This body of Paine's work seeks to export many of the foundational ideas of American liberalism to Europe. These include the virtues of free markets, human rights, and democracy. Paine also sought to spread democracy by force of arms if necessary. Questions of how to encourage free trade, democracy, and a respect for human rights have become integral to discussions of globalization. Paine’s later works can be used as a means to introduce students to the prevailing concerns of living in this period of increasing globalization. I also hope to show how Paine’s irrepressible optimism over the ease by which social and political transitions can occur closely reflect certain American attitudes. The Pew Global Survey, which covered more than 90,000 global opinions, show that Americans are more optimistic about the future than any other developed, wealthy nation. Ever since Winthrop’s famous claim that “we shall be as a city upon the hill, with the eyes of the upon us,” Americans envisioned their role in the world in an optimistic light. 2 In Common Sense, Paine made the lofty claim that “we have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Paine's Legacy: Paine's International Thought is reasonably well respected by many non- Americans. Torbjørn Knutsen, a Norwegian, noted how Paine “delivered one of the clearest (and most consequential) formulations of the claim that a state founded on democratic principles… must also be, fundamentally, against war.” In his Trevelyn Lectures at Cambridge, Sir Michael Howard referred to Paine’s Rights of Man as the single most forceful and original text on liberal internationalism. Every liberal, Howard concluded, “who has written about foreign policy since has been able to provide little more than an echo of Paine’s original philippic.” Finally, Sheikh Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, the Sunni Arab leader who would assume the interim Presidency of Iraq in 2004 following the American invasion, claimed that Paine was his “favorite philosopher.” But in the American classroom, Paine's International Thought is largely missing. By linking his thought with the process of Globalization, I want to show how Paine can still be salient. Defining Globalization: Since I am speaking of globalization, some definition is in order. Definitions of globalization are far too numerous for my liking. Is globalization the way to prosperity and peace? Or is it a threat to sovereign, self-determination and social stability within states? Champions of globalization and free trade view it as the fastest and most equitable way to economic growth and well-being. This is represented by the Washington Consensus. 3 Critics of globalization, full of rhetorical excess, see a globalization as a descent into a soulless world driven by the cold and unyielding logics of the market. My Definition: The increasing ease by which goods and "bads" can pass freely over state boundaries and impinge on state sovereignty: Among the goods I count products, capital, ideas, and people. Among the so-called "bads" I include disease, pollution, crime, drugs, terrorists and the capital to finance them. I might add something along the lines of how technology has helped speed up the process. Even though he wrote more than 200 years ago, many of his liberal- internationalist ideas speak to contemporary concerns with an increasingly globalized world. 1) Ideas of Free Trade are the driving force behind globalization. Paine’s ideas of Free Trade and Peace: Relevance China. 2) Democracy: The centrality of individual rights—both in the economic and the political realms—Look quickly at Brands book. 3) Military Intervention to Spread Democracy: Relevance Iraq. All three of these topics were discussed at length by Paine. 1. Paine and Free Trade: The second element of liberal internationalism prominent in Paine’s work is how peace might be achieved through free trade. Paine was arguably the first popular proponent of free trade as a means of promoting peace. In the widely circulated Rights of Man, Paine asserted: In all my writings, where the matter would permit, I have been a friend of commerce, because I have been a friend to its effects. It is a pacific system, operating to 4 cordialize mankind, by rendering nations, as well as individuals, useful to each other....If commerce were permitted to act to the universal extent it is capable, it would extirpate the system of war. Paine frequently pointed to how trade promotes international understandings, thereby working to ‘cordialize’ mankind. Like many Enlightenment thinkers, Paine saw how interaction and experience would foster learning and understanding between different nations. Economic interaction would work to acquaint nations with one another and reduce misunderstandings that might lead to conflict. More importantly, trade created a degree of economic interdependence that would increase the costs of military action. Finally, trade would not only produce wealth but it would also reduce conflict by promoting understanding and by creating shared economic interests between free trading nations. Combining democratic rule with free-trading states would be the surest path to peace. 2 Causal Processes: Society-Harmony Model Trade → Cordial Understandings → Harmony of Interests → Peace Business Interest Model Trade → Increasing Economic Interdependence → Material Interest → Peace. Both of these are relevant to American policies toward the PRC. 2) Paine and Democracy: An Optimistic View of Human Nature: For Paine, individuals are characterized by reason and goodness. Paine (1794, 83) presented the individual as essentially moral: "The moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation toward all his citizens." Goodness and moral duty are facilitated, if not ensured, by the harmony 5 of interests that reigns among all people. Individual goodness and harmony, however, have been obscured by corrupt forms of government. Paine ([1791] 1969, 169) noted that "man, were he not corrupted by [non-democratic] governments, is naturally the friend of man, and that human nature is not itself vicious." While monarchy corrupted societies at all levels, it is especially acute at the individual level. Paine ([1792] 1908, 286) argued how "the inhabitants of a monarchical country are often intellectually degenerate." Democratic revolution would free mankind from these corrupting influences and man's reason would emerge quickly to transform the world. Paine ([1791] 1969, 230) celebrated this rapid progress in both domestic and international relations: There is a morning of reason rising upon man on the subject of government, that has not appeared before. As the barbarism of the present old governments expires, the moral condition of nations with respect to each other will be changed. Man will not be brought up with the savage idea of considering his species as his enemy, because the accident of birth gave the individuals existence in countries distinguished by different names. Perhaps most importantly, Paine ([1791] 1969, 178) predicted that the transition to this 'morning of reason' would be swift and he doubted whether "monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries in Europe." Paine was confident that Europe would be democratically ruled by the end of the 18th century. The ease by which social transformation will occur remains one of the most distinctive characteristics of revolutionary liberal thought. Paine's example of political revolution was the United States. Paine's optimism regarding the formation of liberal institutions was largely a consequence of what he witnessed in America. For Paine, America in the 18th century was a least-likely but confirming case for a naturally emerging harmony. If individuals from different nations 6 and religions could come to live harmoniously in America, Paine ([1791] 1969, 188) reasoned, these virtues could be instilled throughout humanity: If there is a country in the world, where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America.
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