One sweet potato, peeled, cubed 3/4.
One medium onion, peeled, cubed 3/4.
1 Tablespoon olive oil.
Oven at 400F

Toss the ingredients together so the potatoes and onions are lightly but completely coated by the oil. Break apart the onions while tossing. Put in a shallow baking dish, one large enough to avoid stacking, but small enough everything is one mass.

Bake for 50 minutes to one hour at 400 degrees F till the potatoes are soft. The onion will caramelize.

Note: there is no salt here. You can after it’s done, but the flavors are strong enough it’s a matter of want, not need.

Anyway, this is almost too sweet for me — almost a cake more than a bread. A dense, moist cake.

Oven: 350F.
Pans: 2x standard loaf pans, lightly greased.

CREAM: 1 c Butter, 3 c sugar.
ADD and MIX: 3 eggs, slightly beaten.
ADD and MIX: 16 ounces pumpkin puree (or a 15 ounce can).

COMBINE and SIFT TOGETHER:

3 c flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

ADD DRY TO WET. Mix Thoroughly. (makes a stiff batter)

Split batter between pans.
Bake for 1 hour.

Makes 2 loaves.

A while back I posted about chupaquesos, a food invention of Howard Tayler. Looks like I’m going to have to do it again. But let’s get just a little more imaginative.

Grate up a half-pound or so of a cheese. Cheddar works well. So does swiss. And jack, and gouda, and even mozzarella. In fact, for this exercise let’s go with mozzarella. Go ahead and grate up a half pound of mozzarella.

Now heat up a skillet or griddle. Cast iron, non-stick, electric skillet, it really doesn’t matter. Whichever, heat it to medium. Now you’re going to sprinkle some of that grated cheese right in the middle. Not a lot this first time, just enough to make about a six inch circle. Perfection is not required here. Now wait. Watch it melt, smell it toast. Try not to drool too badly.

Get your spatula ready. When the edge gets a bit brown (about a minute to a minute and a half) you’re going to flip this just like a crepe or a pancake. Let it toast for another minute or two, then flip it onto a plate and let it cool a bit. Don’t touch it right away as it WILL burn you. Let it sit for three to five minutes, however, and you can pick it up and eat it. Just like a flat, crisp sheet of bread. You now have the two critical pieces of knowledge. First, that you can toast/fry cheese, rendering out the fats and leaving a crispy sheet. Second, that it is delicious.

Delicious as it is, it’s just the start. But it’s got this potential. It’s a flat, crisp sheet. Like… oooh, pizza. What if we make another sheet, perhaps a bit larger — say, 8 to 10 inches across. Now while it’s browning let’s top it. Sprinkle it with some spices, things like basil and oregano. Dribble a little crushed garlic over it. Toss on some pepperoni, and maybe a little diced tomato, and at the last just a little more shredded mozzarella. Now instead of flipping just slide that out and onto the plate. You’ll never look at pizza the same way again. Oh – and if you want it “to go”, fold it in half before it comes out of the pan. Sure, call it a calzone if you want.

What’s something else? Well, how about this time we use cheddar. Now sprinkle it with some chorizzo, and at the last instant add some softly scrambled eggs. Fold it so it make an inside out omelette, and serve it with a bit of sour cream and salsa.

These cheese shells make good taco shells, by the way. An easy “form” if you don’t have the tools is to purchase some cheap corn taco shells. Toast one side of the cheese, flip and toast the other, then remove it and drape it over the shell. Because both sides are toasted it (usually) doesn’t stick. Another tool is a narrow rolling pin. Just drape it over the pin till it cools and hardens, set it aside and make the next shell.

I have to mention the downside – yes, there is one. When you cook the cheese this way you’re rendering out some of the fats. The result will feel greasy. It IS greasy. If you think about it, it’s the fat that was already in the cheese but it can be offputting for some. That means it won’t work for some people and some dishes. Blotting helps in some cases, but it’s best to plan ahead.

Mostly, that’s due to depression. About a week ago I ‘celebrated’ having three full years of unemployment. Starting about a year ago job offers were few and far between, even though I’d significantly expanded the bottom of what I’d take. (scut work, no-education jobs, hourly, …) There is a simple reality that right now it’s a buyer’s – sorry, employer’s – market. There are so many people looking for so few jobs that employers have to use large-scale weeding of the applicants. One of the easiest is long-term unemployment, followed closely by ANY unemployment. After all, regardless how good the person is there are obviously better or the person would have gotten a job by now – would not have been the one cut.

sigh.

Anyway, I’m going to start a business of my own. I had planned to make it a retirement business — something I did to keep a few extra dollars coming in after retirement. It’s going to take work and it’s going to be disappointing for a while. Ironically, it’ll clean up my resume — I’ll still have that long gap, but at least I finally broke out and did something.

What this means for this blog is that I don’t expect to post much, if any. An official declaration of what already exists, if you will. I figure one or two more posts in the next couple of months just to point any readers to my business, and after that anything that appears is a bonus.

Thank you all for taking time to read now and then. Be well and have fun.

Lest we forget, Dylan nailed who they were all about back in 1962.

For your pleasure, Dylan’s song.

Now, my most frequent (and half-joking) remark is that I’d like to sell Disney on the idea of a Disney Land to Disney World route. While it’d work it’s clunky and to be honest not really going to sell the system.

However, I have a ‘real’ proposal for the HSR people. See, most of the time HSR gets sold as a commuter concept. That’s possible, but it requires balancing the convenience of the automobile. I think it’s eventually going to be necessary and maybe obvious, but it’s a bad fight at this instant. Instead, I think the HSR should aim at a more logical opponent: air travel.

I would push one route as the proof of concept. New York City to Miami, with stops in DC, Atlanta, and Orlando FL.

NYC Miami is the US air route with the most passengers. There is plenty of demand for the route. NY Atlanta and Atlanta Miami are consistently in the top five routes by the same measure. ATL Orlando is in the top ten. Why DC? Partly politics, partly that DC is a very high destination. Should there be something between DC and Atlanta? Maybe – it is a long way, but there isn’t THAT large of an attraction route for the first run.

Now, NYC to Miami is 3 hours by non-stop travel — up to five for most connections. The route I mentioned is ~1500 miles. At 200 mph that’s 7.5 hours, and you can add another hour or so for the three stops. 3 hours vs 8.5 hours, airplane vs train. Subsidize the train as much as airlines are subsidized and the train, even HSR, should be a bit less expensive.

Once proven possible there are several options. Los Angeles to Seattle. LA to Atlanta. Seattle to NYC by way of Chicago. (Another favorite though less profitable San Fran SLC Denver Kansas City Chicago.) That’s the passenger lines – add the freight routes too when NY-Miami is proven as well.

But the sale is in passengers, and that’s where I’d push if I really could push.

I can’t. Not because I’ve lost the skills, but because the highly touted plan isn’t there. There’s not enough there to analyze. There are a few numbers, but it’s mostly polemic and outline.

Let’s take, for example, the change to the tax code. The WHOLE of it is that the brackets will be consolidated, the top rate reduced to 25%, and loopholes will be closed. mmmmmkay.

There are currently six brackets: 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 35%. So right away I can see that individuals making more than 82,400 and families of more than $137,300 will get a reduction — the top three brackets will be reduced. I can INFER that they’ll be combined with the third bracket. If I let past statements of both Ryan and the GOP’s right wing AND the Heritage Foundation that blessed this budget lead me, I can also GUESS that the 10 and 15% brackets will be increased.

There is no there to tell me otherwise. All that’s there is that brackets will be consolidated and the top bracket will be 25%. One flat tax rate of 25% meets that as well as thinking the 10 and 15 remain or get cut themselves.

And while it claims loopholes will be closed, there’s no statement of what loopholes those might be.

Medicaid will be a block grant to be distributed to states, but the rules and the numbers or even the basis of calculation aren’t there. Medicare will be vouchers – sorry, subsidized payments – to plans that have minimum requirements, but what those requirements might be aren’t there.

We do know the size of the payments. $15,000 per year – in ten years, not adjusted. Now, I’m 51 and I’ve a wife with medical issues who’s a little younger. For $15,000 – $1,250 per month – I can get a plan with a $500 deductible, then it covers 90% of expenses. The deductible does not include the cost of my family’s medications; for what we have RIGHT NOW we’d spend $100 per month excluding my daughter’s needs. When I turn 55 (I’ve checked) the same plan will cost me $1500 per month. At 60 it’s $1,800 per month. Why? Because as we get older we need more medical care. Not all of us, but more of us and more frequently. Anyway, that $1250 per month will get me (if I’m 60) $1000 deductible 75% expenses covered. If you’re making $100,000 per year that’s nothing. If you’re getting a social security check of about $2000 per month, some months you do without – medicine, food, or shelter, pick two. By the way, even the Republican forecast is that current trend growth of healthcare will mean that in ten years that $1250 will be worth about $650 for health care measures. Go price what you can get for $650, and remember the social security/retirement income for most people is under $2000 per month — as low as $1000 per month.

And these are only some of the issues. The plan says the energy industry needs regulations removed AND the oilfields in protected areas need to be opened. No mention of any restrictions on those. Same for financial regulations — the bill passed last year is too onerous and needs to be repealed. Repeal of the Health Care bill is also a big priority — it gets four Special Mention pages in the plan.

Oh, and pass HR1 in its entirety AND the presidential finance commission’s plan in its entirety (except where HR1 or this bill go further).

There are no numbers. There’s enough rhetoric, however, to have a clear understanding of intent. Take everything on the Tea Party agenda except requiring proof of Christian faith for all rights and benefits. (More accurately, deny full rights to non-Christians.)

It’s not a budget proposal. It’s a reiteration of the Tea Party platform.

Of 27%.

From $7.1 MILLION.

If your business isn’t doing well enough to add jobs…?

TO PRESERVE the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy a at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.

Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized.

To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.

Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufacturers.

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.

It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The reason is that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated.

When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, art and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state.

In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization communities, ought not to be worse than it he had been born before that period.

But the fact is that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America at the present day. I will show how this fact has happened.

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to he, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with the rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.

It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing as from all the histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced with cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that of hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the Bible may be credited in probable things, were owners of land.

Their property consisted, as is always enumerated in flocks and herds, and they traveled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions at that time about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, where those people lived, also show that there was no landed property. It was not admitted that land could be claimed as property.

There could be no such thing at landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility or separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made.

The value of the improvement so far exceeded the value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right of the individual. But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of rights, and will continue to be, so long as the earth endures.

It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his own. I have entitled this tract “Agrarian Justice” to distinguish it from “Agrarian Law.”

Nothing could be more unjust than agrarian law in a country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted, became the property of those who did it, or who inherited ii from them, or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. While, therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor to the part which is his.

Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. Nor it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not he brought forward afterwards till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honor to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings.

Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:

And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

Means By Which The Fund Is To Be Created

I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race; that in that state, every person would have been born to property; and that the system of landed property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it dispossessed, without providing as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss.

The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of the present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and be in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after, as I shall show.

It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious distinctions. It is also right it should be so, 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. Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the common fund.

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.

Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes or emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the Revolution, but because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it) is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.

My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to round calculations with such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree sufficiently with fact. In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity, all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though many persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years, after the age of twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of that time.

Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without any material variation one way or other, the average of time in which the whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have gone by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the possession of one person, other parts will have revolved two or three times before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to that average; for were one-half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole revolved once.

Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year, that is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being thus known, and the ratio per cent to be subtracted from it determined, it will give the amount or income of the proposed fund, to be applied as already mentioned.

In looking over the discourse of the English Minister, Pitt, in his opening of what is called in England the budget (the scheme of finance for the year 1796), I find an estimate of the national capital of that country. As this estimate or a national capital is prepared ready to my hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and population be more or less.

I am the more disposed to take this estimate of Mr. Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own calculation, how much better money may be employed than in wasting it, as he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What, in the name of heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is better that the people have bread.

Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal, to be one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about one fourth part of the national capital of France, including Belgia. The event of the last harvest in each country proves that the soil of France is more productive than that of England, and that it can better support twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of England can seven or seven and a half millions.

The thirtieth part of this capital of L1,300,000,000 is L43,333,333 which is the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country to new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France in the proportion of four to one, will be about one hundred and seventy-three millions sterling. From this sum of L43,333,333 annually revolving, is to be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance absorbed in it, which, perhaps, in fair justice, cannot be taken at less, and ought not to be taken for more, than a tenth part.

It will always happen that of the property thus revolving by deaths every year a part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, and the other part collaterally, and the proportion will he found to be about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of L13,333,333 to more distant relations, and in part to strangers.

Considering, then, that man is always related to society, that relationship will become comparatively greater proportion as the next of kin is more distant; it is therefore consistent with civilization to say that where there are no direct heirs society shall be heir to a part over and above the tenth part due to society.

If this additional part be from five to ten or twelve per cent, in proportion as the next of kin be nearer or more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may fall, which ought always to go to society and not to the government (an addition of ten per cent more), the produce from the annual sum of L43,333,333 will be:

From L30,000,000 at ten per cent L3,000,000
From L13,333,333 at ten per cent with the addition of ten percent more L2,666,666
L43,333,333 L5,666,666

Having thus arrived at the annual amount or the proposed fund, I come, in the next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund and to compare it with the uses to which the fund is to be applied.

The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions and a half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in that case be about four hundred thousand. There would not, however, he more than that number that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling per annum, though they would he entitled to it. I have no idea it would be accepted by many persons who had a yearly income of two or three hundred pounds sterling. But as we often see instances of rich people falling into sudden poverty, even at the age of sixty, they would always have the right of drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions, therefore, of the above annual sum of L5,666,666 will be required for four hundred thousand aged persons, ten pounds sterling each.

I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years of age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one years, the number of persons annually arriving at that age must be equal to the annual number of deaths, to keep the population stationary. But the greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the number of persons annually arriving at twenty-one will be less than half the number of deaths.

The whole number of deaths upon a population of seven millions and a half will be about 220,000 annually. The number arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about 100,000. The whole number of these will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for the reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would be entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving it, the amount would stand thus:

Fund annually L5,666,666
To 400,000 aged persons at L10 each L4,000,000
To 90,000 persons of 21 yrs., L15 ster. each L1,350,000
– L5,350,000
Remains L316,666
There are. in every country, a number blind and lame persons totally incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above the age of fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The remaining sum of L316,666 will provide for the lame and blind under that age, at the same rate of L10 annually for each person.

Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some observations.

It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good.

I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be suffocated cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the felicity of affluence than the proposed ten per cent upon property is worth. He that would not give the one to get rid of the other has no charity, even for himself.

There are, in every country, some magnificent claritics established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.

The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve and take out of view three classes of wretchedness — blind, the lame, and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with means to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do this without deranging or interfering with any national measures.

To show that this will be the case, it is sufficient to observe that the operation and effect of the plan will, in all cases, be the same as if every individual were voluntarily to make his will and dispose of his property in the manner here proposed.

But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan. In all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally active than charity; and, with respect to justice, it ought not to he left to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice or not. Considering, then, the plan on the ground of justice, it ought to be the act of the whole growing spontaneously out of the principles of the revolution, and the reputation of it ought to be national and not individual.

A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens. The national domains also would sell the better if pecuniary aids were provided to cultivate them in small lots.

It is the practise of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization (and the practise merits not to be called either charity or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor? This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with.

The rugged face of society, checkered with the extremes of affluence and want, proves that some extraordinary violence has been committed upon it, and calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the poor in all countries are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible for them to get out of that state of themselves. It ought also to be observed that this mass increases in all countries that are called civilized. More persons fall annually into it than get out of it.

Though in a plan of which justice and humanity are the foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of any plan to show that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The success of any proposed plan submitted to public consideration must finally depend on the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the justice of its principles.

The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will consolidate the interest of the republic with that of the individual. To the numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the system of landed property it will be an act of national justice. To persons dying possessed of moderate fortunes it will operate as a tontine to their children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid into the fund: and it will give to the accumulation of riches a degree of security that none of the old governments of Europe, now tottering on their foundations, can give.

I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear property left of five hundred pounds sterling. To all such the plan is advantageous. That property would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if there were only two children under age they would receive fifteen pounds each (thirty pounds), on coming of age, and be entitled to ten pounds a year after fifty.

It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund will support itself; and I know that the possessors of such property in England, though they would eventually be benefited by the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But without entering into any inquiry how they came by that property, let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria and the Bourbons against the liberties of France, than would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan.

I have made the calculations stated in this plan, upon what is called personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon land is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property into the calculation is equally well founded though on a different principle. Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to mike land originally.

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence.

It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labor to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for the injustice, that were a workman to receive an increase of wages daily he would not save it against old age, nor be much better for it in the interim. Make, then, society the treasurer to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason that, because he might not make a good use of it for himself, another should take it.

The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot continue when once investigation begins in any country, that makes the possessors of property dread every idea or a revolution. It is the hazard and not the principle of revolutions that retards their progress. This being the case, it necessary as well for the protection of property as for the sake of justice and humanity, to form a system that, while it preserves one part of society from wretchedness, shall secure the other from depredation.

The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendor, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security.

To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and this can only be done by making property productive of a national blessing, extending to every individual. When the riches of one man above another shall increase the national fund in the same proportion; when its, shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on the prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man acquires, the better it shall be for the general mass; it is often that antipathies will cease, and property be placed on the permanent basis or national interest and protection.

I have no property in France to become subject to the plan 1 propose. What I have, which is not much, is in the United States of America. But I will pay one hundred pounds sterling toward this fund in France, the instant it shall be established; and I will pay the same sum in England, whenever a similar establishment shall take place in that country.

A revolution in the state of civilization is the necessary companion of revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country be from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give that revolution effect.

Despotic government supports itself by abject civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them; and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.

It is a revolution in the state of civilization that will give perfection to the Revolution of France. Already the conviction that government by representation is the true system of government is spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But whcn a system of civilization, growing out of that system of government, shall be so organized that not a man or woman born in the Republic but shall inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before them the certainty of escaping the miseries that under other governments accompany old age, the Revolution of France will have an advocate and an ally in the heart of all nations.

An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management would fail: it is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the ocean that can arrest its progress: it will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.

Means For Carrying The Proposed Plan Into Execution,
And To Render It At The Same Time Conducive To The Public Interest

I. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons, as commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep a register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into execution.

II. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased persons shall be ascertained.

III. When the amount of the property of any deceased persons shall be ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age, the person authorized by the will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the choice of the payers. One-half of the whole property shall remain as a security until the bond be paid off.

IV. The bond shall be registered in the office of of the commissioners of the canton, and th0e original bonds shall be deposited in the national bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.

V. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations topersons arriving at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater degree of ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary register be kept, in each canton, of the names of the persons thus suspending that right, at least during the present war.

VI. As the inheritors or property must always take up their bonds in four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always be numeraire Icash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.

VII. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with numeraire continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be received in payment of taxes, or emprunts equal to numeraire, because the Government can always receive numeraire for them at the bank.

VIII. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent be made in numeraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan. But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property may pay ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in numeraire.

If the payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount; and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the fund equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will create means to carry itself into execution.

Thomas Paine.

(Thought as I try to pet just one, of three, without the other two noticing. Ha!)