Common Sense summary

Imagine you lived in British Colonial America. Back then, you could be taxed and wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The government, located an ocean away, could take your property and leave you helpless. Would you accept this state of affairs?

Of course not, and Thomas Paine didn't either. Instead, he wrote a pamphlet, Common Sense, which outlined what perfect government would look like.

So, how do you go about constructing a society the right way? These blinks will show you how.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

• why societies need rules to steer people’s behavior;
• why representation is needed as societies grow; and
• how England crippled the American economy prior to the American Revolution.

We all know how difficult it can be to make simple decisions with colleagues and family members. Even small tasks like deciding what kind of takeout to order can turn into huge debates. But imagine trying to make the same decision with thousands of people. Impossible, right?

For this reason, as a society grows, representative governance becomes a necessity. Since making decisions in big groups is nearly impossible, larger societies require a different way to make decisions.

The best way to do so is to designate representatives for different groups in society through elections, in which people vote for others who share their views.

But one election won’t ensure that voters are represented. For this, elections must be held often, because they connect representatives with those who elect them. Therefore, having frequent elections keeps the people who govern a society attuned to the issues that are most important to their constituents.

So what does this say about a system of governance with no elections, such as a monarchy? It proves that monarchy is the worst form of government.  

All people are created equal, and to elevate one above the rest contradicts the will of God. Therefore, it’s contrary to nature and God’s will for a society to be governed by an omnipotent ruler, like a king.

But that’s not the only problem with monarchy – another issue is its hereditary basis for transferring power.

Even if one monarch was benevolent, what’s to say that his heirs will be the same? Instead of getting a good ruler, you might get a child or even a complete lunatic ruling over an entire society. Unlikely? Well, both actually happened within the English line of succession!

In fact, being born into power can itself be corrupting. An absolutely sane person might be driven mad by the knowledge of their unchallenged future rule.

Systems with elections are a more egalitarian form of governance, but to really see the evils of monarchy and the benefits of representative government in action, it helps to take a look at real-life example: the American Revolution, an event that the author himself helped instigate.

You know how every teenager reaches a stage where they need their independence? The same goes for certain countries. Sometimes, when a country comes of age, it demands its own freedom, and no example is clearer than the case of the United States and Britain.

It’s obvious that no country should be able to claim ownership over another or its people. As such, the British claim to America was based on the assumption that the American population was British. Unfortunately for Britain, this turned out to be untrue; people identify as whatever they want to, and in this case, they wanted to be American.

For instance, plenty of people in England have French ancestors, but that doesn’t make them French. And even if Britain was the “mother country,” the way she treated her child was unacceptable.

By imposing harsh taxes, the English monarchy crippled America’s economy, and people who stood up to the unfair taxation were punished in the cruelest of ways. Some of those who protested the taxation were even killed by the British at the Boston Massacre!

But what made the heavy taxes even more insulting was the fact that British America had no representation in the British parliament. Therefore, Americans had no say in the laws governing them, making British rule tyrannical.

The result?

A country in the service of another is bound to lose economic power, and America was no exception. Britain forbade many American ports from trading with countries like France and Spain when Britain was at war with them. This impinged on the freedom of Americans by preventing their ports from growing into the thriving trading posts they could have been, which would have enabled them to buy and sell goods from all over the world.

In fact, trade with other countries would have been easy, as the resources available in America were coveted the world over. Although they covered only one-eighth of their modern-day territory at the time, the Americas boasted stocks of iron, furs and various other goods that were in high demand.