Perspective

The perspective of Rights of Man is that of its author, Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine is one of the great figures of the Enlightenment, particularly its social and political thought. Specifically, Paine was an early radical liberal. Understand that at the end of the 18th century a 'liberal' was something very different from a liberal today.

Liberalism typically referred to a political philosophy and political program that endorsed (a) reduction of the power or disestablishment of state churches, (b) representative democratic government, (c) constitutionalism and the rule of law, (d) natural rights, including rights of free speech, press, religion and private property, (e) free trade and free markets, as opposed to corporate and government control of the economy, (f) moral cosmopolitanism, or the view that the people of one nation were not superior to another and that all humans had equal worth, (g) hostility to class structures, particularly...