The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent; and when compared with the active world are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.
In "Rights of Man," Paine sharply criticizes the aristocracy as unproductive consumers who contribute nothing to society's essential work.
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With how much more glory, and advantage to itself, does a nation act, when it exerts its powers to rescue the world from bondage, and to create itself friends, than when it employs those powers to increase ruin, desolation, and misery.
By the former, freedom has a national champion in the western world; and by the latter, in Europe.
Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.
When another nation shall join France, despotism and bad government will scarcely dare to appear.