Thomas Spence

Thomas Spence (born June 21, 1750, Newcastle, Northumberland, now in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear—died Sept. 8, 1814, London) was a British pamphleteer known for his early advocacy of the socialization of land. Spence came of Scottish working class origins. At 25 he presented to the Newcastle Philosophical Society his paper The Real Rights of Man, advocating that land be owned by democratically organized local corporations that would rent it out at moderate...