John Locke, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine - The Quest for Liberty

In this episode, Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson explore the ideas of John Locke and Thomas Paine, building on and going beyond the discussion at the History of Ideas Club. Locke’s Two Treatises of Government argued that governments derive legitimacy from the consent of the governed, laying the groundwork for modern liberal democracy. Paine took this further, calling for radical action in Common Sense and The Rights of Man, rejecting monarchy and gradual reform in favor of immediate change.
The episode also considers Edmund Burke, who saw Paine’s revolutionary zeal as reckless, warning that societies cannot be reshaped overnight without consequence. Was Paine an extension of Locke’s thought or a break from it? Can a social contract be rewritten, or must it evolve? These questions remain central to political thought, and this discussion pushes beyond the debates from book club to examine their enduring relevance.