He went on to publish The American Crisis, a series of articles starting 1776 and ending in 1783. He subsequently published other books and articles.
The following passage is from a text in which he defends himself against the charge of libel - a charge directed against him by some who supported the British monarchy.
Notice how Paine unpacks his reasons for opposing hereditary government: monarchy leads to taxation, and taxation is oppression. Paine discovered an axiom of political economics: taxation does not lead to oppression, it does not enable oppression: it is oppression.
Monarchy also leads to poor education, to the neglect of the elderly and disabled, to a breakdown of diplomacy, and to more frequent and more vicious wars. Monarchy is an obstacle, Paine claims, to “peace, civilization, and commerce.” Monarchy is a “political superstition” which degrades humanity.
Monarchy leads to all these things, and monarchy is so closely associated with taxation that one might plausibly argue that taxation leads to all these things - indeed, that taxation is all these things. Paine writes:
If to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government to lessen the oppression of taxes - to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed - to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other - to extirpate the horrid practice of war - to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce - and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous, let me live the life of a libeller, and let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb.
Paine’s attack on monarchy is so closely linked with his attack on taxation that it may well be impossible to separate them - both conceptually and in matters of concrete historical circumstance. Recall that it was taxation which sparked the hostilities in North America in 1775.
His later writings grew more diffuse as he wrestled intellectually with the machinations of the French Revolution, but even when he flirted with socialist or redistributionist economic schemes, Paine retained a healthy skepticism about taxation.
Note his use of the word ‘commerce’ in the text above: when the private sector is not fettered by taxation, prosperity and political liberty are the natural results.
