Paine opens with a general discussion of international commerce, which naturally flourishes in peacetime. Freedom of trade, he argues, would remove one of the principal causes of national rivalry, but the British government regards balance-of-trade as a measure of national prosperity, so it seeks to beggar its neighbors. By the same principle, it seeks to monopolize trade by expanding its empire and then excluding foreigners from the colonized regions. Having connected the broader question of government to the material well-being of the people, Paine proceeds to a sweeping examination of social conditions in Britain and offers specific remedies.  

Paine argues that the workings of the British government produce poverty in the population. He examines how its ancient and un-representative electoral system has spawned, and then supported, an aristocracy. In the House of Lords, the privileged elite enjoy a special protection they neither need nor deserve. The aristocrats routinely deflect taxes from themselves, resulting in a disproportionate tax burden falling on the impoverished. Paine also attacks the aristocratic practice of primogeniture (in which the eldest son inherits all family property), as well as the extraordinary public expense of maintaining a monarchy. 

Moving from the general to the specific, Paine then attempts to calculate the precise cost of hereditary government in Britain.