Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 1, 2021

The real important measure of the health of a country is the productive power of human labor to sustainably transform nature into needed goods and services. This is Hamiltonian political economy in its essence. Science and technology.

Productivity cannot be sustainable, or at least not productivity in transforming nature into needed goods and services. It will always be a matter of the degree of damage done.

@Che’ Pasa,

I hope the Wikrent theory of Hamilton and Hamiltonianism will be more discussed in deeper detail and widerly spread around for consideration.

However, should we ascribe the Manifest Destiny Holocaust of the Indigenous Nations to Hamiltonianism specifically? I thought these things were more overtly sought and supported by that great Jeffersonian, Jefferson himself; who as part of the Slaverist Plantocracy, believed in vast and massive land seizure and depopulation for repopulation with plantation owners and very overtly enslaved slaves. Most of the initial hugest land conquests and ethnic cleansings took place in the area which would become the “Southern States” . . . did they not?

And I thought Hamilton supported diplomatic recognition of Free Haiti. Whereas Jefferson opposed it. Is my memory wrong?

My googling indicates that Washington, Adams, and Hamilton backed recognition of Haiti and Hamilton helped draft its constitution. Jefferson ended this and recalled the US consul general from it.

Separately, I hope that over time, people will start to use the end of this thread, after all the Wikrent related replies to run their course, to begin leaving ideas, information, etc. about how to wage and win a cultural civil cold war of economic attrition and hopefully extermination against the Upper Class and the OverClass . . . as hard as that could be to even begin.

I will begin by offering a few inspirational sayings.

Every dollar is a bullet on the field of economic combat.
I am not my keeper’s brother.
Nobody owes the rich a living.

Free Trade is the New Slavery. Protecionism is the New Abolition.

America doesn’t owe China a living. Actually, America doesn’t owe China a God Damn thing.

There’s a start.

Most people, most Americans I mean, have no idea who Hamilton is and never will. It’s upon that you will build your revolution? And if it’s not a revolution you want to build, what’s the point of even wasting time on what or what wasn’t Hamilton? The only purpose I see it serves is for people to display how smart they are via regurgitation.

It’s kind of hilarious to assume Hamilton, Adams and/or Jefferson favored Haitian liberation. What they favored was separation of Haiti from France. By separating the slave-colony from the colonizer, the economy of the colony was up for grabs, and in the case of Haiti, smart men of the era in the newly independent United States realized and sought to exploit the potentials for profit from the “liberated” Haiti. Enslaved Haitiens or non.

There was never any intent to truly liberate Haiti and the Haitian people; the US interest, shared by Hamilton, was to separate Haiti from France and profit from the result. As it happened, France demanded exorbitant payment to let Haiti go, payment I’m led to believe is still required of Haiti, which on top of the extraction of profits and wealth, has left Haitians destitute.

Funny how that works.

But I have little doubt that feral cats are as prevalent in Port-au-Prince as they are in Istanbul, but I really don’t know 😀

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton are what I would call near-moderns. If I read a Classical Greek philosopher, I look more at the universal aspects of their thought and almost in spite of the particular local world they lived in.

With the Founders and Framers, it is more difficult. Sometimes they seem to speak directly to us and then there is this whole modernist mythology around them, as if they were exactly like us only greater and with no internet. So it is easy to forget how alien they and their world often are to us.

The municipality deliberately takes care of feral cats in Istanbul; in Port-au-Prince, not much of anything is taken care of.

Thank you everyone for your comments. There are many issues and questions raised, and if I fail to address any as the discussion processed, please raise the issue again.

I’m not sure where to begin, because the first thoughts that come to me do not really address any of the points raised. But here they are: because I highly regard Stoller’s body of work, I was very upset with his article on the Hamilton Hustle. So, I tried to find the sources for it. I settled on William Hogeland https://www.amazon.com/Whiskey-Rebellion-Washington-Challenged-Sovereignty/dp/B01FIWXE8Y
though, of course, many of the point made in attacking Hamilton originated with Jefferson and Madison at the time they were battling Hamilton for political control of the Washington and Adams administrations. I found Hogeland was connected to the von Mises Institute, which as far as I am concerned demolished any credibility he might have. There is no doubt as to why libertarians would hate Hamilton, who clearly was for a strong central government.

Many of you will probably dislike attacking the credibility of sources in this way, but I have found other instances. One of the funniest was actually sitting down and reading Charles Beard, who wrote An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. Beard was almost always cited by those who argued that the founders, including Hamilton, had merely created a national government to protect and advance their own power, wealth, and privilege. It turned out Beard did not actually write such a direct indictment of the founders. Hamilton, in particular, he praised for a selfless devotion to public duty. Beard was increasingly upset that his book had been taken as a Marxist analysis of the Constitution, and, about ten years after An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, Beard wrote The Economic Basis of Politics , in which he argued that Madison’s and Hamilton’s Federalist Papers model of economic factions had proven more useful and more supportive of liberty, than the models of Marx and Lenin.

I know that there are many people who are very supportive of Marx’s critique of capitalism, and I cannot help wondering if they dislike Hamilton because they understand or at least fear that Hamiltonian republicanism is a viable alternative to socialism and marxism.

This brings us to some of the criticisms of Hamilton. Does a Hamiltonian system depend on keeping an elite in power, and repressing other classes? I do not believe so, though I can easily see where someone can reach that conclusion based on what has been written ABOUT Hamilton by critics such as Hogeland. (I think it’s a delicious irony that so many marxists have adopted the arguments of a libertarian!) Now, I have not read everything Hamilton himself wrote, probably not even close to half of it. I have read the various lengthy reports he submitted as Treasury Secretary to Congress on the subjects of banking, credit, and manufactures, and also his argument to Washington supporting the establishment of a national bank. There are too many snippets sprinkled throughout these documents that are contrary to the view that Hamilton was an anti-democratic elitist [though there is something to Hamilton being an elitist, which I hope to address later]. For example, in his 2nd Report on Credit [sometimes referred to as The Report on a National Bank, but not that same as the report to Washington] Hamilton argued for a corporate structure that limited large shareholders to 30 votes, not matter how many shares they owned. Well, I suppose that is certainly anti-democratic, but it is intended, as Hamilton explicitly argued, to limit the power that could be purchased by the wealthy.

Another snippet of Hamilton that comes to mind is his argument that promoting the activity of the human mind is the best way to increase the wealth of a nation. He does not write about promoting the mental activity of only bankers, or only the rich, or only government officials, or only farmers. Or even only manufacturers, though that is the broader context of this particular snippet.

None of this is to suggest that America’s ruling elites TODAY are any less well entrenched and privileged as Britain’s. They are. The point is to compare the ruling elites of the end of the 18th century in both countries and see if there is any continuity with ruling elites today. Clearly, there are different results. So, either Hamilton was a failure — or the argument that he intended to perpetuate wealth, power, and privilege is simply not true.

It is a simple social science experiment, and its results are conclusive.

The fact that America’s ruling elites TODAY are as well well entrenched and privileged as Britain’s is merely an indication that USA as a republic has faltered, and become an oligarchy. And of course there is no solace in that.

“A Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change”
Very interesting, but does NOT “Upend plans to fight climate change.” In fact, it was implicit all along: soil carbon is a flow, not a stock – not unless it’s deeply buried and fossilized. Or frozen. However, as long as more goes in than comes out, you’re sequestering carbon, potentially on a very large scale. Since farming has generally greatly depleted soil carbon, there is vast room for improvement, enough to have a significant effect on climate. The catch: you have to keep doing the right things, or the carbon starts coming back out.

The advantage: increasing soil carbon also improves fertility and production. It’s a win-win. The hard part: convincing millions of old, cranky, conservative farmers to change the way they operate. The best route is probably through the extension services, where they’re accustomed to getting their information, but this is still an uphill battle. Worse, it’s against the interests of the fertilizer and equipment sales people, the other usual source of information. Social engineering is the hardest.

“https://prospect.org/politics/how-joe-biden-defanged-the-left/” – That is the Democratic Party’s role in our politics. You’d think more “leftists” would catch on.

I don’t know enough about Hamilton to really comment on him in any depth, but I will say that the way he has been embraced by a broad cross-section of our modern elite is horrifying. Because they don’t know about him in any depth either, their perception of him is entirely shaped by that godawful musical that turns him into a conservative rags-to-riches immigrant story (Hamilton was never in rags, I know that much). It’s vapid pablum, filtered through identity politics. Whatever they’re getting out of it, it has little to do with the historical Hamilton. If one of the criticisms of Hamilton the man is that he favored strong centralized government, there’s precious little of that type of thinking among our modern elites who have embraced Hamilton the brown-washed musical.

I will say though that if someone is going to criticism Hamilton as an elitist, basically all of the founders were elitists (yes, even Jefferson). None of these men believed in democracy as we would understand it. They were all versed in Greek and Latin and took much of their thinking straight from Plato. They wanted a republic: a state where the running of the nation was considered a public affair, and not the exclusive domain of a nobility or royal family. This doesn’t mean they wanted to give the people direct power though. They wanted public will ‘filtered’ through a body of property owning ‘worthies’. They didn’t even want the Senate, a direct counterpart of the British House of Lords, directly elected.

Much of the history of the United States is the history of this republican model getting gradually more democratic. I suspect most of the founders would be appalled by what we’ve done to their creation, starting with universal voter suffrage (including for women, the horror!).

Hamilton wanted an aristocracy, but the word “aristocracy” today has much greater negative meaning than it did at the time. At the time, the idea was that the men who were willing and most able to accept the responsibility of civic leadership would be elevated by their fellow citizens to positions of power. Reading about the Constitutional Convention, and the ratification in the states, it is clear to me that was the central argument for the electoral college — to make sure the President was selected by the “elite” of “citizens.”

I put quote marks around “citizens” because that is another word that has changed much in meaning. Today, it does not carry the weight, dignity and gravitas that it once did. No doubt because it seems our experiment in republican self government is failing — if not already at an end. But I would also point to the baneful influence of liberalism and capitalism, where “citizens” today are valued more as “voters” who “consume” carefully packaged political candidates. I have heard of at least one liberal political action group pushing for medicare for all that refers to potential sympathetic voters and supporters as “consumers” of that groups “products.” It has caused some considerable pushback within the group.

Also, regarding the word “aristocracy,” it is useful to recall that the reason the Americans originally hated the British aristocracy was because it had become corrupt, and was failing to perform its civic duty of protecting and promoting the public interest — including most particularly its failure to stand up to the king , the king’s ministers, and the Board of Trade. Being a subject of the British crown meant quite bit in the mid-18th century, and the explicit complaint of the Americans is that their rights as British subjects were being ignored and violated. This cultural sense of right and duties was transferred to the concept of being “a citizen of the republic,” and it impressed, among others, de Tocqueville so strongly that he was inspired to write an entire book about it.

We have become so cynical in our age, that I do not think we appreciate this historical change in political culture. So it is left to a child if Indian immigrants, Ganesh Sitaraman to point out in his 2017 book, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic, that before World War Two, Americans were generally hostile to and suspicious of the monarchies and oligarchies of Europe. I don’t think we appreciate today how strong Anglophobia was in our past. But World War Two, and then the Cold War, caused an important shift, to the enemies of “America” and “democracy” being defined as communism and fascism, with the monarchies of Europe as allies instead of enemies. Remember that up until World War Two, the three major war plans maintained by the USA Army and Navy were for fighting Germany, Japan — and Great Britain. That revolution in USA political culture literally turned the world on its head as far as Americans are concerned.

My reading of American history included the Whig Party, trying to understand the background of Abraham Lincoln. A key book I recommend to everyone is Gabor Borit’s 1978 Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (again, leave it to an immigrant, from Hungary in this case, to resurrect a key part of American history). It is clear to me that the American republic was explicitly seen as a refuge for Europeans seeking freedom from rule by oligarchs and monarchs. The work William Stephen Hamilton did in Illinois in the 1820s to prevent Illinois adopting a second constitution that would allow slavery, had crucial support from the European immigrants in Illinois, many of whom has been attracted to the state by land companies that recruited in Germany, Sweden, and elsewhere. Obviously, slavery was not a selling point, and actually would have destroyed the advertising campaigns of these companies.

And, there are statements by Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, and others, about USA being precisely such a refuge for liberty from the tyranny of Europe. It is particularly striking how this rhetoric became an integral part of the political debate defending protectionism against free trade. Abraham Lincoln’s economic adviser, Henry Carey, is particularly fierce on this issue:

“Men are everywhere flying from British commerce, which everywhere pursues them. Having exhausted the people of the lower lands of India, it follows them as they retreat toward the fastnesses of the Himalaya. Afghanistan is attempted, while Scinde and the Punjab are subjugated. Siamese provinces are added to the empire of free trade, and war and desolation are carried into China, in order that the Chinese may be compelled to pay for the use of ships, instead of making looms. The Irishman flies to Canada; but there the system follows him, and he feels himself insecure until within this Union. The Englishman and the Scotsman try Southern Africa, and thence they fly to the more distant New Holland, Van Dieman’s Land, or New Zealand. The farther they fly, the more they must use ships and other perishable machinery, the less steadily can their efforts be applied, the less must be the power of production, and the fewer must be the equivalents to be exchanged, and yet in the growth of ships, caused by such circumstances, we are told to look for evidence of prosperous commerce!

“The British system is built upon cheap labour, by which is meant low priced and worthless labor. Its effect is to cause it to become from day to day more low priced and worthless, and thus to destroy production upon which commerce must be based. The object of protection is to produce dear labour, that is, high-priced and valuable labour, and its effect is to cause it to increase in value from day to day, and to increase the equivalents to be exchanged, to the great increase of commerce.” (Carey, 1851, The Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing & Commercial, pp. 71-72)

(For more fiery attacks on Britain by Carey, see Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization, Versus British Free Trade. Letters in Reply to the London Times
By Henry C. Carey. Philadelphia, Collins, Printer, 705 Jayne Street. 1876.
https://archive.org/details/commercechristia00care )

Because my avocation for over two decades now has been selling books on industrial and transportation history, Carey is especially interesting for me. He inherited and ran what was the largest publishing firm in USA for about 3/4 of the 19th century. Though it was Carey’s firm that introduced fiction to American readers, the overwhelming majority of their catalog was comprised of books on scientific and technical subjects: iron making, metal working, machinery building, textile manufacture, steam engines, locomotives, glass making, etc., etc. After Carey retired in the 1850s to work exclusively on political economy, the firm was run by his nephew Henry Carey Baird. (See the list of titles at https://theworld.com/~cbw/BAIRD2.htm )

Carey’s publishing company was the foundation of the dissemination of scientific and technological information and knowledge through the entire 19th century, and is thus an important ingredient in the industrialization of USA. Carey explicitly self-identified as a Hamiltonian. And Carey’s work in political economy makes it inseparable from the cause of republican self government. This is reinforced by the efforts of the various agricultural and mechanic associations that were formed in early USA. The key book on this is Lawrence A. Peskin’s 2003 Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry. For those unhappy with my positive view of American history thus far, Peskin also discusses how the focus of the mechanic associations began to shift in response to the rise of large manufacturing companies.

My sense so far is that “leftist” interpretation of American history is hobbled because it ignores this actual history of USA political economy and how the country actually industrialized because it is not exclusively a woeful tale of exploitation. To this, add the complication of slavery. There has always been a powerful political faction in USA that opposed Hamilton, industrialization, protectionism, the constitutional mandate to promote the General Welfare, and expanding the scale and scope of self-government by making it ever more inclusive. By the time of the Civil War, this faction had developed its own version of political economy, which rested on an explicitly elite: the Confederate “mud sill” theory “that there must be, and always has been, a lower class or underclass for the upper classes and the rest of society to rest upon.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudsill_theory)

It is thus important to be able to distinguish between an Alexander Hamilton, and a John Calhoun. Nancy MacLean’s 2017 book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, is a major contribution in this regard. MacLean details how Calhoun and the southern planter elite relentlessly opposed and usurped the original meanings of the USA republic.