Main Street, Hudson, Ohio, June 14, 2014 (Kenneth Sponsler / Shutterstock.com)Autarky, from Hamilton to Trump
Carson Holloway’s Liberty Forum essay provides an opportunity to discuss an important historical document with current debates about the American economy in mind. The chief issues that Alexander Hamilton raises in his 1791 Report on Manufactures are the role of manufacturing in the economy and government’s role in encouraging it. It should be remembered that the context in which Hamilton is writing is the transition from British colony to independent nation, and the security concerns faced by the Americans after they won their independence. Three European empires (France, Spain, and Britain) were present on the continent; the Americans were plagued with…
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Operating a specific enterprise, whatever its aim or product, requires focusing on measurable quantities of inputs and their measurable effects on outputs. Qualitative factors may enter into that equation, but only as they are necessary to the successful attainment of the specific object in question. That is the mindset of the manager of an “enterprise…
The great insight of Alexander Hamilton is that all serious nations take serious measures on behalf of their own security and prosperity. This is what good governments do. There is a clarity here that is absent from our current partisan debates, if only because Hamilton unapologetically offers good government as a foundation for republican government.…
It is a pleasure to read, think about, and respond to the three insightful and knowledgeable critiques of Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures that have appeared in this Liberty Law Forum. These are also fair-minded critiques, since they all give Hamilton due credit for his many virtues, even as they take him to task for…
