Alexander Hamilton and Capitalism: Making America

Alexander Hamilton, the first treasurer of the United States, knew there was a better way for nations to become prosperous than by conquering others. What was his strategy, and did it work?

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Script:.

For most of human history, wealth was presumed to be limited.

Think about a kid on a playground with 10 marbles. How can he get more? There is just one possibility. He needs to take another person’s marbles.

Till reasonably just recently, wealth was mainly in land and the only way to get more land was to take it. Conquest was the natural mode of human acquisition..

And that’s how most nations grew and progressed– through force and conquest..

The American Revolution was motivated in large part by resistance to this old way of doing things. To put it mildly, the colonists didn’t like the idea that the English crown might take their cash or home without their authorization..

” No taxation without representation,” they protested..

Still, the control of cash and property was only part of the picture. The bigger difficulty would be this: could the New World find a much better option to the Old World’s conquest-and-seizure design?.

Alexander Hamilton, the first treasurer of the United States, had the response..

Under his brilliant stewardship, the brand-new country established a new principle of wealth creation: capitalism– based on innovation, innovation, and business. And it would be available to every person from any background with the determination to work for it..

America might get more marbles without seizing anybody’s marbles. We would simply make brand-new ones..

Real, later in America’s history, the government seized Indian land, however that wasn’t Hamilton’s concept..

And, clearly, there were innovators and merchants around before America. But America is the very first society to be based upon invention and trade. America, as Karl Marx later understood, is the capitalist society par excellence..

Hamilton was the man who made it so..

Undoubtedly, Hamilton’s own life showed the status seeking he wished to be a specifying characteristic of the new country.
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Born upon the small Caribbean island of Nevis, he was orphaned at 12. By 14 he was running a shipping company for a local merchant. At age 20, he made his way to New York. Quickly thereafter he totally embraced the revolutionary cause. By 23, he was George Washington’s many trusted aide. At 34, he was running the US Treasury, the biggest department without a doubt of the brand-new federal government..

In contrast to Hamilton, the other leading creators– Washington, Jefferson, Madison– were Virginia farmers. If it depended on them, America would have been set up as a network of farming neighborhoods, with towns developed as locations where agricultural produce was purchased and offered..

It was Hamilton who prepared for America to end up being a flourishing metropolitan, industrial, commercial society.

Hamilton visualized America as a country whose nuclei would be cities, centers of energetic creation, innovation, and trade, with new kinds of people– entrepreneurs, mechanics, financiers, salespersons, and so on– all working to delight in the “pleasing benefit of their toils.”.

However how to develop such a society. That was the concern. How to make New York, which was then a modest town, into the New York City we understand today: a flourishing center of finance, commerce, publishing, and the arts?

Coming from the islands of the West Indies, where the buying and selling of human beings was the defining feature of the financial system, Hamilton well comprehended how easily the enthusiasm for conquest– control over other humans– could overwhelm guy’s better nature..

Yes, slavery was a lamentable feature of the new country. The question for the practical Hamilton was how to eliminate it– not right away– that was impossible– but eventually, inevitably..

In his mind, there was only one method: make it as simple as possible for as many individuals as possible to end up being as flourishing as possible. This would occur through the myriad ways of commerce..

A commerce of this sort, Hamilton knew, would require a strong central government; not to suppress freedom but to secure it.

For the complete script as well as FACTS & SOURCES, go to https://www.prageru.com/video/alexander-hamilton-and-capitalism-making-america.

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Alexander Hamilton, the very first treasurer of the United States, knew there was a better method for nations to end up being prosperous than by conquering others. Love PragerU? He has to take someone else’s marbles.

At age 20, he made his method to New York. How to make New York, which was then a modest town, into the New York City we understand today: a growing center of finance, commerce, publishing, and the arts?