Dive into the evolution of economic thought as historical giants like Hamilton and Lincoln face off against Ricardo's theories. The discussion highlights tariffs as tools of industrial sovereignty and rebellion, not isolation. Explore the contrasting fates of America and Argentina in their paths to industrialization. The need for sustainable governance versus quick financial gains raises critical points about capitalism's effects on society. Ending on a reflective note, the conversation invites personal choices in shaping economic futures.
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Hamilton's Vision for Industry
Alexander Hamilton's tariffs were like scaffolding protecting infant American industries, not walls of exclusion.
He aimed to build domestic industry and reduce economic dependence on Europe through fostering profit margins and capital inflows.
insights INSIGHT
Ricardo's Flawed Comparative Advantage
David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage assumed capital stayed domestic and ignored sovereign power.
This flaw turned it into a colonial tool benefiting empire while subjugating resource-rich nations.
insights INSIGHT
Hamilton and Trump Alike
Hamilton and Trump share a common strategy of rejecting foreign dependence by disrupting established trade norms.
Trump’s tariffs aim at economic sovereignty, challenging global supply chains much like Hamilton’s protectionism.
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This week, I offer you a barefoot sermon from the battlefield of economic memory. A walk from Hamilton to Trump. From Ricardo to Argentina. From Abraham Lincoln’s top hat to the red-capped defiance of tariff diplomacy. A retelling of the American experiment through its most potent and most misunderstood weapon: the tariff.
I argue here that Donald Trump, however clumsy and chaotic, reignited a long-dormant Hamiltonian flame. Like Lincoln before him, who used tariffs not only to industrialize the North but to bleed the profits from slavery’s Southern engine, Trump reached for tariffs not as isolation, but as revolt. The goal was disruption of the quiet exploitation that still oils the gears of the global economy.
We begin with Hamilton. In 1791, he laid the blueprint for industrial sovereignty. While Britain imagined America as a spice colony, exporting raw goods and importing refinement, Hamilton saw something else. He saw factories. Foundries. Credit. Fire. His tariffs were not walls, but scaffolds. They wrapped the infant industries of the North in protection until they could stand on their own.
Then came Ricardo, bond guru, master of the ledger. He preached comparative advantage, but assumed capital stayed still. That the factory would never chase the lowest wage. That trade was neutral. That power did not intervene. Hamilton saw the flaw long before it became scripture. Ricardo’s theory, elegant on paper, became a passport for colonial subjugation. Had America followed it, she might have become another Argentina. Rich in soil. Poor in ambition. Governed by landlords. Exporting the future in exchange for someone else’s present.
Build the factory. Raze the plantation. Lincoln saw it in cotton. Trump saw it in Asian factories. In both cases, the profit was buried in the poison, and each man, in his own era and fashion, had the rare courage to call it by its name.
To strike slavery and build a more enduring republic, Lincoln and maybe Trump, did not reach first for cannonballs or proclamations but rather they reached for the balance sheet. They understood that if you make the ledgers bleed, the system follows. That is their courage.
Hugh
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