(2017-03-10) The Hamilton Hustle

The Hamilton Hustle

But if you want to understand the politics of authoritarianism in America, the place to start is not with Trump, but with the cool-kid Founding Father of the Obama era, Alexander Hamilton.

I’m not just talking about the actual founder, though we’ll come back to him. I’m talking about the personage at the center of the Broadway musical, Hamilton.

it was even written, the play was nurtured at the highest levels of the political establishment

But the idea of openly opposing the hallowed ideal of popular self-government is simply inconsistent with the past two hundred years of American political culture. And this is because, in the election of 1800, when Hamilton and his Federalist allies were finally crushed, America repudiated aristocracy and began the long journey toward establishing a democratic political culture and undoing some, though not all, of the damage wrought by Hamilton’s plutocratic-leaning Federalist Party.

Alexander Hamilton simply didn’t believe in democracy, which he labeled an American “disease.” He fought—with military force—any model of organizing the American political economy that might promote egalitarian politics. He was an authoritarian, and proud of it.

Morris and Hamilton calculated that the military officer corps would threaten Congress with force unless the Articles of Confederation were amended to allow full federal taxing power by federal officials. This coup attempt would then, they reasoned, force Congress to override state governments that were more democratic in their approach to political economy, and place aristocrats in charge.

To understand how outrageous Chernow’s understanding of Hamilton is, we must go through a few key stories from Hamilton’s life. We should probably start with the Newburgh Conspiracy—Hamilton’s attempt to foment a military coup against the Continental Congress after the Revolution. In 1782...

The mutiny itself failed due to a public statement by George Washington opposing a military uprising

Military officers received what would be the equivalent today of multi-million-dollar bonuses, paid largely in federal debt instruments. This effectively institutionalized the elite coalition that Morris and Hamilton sought to weaponize into a tool of destabilization

This group “set up [Hamilton’s] career,” Hogeland writes

statecraft, and it was modeled on the political system of the Whigs in Great Britain, the party of “monied interests” whose power was anchored by the Bank of England

Chernow, a longtime Wall Street Journal financial writer

Hamilton’s line, “They don’t have a plan—they just hate mine.” But in fact, there were competing modern visions of finance during the period, as Terry Bouton showed in Taming Democracy.

Morris told Congress that redistributing wealth upward was essential so that the wealthy could acquire “those Funds which are necessary to the full Exercise of their Skill and Industry,” and thereby promote progress

Morris and Hamilton sought, as much as possible, to shift sovereign powers traditionally reserved for governments into the hands of new chartered institutions—private corporations and banks—that would be strategically immunized from the democratic “disease.” These were not corporations or banks as we know them; they were quasi-governmental institutions with monopoly power. Jefferson sought to place an anti-monopoly provision in the Constitution precisely because of this well-understood link between monopoly finance and political power.

Hamilton wanted a large permanent debt; he wanted it financed so his backers could extract a steady income from the people by way of federal taxes.

the era after the Revolution saw an economic contraction similar in size to that of the Great Depression, with a foreclosure crisis as severe

protests were a response not to taxes, but to the specific tax structure Hamilton constructed. Western farmers, though not poor, had little access to cash, so they used whiskey as currency—a medium of exchange that farmers in many cases produced sporadically in backyard stills. Hamilton’s tax was a political attack on these farmers, whom he saw as his political opponents. The levy targeted whiskey because western farmers had converted this commodity into a competitive monetary system

intended not only to destroy the political power of small farmers, but to foment a rebellion that Hamilton could then raise an army to crush. And that’s just what happened....(Whiskey Rebellion). Washington, halfway through the march and perhaps doubting the wisdom of this use of military power, handed over command to Hamilton, and went home. Entrusted with executive power, Hamilton used indefinite detention, mass arrests, and round-ups; seized property (including food stores for the winter); and had soldiers administer loyalty oaths.

Similarly, Hamilton’s fights with John Adams in the late 1790s represented one of the most dangerous periods in American history

Hamilton constructed the only partisan army in American history (titled the “New Army”) and tried to place himself at the head of it.

the more extreme wing of the Federalist Party, which simply tried to have the election overturned, risking civil war to do so

Thomas Jefferson threatened armed resistance, and both Pennsylvania and Virginia began military preparations. Ultimately, the Federalists backed down.

Bouton argues that the defeats of the middle class in the 1780s and 1790s narrowed democracy for everyone. As poor white men found the freedoms for which they fought undermined by a wealthy elite, they in turn “tried to narrow the concept to exclude others.” Much of the turn toward a more reactionary version of white supremacy in the early 1800s, in other words, can be laid at Hamilton’s feet. Later on, Hamilton’s financial elite were ardently in favor of slave power.

Ron Chernow has made millions on books fawning over J. P. Morgan, the Warburg financial family, and John D. Rockefeller.

Geithner wrote admiringly of Hamilton as the “original Mr. Bailout.”