The historical development of American Suburbia occurred rapidly in the years and decades after 1945. Thanks to cheap Kapital being borrowed at low Interest Rates, Americans were able to afford a higher standard of living commensurate as the rationing on everyday goods and services was rescinded by the Democratic-Republican Party. The Great Depression ended by economic growth being by “Government Spending” and “Consumer Spending,” which was made possible by the Bretton Woods System and the military-industrial hegemony that America had attained in 1945. Since many of the nations on the Eurasian landmass were either devastated or underdeveloped, the Jeffersonians succeeded through its strategic polarity between Internationalism and Isolationism within US foreign policy. On the one hand, America would preside over a world order that will be shaped in the image of Thomas Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty, a “Liberal International Economic Order (LIEO).” And on the other, America will have the license to do whatever it pleases on the world stage without anyone except the Soviet Union to hold its actions accountable.
These were the geopolitical conditions which contributed to the rise of American Suburbia and its pervasive influence in the American Way of Life. A combination of internal and external factors associated with the Empire of Liberty provided the financial environment for American Suburbia to take form. Automobile production resumed and concurred with the passing of the Interstate Highway Act, which led to the construction of an American Autobahn throughout the Union. The construction projects related to American Suburbia, meanwhile, was to be carried out by privatized commercial real estate firms, taking advantage of the America’s return to civil peacetime production. Thus, the Mode of Production was shifted away from the Production for Utility initiated by FDR’s New Deal programs and back to Production for Profit. In spite of this, however, the dynamic paradigm between the two Modes of Production remained.
Father of American Suburbia
A key historical figure of interest in this historical phenomenon was a real estate developer by the name of William Jaird Levitt, the “Father of American Suburbia.”
Levitt was originally a US Navy officer contracted by the Democratic-Republican Party during the official years of the Second World War to build housing for military personnel. After the official end of World War II and the beginning of its unofficial second half, the Cold War, Levitt was allowed to apply aspects of Fordism-Taylorism in the construction of civilian homes and derived much of his experiences from wartime conditions. In 1947, he presided over the construction of a suburban area in Long Island, New York, where he devised 27 different ways on how to build a civilian home, and each of the 27 methods was contracted to a team of construction crews. All of the houses contained two bedrooms, one bathroom, one kitchen, one backyard, a living room, and no basement. These achievements were later repeated in a Pennsylvanian suburban community outside of Philadelphia which went on to bear his name, “Levittown.”
From 1947 to 1951, a total of 17,000 homes were built in Levittown, housing upwards of around 82,000 residents. Levittown became a sort of template for other real estate firms throughout the US to replicate, attracting an estimated 20,000,000 Americans to move to these suburban communities. Levitt personally considered it to be his crowning lifetime achievement.
But unbeknownst to most Americans and the old Federalist Party, Levitt’s Intents for American Suburbia were more Jeffersonian than Hamiltonian. By contributing to the rise of American Suburbia, Levitt set the stage for the demise of whole European communities in the American cities because so many people were relocating to the suburbs. Moreover, he envisaged American Suburbia as being racially segregated in the context of Jews and Gentiles. Instead of building enclaves that catered to existing communities, he ended up resurrecting the old Jewish stereotype of the “Ghetto,” a mentality that was related to his Jewish upbringing as reported in a 2021 Times of Israel article entitled “How America’s Jewish ‘King of the Suburbs’ kept Blacks out of Suburbia.” Levitt only preferred European Gentiles and refused to sell any homes in Levittown to any African Gentiles.
One must wonder if Levitt’s Intent in promoting this form of racial segregation was committed out of Sectarian motives or because he genuinely held racialist views toward African Gentiles. The article from the Times of Israel suggested that Levitt knew he was facing the problems of racial segregation plaguing the American Way of Life prior to the Civil Rights Movement. He could provide suburban housing to the American people as a Totality, but he alone cannot solve the racial segregation plaguing that same Totality.
The “American Dream”:
Byproduct of American Nationalism?
The significance of American Suburbia lies in the fact that it has been considered as a symbol of the “American Dream.” The question which must be asked is whether there can be opposing visions of the American Dream as far as Jeffersonianism and Hamiltonianism are concerned. It can be argued that the American Dream, as a concept in itself, is a manifestation of American Nationalism as a political idea which can only be understood within an American context.
The Jeffersonian vision envisages the American people, as a Totality, striving to become yeoman farmers whose ethos are of “Consumerism” and “Producerism.” American Suburbia reflects that vision based on the Quantity of Kapital that went into its construction and the Quantity of Schuld that came out of the lifestyles which it had been designed to promote. Remember, during the height of the Bretton Woods System, the ideal adopted by the Democratic-Republican Party at the time was to promote ever-increasing Consumer Spending and Government Spending. Everything had to be spent now and paid off later inasmuch as the Quantity of Kapital will someday surpass the concurring Quantity of Schuld. Its version of Nationalism views American culture and faith, heritage and language, social customs and norms as being embodied by America’s small, but very influential English Protestants or the “White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).”
In the Jeffersonian conception of American Nationalism, the American Dream is defined by one’s ability to conform to the WASPs. That means adhering to their Jeffersonian Weltanschauung, their attitudes toward the Federal government and the States, conversion to their interpretation of Christianity, attaining their standard of living (which is the most obvious manifestation, as personified by American Suburbia), and condoning Neoliberalism and the Empire of Liberty. Although there are always exceptions to the rule (as evidenced in the case of Gore Vidal), most English Protestants adhere to these views as a “People’s Community” (to quote a sociological term from the Second Edition of The Work-Standard). These characteristics are important to Jeffersonianism’s conception of American Nationalism because it cannot and will not tolerate anyone or any People’s Community striving to be themselves, who are to be seen with suspicion and contempt for allegedly being “un-American” (Read: Anti-Jeffersonian).
In the Hamiltonian conception of American Nationalism, the American Dream is a grander vision that is best personified by the Federalist American Union. As Alexander Hamilton and the old Federalist Party understood the American Way of Life, the US Constitution was akin to a roof without any walls to support its political legitimacy. The very notion of an “All-American Culture” that unites the States and People’s Communities as the Union has to be promoted by the Federal government as part of its official policies. For outside the Federal government, the People’s Communities are to be welcomed and encouraged to preserve their ancestral culture, heritage, language, social customs and norms. But in so doing, they must swear their allegiance to the Union and ensure that their creative contributions to the American Way of Life will lead to the flourishing of the Union. The Federalist Party adheres to a Nationalist tradition that Michael Lind, a Hamiltonian professor at the University of Texas in Austin, that is more Germanic than British, more European than English. It is a Pluralism instead of Parochialism, an Ecumenism instead of Secularism.
What the Nationalism of the Federalist Party seeks to achieve is whether it is possible for any People’s Community that is neither English nor Protestant to preserve its ancestral legacy, pass it on to the next generation, and still be considered no different than any other group of Americans. This Author and other true adherents of Hamiltonianism are inclined to believe that not only is it possible, it is becoming increasingly necessary in an America where the English Protestants now face an existential crisis in the early half of the 21st century. In contemporary America, the English Protestants are witnessing demographic decline and a growing inability to influence any and all notions of an “All-American Culture.” Their number of cradles is gradually being outpaced by their number of coffins, while the pews of their churches continue to dwindle as their youths become these disillusioned “Nones.” These concerns are reflected in the existential crisis that arises whenever the mainstream media and demographers maintain that the WASPs will become a minority sometime around the 2040s. A true Hamiltonian should realize that, technically speaking, the English Protestants have always been a minority and the same can be said for all the other People’s Communities that comprise the American people as a Totality. Even the largest People’s Community as of late, the German one, is not even a third of the entire US population.
Catholic America, the majority of its congregations are European People’s Communities, could have been in position to redefine All-American Culture in the Hamiltonian tradition. It was clear in its history as far back as the St. Johann Nepomuk Neumann, CSsR, the Fourth Bishop of Philadelphia and an immigrant from the German-speaking world’s Sudetenland. It was also clear in the “Americanist Heresy,” where German clergymen and bishops favored a Catholic America that maintained its European heritage were sidelined by their English counterparts, whose conversion to Catholicism did nothing to change their Jeffersonian Weltanschauung. But because Catholic America had squandered over a century of opportunities that began with its religious educational system, American Catholics are no position to set a Hamiltonian course insofar as they too are suffering somewhat from the same consequences as the English Protestants, but nowhere as much as them. Even so, should the old Federalist Party return to power and replace the Democratic-Republican Party at the Municipal, State and Federal governments, Catholic America stands to gain from the Hamiltonian conception of American Nationalism. It is very likely that the benefits, as Mary Perkins Ryan outlined in Are Parochial Schools the Answer and We’re All in This Together, will first occur in the religious educational system.
Regardless of what could have been, American Suburbia is in the midst of a crisis that began long ago and has been exacerbated by the Subprime Mortgage Crisis that preceded the Great Recession. The infrastructural and architectural work done in the 1950s and 1960s is now beginning to fall apart due to inconsistent efforts to repair and maintain them. Forget about the funding: the negligence alone has set the precedent for an eventual collapse of bridges and the languishing of roadways. In American Suburbia, housing continues to be increasingly out of reach and divorced from economic realities, as the Small Businesses on Main Street struggled to coexist alongside the larger Department Stores and Supermarkets and the more recent rise of eCommerce websites by the 1990s. This is a policy issue which requires a Nationalistic and Socialistic synthesis to the American Dream, and one that caters specifically to the Hamiltonian Weltanschauung in the Federalist American Union.
Another American Dream for American Suburbia?
A philosopher can articulate an idea like American Nationalism, an artist can depict it, a statesman can turn it into reality. A political scientist can provide the necessary information for all three to form a coherent consensus that supports each of their perspectives. If the aims of The Work-Standard were to outline a new course for American Socialism, then The Third Place is to outline a likewise course for American Nationalism. In the Federalist American Union, both share the same mutual goal on revolutionizing American Suburbia in favor of the Hamiltonian tradition. How will the concept of the American Dream change under Hamiltonianism?
In contrast to the Jeffersonian conceptualization of American Suburbia, the Hamiltonian version will be reflected in its architectural and infrastructural designs. The “First Place,” the Household, can be understood as the Self’s personal residence and the central government. The central government, contrary to the proponents of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), is like a Household in more ways than just how it governs its own Budgets, Revenues, and Expenses. It is also the apex of social interactions between the Self and the Totality within the political-economic realm. As for the context of the Household, two important entities that where addressed over the course of Section Three, the home and the automobile.
In the Federalist American Union, the automobile will not be the only sole method of transportation. The technological purpose of its existence is to serve as a means to an end, not an end unto itself as has been the case with the proliferation of Stroads throughout the Union. An automobile enables someone to travel between urban and rural areas. It is not meant to replace other forms of transportation like trains or bicycles. With this purpose in mind, the Federalist Party will ensure that the “Federal-State System” has Actual Geld allocated toward the construction and operation of mass transportation systems throughout the Federalist American Union. Like the various People’s Communities that form the American people as a Totality, the Federal-State highway system as well as the streets of American Suburbia shall be redesigned to accommodate trams, buses, bicycles, trains and other neglected means of transportation. These mass transportation systems will be self-sufficient, able to finance its own costs before any further allocations of Actual Geld by either the Municipal, State or Federal governments.
The “Big Three” of the US Automotive Industry, General Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler, will become FAEs (Federally Administrated Enterprises), receiving a seat inside one of the Chambers at the Congress of Councils and continuing to be subject to Federal regulations concerning automobile production. The concerns of the Big Three will be addressed by Congress and they will be receiving Federal funding toward their economic activities. This will also occur alongside the Federalist Party’s concurring effort to eliminate the Democratic-Republican Party’s taxation policies, from the repeal of Amendment XVI (the Income Tax Amendment) to the cutting back of all corporate taxes introduced by the Jeffersonians. In exchange, the Big Three will hardwire their economic activities to the LER Process, where all Actual Arbeit and Actual Geld within their production processes will be registered at the Federal Life-Energy Reserve.
Conversely, the Households that form American Suburbia will also be redesigned to accommodate the establishment of Small Businesses, Cooperatives, Workshops, and community-organized Guilds as part of the Delegative model of democratic governance. A Household is more than just a living space; it can also serve as the First Place in the economic life of the individual Self. Rents and Mortgages are to be abolished and thereby prohibited under Federal Law, the legal statutes to be enforced by the US Department of the Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The Federal government will be expected to invest a portion of the Federal Budget into the efforts of State and Municipal governments on land development and construction projects. All real estate developers are to be subordinated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The precise details on how the Federalist American Union intends to undergo its own land development and construction projects is not the focus of this Entry or Section Three in general. A whole book can be written on the topic alone. What is important is that, as with many other aspects of the US, a lot of the things which the Federalist Party might need to realize the Federalist American Union are already in existence. But when trying to apply Hamiltonianism in practice, it is vital to take into considerations the historical conditions of everyday phenomena which are reflections of the Jeffersonian Weltanschauung. Failure to do so can and will cause potential compatibility issues manifesting themselves as apparent failures to implement domestic policies on matters related to housing and automobiles.
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