The following two-part Entry introduces to the Reader an overview of the Hamiltonian movement as it exists. As of the Third Edition of The Work-Standard, the movement is continuing to grow in influence and size that a new round of questions should be raised on what sort of future awaits the movement. Part I is a discussion about the movement as it exists and why it is important to work with those who are not true Jeffersonians inside the Democratic-Republican Party. Part II is reserved for introducing the various personalities and publications of the Hamiltonian movement, informing the Reader on its current extent.
The Enduing Significance of 2016
It is very common for Americans to judge other Americans based on their affiliations with either Faction of the Democratic-Republican Party. Americans aligned with the Democrats will never live next to Americans aligned with the Republicans and vice versa. Things have gotten to the point where entire groups are trying to relocate to States dominated by either the Democrats or the Republicans. Pro-Republican Americans in a “Blue State” would rather live in a “Red State” run by Republicans and pro-Democratic Americans in a “Red State” would rather live in a “Blue State” run by Democrats. This is unfortunately a consequence of the so-called “Culture Wars” where the definition of Americaness remains open to dispute. For better or for worse, in a country where other social relations are fraying, the Democratic-Republican Party is probably one of those last remaining avenues for Americans to find belonging and community.
American social relations have been deteriorating between the height of the Bretton Woods System and its subsequent demise. Prior to Bretton Woods, most Americans did not define their Selves solely by the Democratic-Republican Party. They were descendants of another Totality from a different nation who became Americans as members of a people’s community. They were members of a religious congregation, even if they did not always agree with its teachings. They joined labor unions, participated in the apolitical endeavors of their localities, associated themselves with organizations that united their neighbors and friends around common interests. They came from strong, tight-knit families who provided them with support when everything else failed. Such conditions have disappeared in American life when the Bretton Woods System rose and when the Empire of Liberty came into being.
The rise of American Suburbia had set a precedent in which old, longstanding communities languished as people flocked from the cities and the countryside to emerging suburbs. The gutting of the Manufacturing Sector coincided with the dissipation of the labor unions. Growing irreligiosity and the collapse of the family occurred alongside the withering of entire localities. The effects are on display across countless localities throughout contemporary America.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that the only thing left for Americans to rally around is the Democratic-Republican Party and its Factions. The Culture Wars are merely a series of increasingly futile attempts to regain that perceived lost sense of Americaness, as if the American people are somehow incapable of understanding themselves. With religious-like zeal, the American people have been trying to regain their lost sense of Americaness by turning to the Public and Private Sectors in the Culture Wars. The petty squabbling of the Democratic-Republican Factions gives them an illusory semblance of belonging and community that is virtually absent within their everyday lives.
There are limits to how far the American people are willing to support the Democratic-Republican Party. If either Faction fails to further their interests, they will just support the other Faction until they too have failed. In a political system where a Party of two Factions is split into two lesser parties, it is senseless to assume that some third party or apolitical independent will change the dynamic without being taken over by the Jeffersonians. The American people knows this, accounting for why so many refuse to participate in the Jeffersonians’ political affairs. It is also why the Jeffersonians only need to rely on a minority of committed voters to stay in power.
But is it tenable to insist that not everyone in the Democratic-Republican Party is a committed Jeffersonian? What if some are only inclined to support either the Democrats or the Republicans because there are no third parties in contemporary America capable of challenging? What if others are willing to abandon the Democratic-Republican Party once it becomes apparent to them that the Democratic-Republican Party has become so impotent and incompetent that they are incapable of running the Municipal governments, State governments or the Federal government?
These are the conditions in which Hamiltonianism is forced to contend with in a political climate where the Federalist Party has not been a major force since the early 19th century. An emerging movement committed to Hamiltonianism has been growing in the wake of the Great Recession and the events before, during and after the 2016 US Presidential Election. Its infancy coincided with the renewed interest in reevaluating the legacies of Hamilton and Jefferson, the discussion being made behind the backdrop of the presidential bids of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The movement did not need to rely on a “Trump Presidency” or a “Sanders Presidency” because Hamiltonianism hardly emanated from either Presidency. What the movement wants more than anything is a Hamiltonian America to replace the Jeffersonian America that already exists.
Today a Movement, Tomorrow a Party?
What passes as a movement for Hamiltonianism is a loose band of Americans seeking to revisit the Federalist Legacy from a variety of differing viewpoints. The movement may not have enough grassroots activists to establish a formal presence outside the Digital Realm, but it certainly has a sizeable coterie of professional intellectuals and publications. Uniting these perspectives is the profound belief that Jeffersonian America is dying and that Hamiltonian America must, in some form or another, regain its rightful position in political-economic discourse. There is no future to be gained from continuing to support the Jeffersonians in either of the two Factions and their Democratic-Republican Party.
The long-term strategy being pursued by the movement is to create a policymaking environment where Hamiltonianism is allowed to compete against Jeffersonianism within the Democratic-Republican Party. It represents a sort of Entryism that Liberal Capitalists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek had done back in the Mont Pelerin Society to steer the direction of policymaking before, during and after the Death of Bretton Woods. Instead of engaging in grassroots activism and forming political parties, establish think tanks and research institutes to disseminate information that would gain the ears of sympathetic parliamentarians. Entire political parties would act on that information, pursuing policies conducive to the aims of the people who established the think tanks and research institutes.
Currently, there is evidence indicating that this strategy is achieving some results. The results in question are coming from the spearhead of this movement’s endeavors, “Industrial Policy,” which has been gaining traction in recent years. The current trajectory of US Industrial Policy pivots toward a slow resurgence of the Manufacturing Sector and new Protectionist measures. The goal is to reindustrialize the Union to pursue everything from the combating Climate Change to competing with the People’s Republic of China.
There is only so much that the movement could achieve just by convincing the Democratic-Republican Party to change its stances on Industrial Policy on Hamiltonian grounds. The ongoing Reindustrialization is not going to result in more Americans becoming craftsmen and mechanics. The Death of Bretton Woods, which coincided with Deindustrialization in the 1970s, saw a transition from mass production to mass customization, from analog and mechanical machinery to automated and digital machinery. Gone are the days when manufacturers got their start by building products at a Workshop and expanding into a manufactory. Nowadays, manufacturers have to be able to integrate aspects of automated and digital technologies without questioning their necessity or their long-term consequences to America and the rest of the world.
This fact can be discerned from the continuing decline in labor union participation, a trend that has yet to be reversed anytime soon. There may have been Jeffersonian propaganda about a supposed “comeback” of labor unions, but less than 10% of the US population in 2023 is affiliated with some sort of labor union. A 0.2% drop even occurred in the previous year alone!
Another problem is that it tries to adopt the methodology of Hamiltonianism without realizing its other aspects. Hamilton and the Federalists did not just advocate for the Manufacturing Sector and Protectionism. There is far more to Hamiltonianism than just economic issues. The Federalists also sought to realize other goals, goals which are either unbeknownst to the rest of the contemporary movement or are being neglected in one form or another.
To complicate that particular problem further, the movement does not have any actual think tanks or research institutes that could write and speak on its behalf. There is no network of organizations where Hamiltonian ideas are being disseminated to such an extent that the Democratic-Republican Party is forced to partially concede to the old Federalist Party. As far as the American people are concerned, the movement is not influential enough to the point where entire segments of the population are Hamiltonians.
Worse, there is always the risk that the movement may become absorbed into the Democratic-Republican Party, especially since so much of the emphasis has been fixated on trying to change the direction of US Industrial Policy. With too much the sympathies coming from mostly Republicans within the Democratic-Republican Party, the movement could find itself becoming another tool of the Republicans just like the Tea Party or Trump movements before it. The same risk will also occur if the movement gets absorbed into the Democrats’ ranks like the Progressive or Democratic Socialist movements before it. Either way, the movement becomes another useful idiot in the Culture Wars, which at this point resembles a sort of divide-and-rule strategy.
Categories: Compendium
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