The Founding Father of Crony Capitalism

Posted by Marty Jensen

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The following is a small portion of the article "The Founding Father of Crony Capitalism" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo. The entire article was posted as a Daily Article on 10/21/2008 at the Ludwig von Mises Institute website. I encourage readers to study the article in its entirety at http://mises.org. DiLorenzo is the author of the book Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution — And What It Means for America Today which is available from the Ludwig von Mises bookstore at http://mises.org/store.

The Founding Father of Crony Capitalism

In a publication entitled "A History of Central Banking in America" the Fed proudly labels Hamilton as its founding father, boasting that he even spoke just like a contemporary Fed chairman. The First Bank of the United States, which was opposed by Jefferson and Madison, created 72 percent inflation in its first five years of operation, as Murray Rothbard wrote in A History of Money and Banking in the United States. It was not rechartered in 1811, but was resurrected by Congress in 1817, after which it created America's first boom-and-bust cycle, which led to the Panic of 1819, the title of another of Rothbard's great works on American economic history.

Hamiltonian mercantilism is essentially the economic and political system that Americans have lived under for several generations now: a king-like president who rules through "executive orders" and disregards any and all constitutional constraints on his powers; state governments that are mere puppets of the central government; corporate welfare run amok, especially in light of the most recent outrage, the Wall Street Plutocrat Bailout Bill; a $10 trillion national debt ($70 trillion if one counts the government's unfunded liabilities); a perpetual boom-and-bust cycle caused by the Wizard of Oz–like central planners at the Fed; constant military aggression around the world that only seems to benefit defense contractors and other beneficiaries of the warfare state; and more than half of the population bribed with subsidies of every kind imaginable to support the never-ending growth of the state. This is Hamilton's curse on America — a curse that must be exorcized if there is to be any hope of resurrecting American freedom and prosperity.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 7:33 AM . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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