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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (92032)	10/27/2008 1:21:34 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 541621

re: Brooks and "Hamiltonian" political tendencies I don't have the time or energy right now to get into this completely, but Brooks is only partly right. My opinion about Hamilton is that FDR was a good Hamiltonian, although that will be disputed by Republicans who claim him for their own. Rubin and other Brookings Institute people who founded The Hamilton Project were right to put his name on their endeavor to articulate a modernized Democratic economic policy. Most of all, Hamilton was acutely aware of the factors of greed, fear, and the desire for power in people, and while he and Madison had some famous disagreements in the 1790s, there was a reason they could co-write The Federalist Papers in the late 1780s (with a minor assist from John Jay, who was ill at the time and couldn't fully participate). They had a common understanding that government was necessary to restrain the vices and stupidities of people (as well as the never-ending honest conflicts of interest), and that government itself, being "the greatest reflection of human nature" (in Madison's words in Fed 51) must be "restrained" as well. If Hamilton had been in charge of the Fed in the 1990s, early 2000s (an ideal job for him, as he never would have been actually elected to anything), neither the stock market nor the real estate bubbles would have occurred, IMHO. Ambition was seen as both the greatest resource for and the greatest threat to civilized behavior and stability in society. gotta go, maybe more later. But to be brief about where Brooks goes wrong on Hamilton in particular--he has the conventional "Republican" view of Hamilton. Read Ron Chernow's fine biography of Hamilton for a far more complete, well rounded view.