Republican History Revealed

[justshutupandtakeit]

There was no real market in much of America in 1790. So it was impossible for a "market" to adjust or respond "rapidly." You seem very willing to ignore the requirements for market equilibriums such as universal access to information, inability of one or a group to control prices, mobility of factors, capital liquidity. In short, all those things which Hamilton was attempting to CREATE.

Those things you reference with regard to the diagrams would happen once a market was created but not before or at least very slowly. Surely you are not pretending that S/D diagrams are not constructed with MANY assumptions underlying them? Change the assumptions with regard to monopoly of supply or monopsony of demand and all the equilibrium points change. Countering the effects of both were prime concerns of H.

I have no idea what you are trying to say in 2.

Hamilton even refers to the quality distinctions in the Report.

Perhaps your shopping is not as careful as mine since I very often buy brand named products at at cheaper price than even generic.

Credit availability is a concern of the customer and affects demand.

[justshutupandtakeit]

It is fruitless to try and pin such a label as "mercantilist" on Hamilton. He shared some of their goals wrt increasing National Power. If any label can be accurately applied to him it is "Empiricist" experience was everything with him not some ideology. This is why he refers to the policies other governments have used in the Report and why he suggests the adoption of many of them.

He does not have the same concern that true mercantilists have with regard to gold/silver since he creates capital out of thin air without need of gold/silver. He does not have the same static viewpoint of international economies as they. Nor does he fixate on trade surpluses as they do. His entire trust is to build up the National market not foreign trade like the mercs.

But, most clearly, his tariffs are NOT protective in the sense of mercantilism. America was facing outright prohibitions from other powers on some of their exports. That was the equivalent of 100%+ tariffs. Now THAT is protectionism not 15%>. Examining a tariff table such as that in Bela Bellasa's article in the JPE in the early sixties illustrates protective tariffs. Only a few of them were as low as 15%, most MUCH higher.

You even posted the "self-defense" argument that Hamilton espoused.

He would have been the first to drop mercantilist tools in "a system of perfect liberty." But he was not facing that system and had to fund a government. Tariffs was the only reasonable way of doing so at that time.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Madison was a Nationalist ALL his life and never changed his mind that the Union was perpetual.

Only the Union was to be perpetual. Amendment of the Articles as necessary was always an option left open by the document itself.

Madison was NOT dishonest except perhaps in your warped mind.
All the Founders were totally honest about their desire for a perpetual Union and totally honest in their loathing and fear of any who would try and dissolve it.

Only an idiot could mean such a statement about Lincoln. Let me guess you are a big Saddam supporter too?

[GOPcapitalist]

It is fruitless to try and pin such a label as "mercantilist" on Hamilton.

Nice try, but unfortunately for you the sum of the field of experts on the matter disagrees with you. As I have thoroughly demonstrated and documented, Hamilton is clearly identified as a member of the mercantilist school by credentialed historians, economists, and political theorists who have written on the matter.

Hamilton is recognized among the mercantilist school in the Oxford Reader on political economy.

Hamilton is recognized as a mercantilist by several of his biographers who have written on the subject.

Hamilton was even recognized as a mercantilist, and favorably so, by a supportive and eulogizing obituary from his home state newspaper in 1804.

Any sane, competant, and educated individual who has read his report on manufactures cannot honestly conclude that it was anything but mercantilism as that report espouses at length the defining and central policies of mercantilism.

That you can stare all of these facts in the face yet persist in your denial of Hamilton's mercantilism, fake-it, is indicative of your own lack of education and understanding of Hamilton, the concept of mercantilism, and the basic workings of economic sciences. It is also above all else indicative of your willful and flagrant use of intellectually dishonest and downright slothful tactics to pass off the ignorant bilge you peddle as an accurate and educated representation of Hamilton and his beliefs.

Hamilton was a mercantilist. There is no disputing that fact. Live with it.

[GOPcapitalist]

America was facing outright prohibitions from other powers on some of their exports. That was the equivalent of 100%+ tariffs.

FALSE. A tariff does not need to be 100% of anything to be prohibitive. It only needs to cause the import price to exceed the domestic price when all else is accounted for. The tariff can be a matter of thousands of dollars or it can be a matter of cents. It depends ENTIRELY upon the relationship of the two goods, domestic and import, to each other - not some magic number that YOU have arbitrarily assigned to be the threshold at which a tariff becomes protective.

Seriously, fake-it. Do yourself a favor and try reading up on the economics of trade. You've attempted to tackle them despite not having a clue about how they work and in doing so have succeeded only in making a fool of yourself.

[GOPcapitalist]

There was no real market in much of America in 1790.

Bullsh*t. So long as their are people, items of value and scarcity, and the liberty and competancy to trade them there are also markets. Some markets are more industrialized than others, so yes - America in 1790 was not as industrial. But it certainly had markets and with markets also had entrepreneurship. When economic opportunities arise, entrepreneurship kicks in. And if those opportunities are to industrialize, then industrialization is what happens.

So it was impossible for a "market" to adjust or respond "rapidly."

Nonsense. All it takes is the entrepreneur with the foresight to find an economic opportunity and the willingness to make the investment. If those opportunities are frequent and widespread, investments are likely to be inclined towards.

You seem very willing to ignore the requirements for market equilibriums such as universal access to information, inability of one or a group to control prices, mobility of factors, capital liquidity. In short, all those things which Hamilton was attempting to CREATE.

Not at all. I'm simply saying let the market create them instead of Hamilton. It tends to do a much better job than government ever has or ever will.

Those things you reference with regard to the diagrams would happen once a market was created but not before or at least very slowly.

Your assumption is false. The market is already existing, or else there could not be trade to begin with (or the diagrams that indicate its function). It may not be the LEVEL of market you desire or that is optimal for immediate overnight adjustment, but that it exists cannot be disputed as trade directly evidences it. My point is that when that market's capacity and level present economic opportunities to expand them and profit from them an entrepreneur will be inclined to do so. Thus in relatively short order and at a pace that typically surpasses much of anything the government ever does, the market will indeed be able to expand.

The whole of your postings here seem to be predicated upon the idea that only the state may effectively enact and establish beneficial economic conditions. This is a demonstrable falsehood and in fact the state is among the WORST and LEAST EFFICIENT of all the different tools for economic development. That you would endorse, celebrate, and gravitate towards the worst and least efficient tool as your primary policy indicates that you have either been decieved into believing that it is better than it is or that your mind is too simple and too ignorant to understand the simple and demonstrable, though popularly counterintuitive, problems of state involvement in the economy.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Markets, in order to work efficiently, must have large numbers of participants and competition sufficient to allow free choice. That was not the case in America outside a few cities everywhere else any "market" was so restricted as to not be worthy of the name whether you like it or not.

Duh, that is the point those opportunities were NOT "frequent and widespread" since they had been purposely destroyed by British mercantilist policies. Hamilton's policies were designed precisely to increase those opportunities so that they WERE "frequent and widespread." But in order to do this the mercantilism of Britain had to be thwarted.

Hamilton, of course, had deeply studied this issue and knew more about the state of the American economy than any person, especially you. His policies were derived from that information and HE knew exactly what was necessary to correct the warped condition Britain had left in the American economy.

Export markets for America manufactures did NOT exist because they were prohibited by the great Powers. I cannot dictate to you if there is a true market. But if I am the only seller of something you must have I can dictate to you. Hamilton understood this danger even if you do not.

Export markets for agricultural products were so twisted and deformed by monopsony that they bear no resemblence to a market with competition. Hamilton understood this even if you do not.

Governments from across the oceans were no longer going to be allowed to dictate terms to America. They were no longer going to be allowed to warp our economic structure to fit their wishes as long as Hamilton had any say about it.

How do you think our manufactures could grow, if no one can export because GOVERNMENTS abroad would not allow it? NO patriot of that day would have agreed to such servitude. Independence was why they had just fought the world's greatest military power. They certainly were not going to allow it to defeat it with economic power. Even if your ideology prevents you from accepting this obvious truth.

Profits can only led to market expansion when there are profits to be made. Hamilton made sure there were such profit opportunities. As he references in the Report the spirit of entrepenurship was sadly lacking in America which was why he proposed encouragement of it through government policies.

The rest of your blather about the role of government is equally nonsense. No economy has ever developed ANYWHERE or at ANYTIME without massive government involvement. Governments certainly are inefficient in many things but economic development has regularly been forced through government involvement. Japan is a recent example and the United States and older one. Other economies were even more so, such as France and England.

BTW it is a LIE that my beliefs are "predicated upon the idea that only the state may effectively enact and establish beneficial economic conditions." It IS my position that there are times when State involvement CAN be beneficial even crucial. 1790 was one of those times. History shows the tremendous success of H's policies. Even if you don't like it.

[Who is John Galt?]

Since there was no desire to force reluctant states to remain within such a changed government, they were LEGALLY given the right to remain out of it until they ratified.

"LEGALLY?" Allow me to quote a section of the relevant law:

Article XIII. Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

The ratification requirements detailed in Article VII of the new Constitution stand in direct violation of the specific terms of the Articles of Confederation. Prior to ratification by "every State," the establishment of a government under the terms of the Constitution amounted to secession of the ratifying States from the union formed under the Articles.

Those states were not treated like foreign powers in any case...

Hogwash. You should read some of President Washington's correspondence to the Governor of Rhode Island, written before that State's ratification of the Constitution. Mr. Washington treated Rhode Island precisely 'like a foreign power.'

...merely like state whose ratifications were delayed but which would eventually be accomplished.

LOL! The constitutional convention did not assume that every State would "eventually" ratify the Constitution. In fact, they assumed the opposite - which is why the preamble was rewritten. It was originally phrased as follows:

"We the people of the states of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare and establish the following constitution for the government of ourselves and our posterity."

The preamble was changed to reflect the simple fact that no one knew which States, if any, would ratify the proposed Constitution.

This is hardly anything for the D.S.s to hang their secessionist doctrines upon.

Whoever "the D.S.s" may be, they need look no further than the documented history of the Republic to justify "secessionist doctrines." As noted above, the ratifying States seceded from the union formed under the Articles; several of the States explicitly or implicitly reserved the right of secession, in writing, when they ratified the Constitution; the Constitution nowhere prohibits or delegates the right of secession; rather, the Constitution reserves to the States or the people of the States all powers not delegated or prohibited; and some of the most respected legal references of the early Republic clearly recognize the right of secession.

I have never maintained that states could not have seceded with a constitutional amendment...

LOL! Which part of the Constitution, exactly, needs to be changed to allow State secession? Hmm? Please be precise: which article, section, and clause would have to be amended? Tell us where, exactly, secession is prohibited.

;>)

[GOPcapitalist]

No economy has ever developed ANYWHERE or at ANYTIME without massive government involvement.

...and thus we have the central flaw in your argument. Markets, just like money, predate government establishment. They predate government because they derive directly out of the concept of property, which also predates government. When government came into being it did indeed become involved in markets, originally by way of its involvement in property rights, but it never created either to begin with and in fact the opposite is true. Government rose out of the existence of property and the existence of markets. That is an historical and logical certainty no matter how frequent you post ignorant claims of state necessity in market creation.

History shows the tremendous success of H's policies.

Now that's odd for you to claim, fake-it. In case you are unaware (as seems to be the case) Congress REJECTED Hamilton's report on manufactures in all but a select few new england manufactured goods - about half a dozen in total. Yet in order for a policy to be a "tremendous success," must not it first be enacted? Since Hamilton's report was never enacted it could not have been a success even when you attempt post hoc accredation of America's subsequent growth to that policy.

Congratulations are in order to you though, fake-it. You've yet again demonstrated your uncanny ability to bloviate without end for pages and posts on a topic that youdo not understand and about which you are demonstrably ignorant, uneducated, and completely full of yourself.

[justshutupandtakeit]

That statement is not an argument it is a historical FACT as an examination of the history of cities shows. Of course, your idea of markets predating government is false. Not only were they government instituted (check Athens and Rome) and controlled even including price controls and government dictated weights and measures, but their beginnings in Europe were as periodic trade fairs set up by the various cities or under Church auspices. Cities grew up around some of these sites which were under their control and purview at all times.

Markets were even under the protection of certain Gods and transactions were kept honest through religious ties. If you can post an actual example of a market which arose in ancient times under private control please do so. That certainly was NOT the case in ancient Greece, Rome, Venice, the Islamic world, or any of the New World civilizations.

Money is also derived from government. Confusing gold and silver with money does not change the fact that they are primarily a commodity and capital sometimes used to barter. Until they are coined by government they are not money merely fairly convenient instruments of barter.

I was not speaking only of his policies with regard to manufactures but the whole assumption, Bank of the US, and the Report. His policies included much more than just that Report.

Blah, blah, blah when my posts are as longwinded, misleading and irrelevent as yours let me know.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Congress and the American People changed the instrument of governance. Live with it. That fact is irrelevent to the bogus claims of a right of secession in 1860. Live with it.

Apparently you have conveniently forgotten the fact you once posted that letter from the governor of RI begging Congress NOT to treat R.I. like a foreign government. I destroyed the argument you were trying to make then. Post it again and I will embarass you once more. Are you losing your memory.

False, the Draft Preamble was changed because Madison, Hamilton and Morris were determined to remove any doubt that the constitution's ratification was the act of the American people gathered in States not State actions. These were responses to Congress's call not state initiatives or anything states had power over.

The part which states that the idea was to form a more perfect Union excludes any self removal. The part which makes the Constitution the Law of the Land. The part which denies states rights to have military. But most problematic for the D.S.s is the fact that states are bound to treaties made by the US. They have no power to abrogate treaties and say jsuati.

Madison put and end to the right of secession LIE in his letter to Hamilton regarding NY's ratification ""a reservation of the right to withdraw if amendments are not decided upon...is a conditional ratification that does not make New York a member of the New Union, and consequently...she could not be received on that plan....The Constitution requires an adoption IN TOTO and FOR EVER."

It is a LIE that secession was ever legal.

[thatdewd]

Madison was a Nationalist ALL his life and never changed his mind that the Union was perpetual.

You're silly. Madison was a nationalist earlier, but after hearing people like Hamilton preach about it, he feared it, and realised the tyranny that would be wrought under it. As to the "perpetual" thing, he's on record saying that States could leave the union.

Only the Union was to be perpetual.

Cite, please. "Articles of Confederation AND perpetual union". They are the Articles of both Confederation and perpetual union, they say so.

Madison was NOT dishonest except perhaps in your warped mind.

LOL, it was YOU who claimed he was less than truthful.

All the Founders were totally honest about their desire for a perpetual Union ...

Yes, they desired a perpetual union, they sure did. That was the hope of the Constitution, to set up a system of federal government with checks and balances to prevent the abuses that might lead the union to dissolve either wholely or in part. As you said, that was their desire. But it was not a fascist do or die mandate as you attempt to make it.

Only an idiot could mean such a statement about Lincoln.

He trashed the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers would have hung him from the nearest tree for his actions.

[Who is John Galt?]

Congress and the American People changed the instrument of governance. Live with it.

LOL! Exactly how did they change it? Hmm? The terms of the Articles are quite specific: unanimous approval of any change in the Articles is required. (Please review Article 13 of the Articles of Confederation, if your memory is conveniently failing you – yet again. And please remember: the State of Rhode Island did not even have a representative at the constitutional convention... :>) The language is English, and the meaning is clear. You suggest the opposite – apparently you are either a liar, or somewhat ‘challenged’ when it comes to simple English. “Live with it.”

:>)

That fact is irrelevent to the bogus claims of a right of secession in 1860. Live with it.

ROTFLMAO! I love discussing this issue with people like you (it can’t be called a debate, since you consistently ignore documented fact ;>). Read the Articles of Confederation, my friend. “Read ‘em & weep...”

;>)

Apparently you have conveniently forgotten the fact you once posted that letter from the governor of RI begging Congress NOT to treat R.I. like a foreign government. I destroyed the argument you were trying to make then. Post it again and I will embarass you once more. Are you losing your memory.

I never made such a post. Either you are suffering from some sort of memory disorder, or you are a liar. In either case, feel free to post a link to your imagined post – I’m calling your bluff, “liar.” Ante up! ;>)

False, the Draft Preamble was changed because Madison, Hamilton and Morris were determined to remove any doubt that the constitution's ratification was the act of the American people gathered in States not State actions. These were responses to Congress's call not state initiatives or anything states had power over.

Gosh, that’s not what I’ve read. Feel free to document your claim – “liar.”

;>)

The part which states that the idea was to form a more perfect Union excludes any self removal.

Wrong. A “more perfect union” requires that the “right of the people to determine how they will be governed” be recognized. Obviously, you have your head securely lodged in your posterior.

;>)

The part which makes the Constitution the Law of the Land.

ROTFLMAO!!!!! That is the part YOU are ignoring, my simple friend. Which clause of “the Law of the Land” prohibits secession? Hmm? Please be specific: provide the article, section, and clause. Obviously, you prefer some undefined ‘unwritten law’ – as do most totalitarians.

;>)

The part which denies states rights to have military.

GONG! You are obviously ignoring the extensive discussions within The Federalist Papers regarding the States’ right to oppose the federal government with military force (just one more historical document you must ignore as you pursue your pitiful attempts to revise history... <;>)

But most problematic for the D.S.s is the fact that states are bound to treaties made by the US. They have no power to abrogate treaties and say jsuati.

Which treaty, precisely, prohibits State secession? Hmm? You must have one in mind. Was it a treaty with Britain? Hmm? Or France? (And what on earth is “jsuati?” Is it a term you historical revisionists commonly use? Please define it – or if you are as desperate as you seem, please seek medical attention... ;>)

Madison put and end to the right of secession LIE in his letter to Hamilton regarding NY's ratification ""a reservation of the right to withdraw if amendments are not decided upon...is a conditional ratification that does not make New York a member of the New Union, and consequently...she could not be received on that plan....The Constitution requires an adoption IN TOTO and FOR EVER."

Although you provide no date for the supposed “letter to Hamilton,” it obviously (if it even exists ;>) predated Mr. Madison’s official and public Virginia Resolutions and Report on the Virginia Resolutions, wherein he proclaims that the States do indeed retain the right to determine whether the terms of the constitutional compact have been fulfilled. Looks like you come up short – again!

LOL!

;>)

It is a LIE that secession was ever legal.

LOL! Have at it sport – show us where secession was ever prohibited by the constitutional compact. And in the interest of restoring your mental health, I suggest that you read the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution before you reply.

(ROTFLMAO!!!!!)

;>)

[GOPcapitalist]

It's becoming increasingly evident that you have no interest in an honest conversation. Big surprise there.

Needless to say, the sum of your posts continue to dwell in slothful inductions, demonstratbly false assertions, and incomprehensibly ignorant butcheries of common economics that you attempt to disguise as educated statements. I may confidently assert that all of this has been thoroughly demonstrated of you, as well as extend the challenge to any sane and reasonable reader of this thread to prove me wrong.

You, on the other hand, continue to post the same demonstrably false, flagrantly ignorant, and habitually dishonest claims in repetition as if by doing so somehow renders them any less wrong than they were the first time you stated them. The wholly gratuitous and unsubstantiated nature of your posts renders them invalid as arguments, yet your stubborn persistence in repeating them comes at no end. As a result I see little purpose in wasting my time dissecting and exposing the same falsehoods you posted one, two, and three weeks ago. Thus, that old principle of logic should suffice. Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

[GOPcapitalist]

It's curious how fake-it seems to think that he has a hotline into the heads of the founding fathers. The sum of the world knew Hamilton was a mercantilist and this may be demonstrated amply by Hamilton's own words. Yet fake-it thinks he can come along, declare this not to be so without any substantiation or evidence whatsoever, and have us accept it as fact. Now it seems he's doing the same with Madison's views. Just remember - his statements are wholly gratuitous, backed only by his own loud, obnoxious yankee mouth shooting off at every opportunity it gets. Of recent they've also become increasingly repetitive and in many cases no longer merit further response than what has been given. The guy is simply beyond help, and to a degree that makes Wlat look like a normal, functioning member of society.

[thatdewd]

Yet fake-it thinks he can come along, declare this not to be so without any substantiation or evidence whatsoever, and have us accept it as fact.

My favorite was when he declared that Federalist Essay # 32 didn't exist because Hamilton's statements didn't mesh with some book he claimed to have. Typical, they trust authors first, and the original sources last. sigh...

The guy is simply beyond help, and to a degree that makes Wlat look like a normal, functioning member of society.

LOL! I was going to post practically the same thing last night. I actually feel embarrassed for the Wlat Brigade knowing that 'fakeit' is one of theirs.

[wasp69]

Hey, brother! You might want to give this a look for "a few laughs".

[wasp69]

It must be hell to be run off your own thread.

[thatdewd]

It must be hell to be run off your own thread.

lol, someone should post a pic of a dog running off with its tail between its legs. "YIP! YIP! YIP!"...

[4CJ]

It must be hell to be run off your own thread.

At least it made it to 700 posts.