— You are correct in that we are in a Hamiltonian America. However, it is not because of industrialization. We could just as easily be decentralized and industrialized.
— On explicit powers: Yes, that’s what he’d do.
— On Taxes: Paul has not clarified what types of taxes would be collected in his minarchist govt. He’s strongly against tariffs, as they distort trade. Perhaps we could tax state treasuries, a sort of membership fee for being in the Union.
— Paul is a HUGE gold bug and wants to go back to a true, pre-1913 Gold Standard.
— I think he would keep a small standing Army that could be rapidly expanded if we had to retaliate for an act of agression. Paul has a fondness for Writ of Marquees, contracts given out to mercenaries to perform military actions. Paul introduced one after 9/11 to have Blackwater or somebody like that go after the Taliban.
— Ron Paul would follow the guidance of Jefferson: Trade and Friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
— As the US business climate improves, manufacturing jobs would come back. It has been shown that cutting corporate taxes causes manufacturing jobs to come back; look at Ireland after they cut theirs in half. Imagine if we were the only major country in the world with out corporate taxes or endless regulation???
— The Progressives were not Jeffersonians using Hamiltonian ends. The Progressives were tihgly aligned with Big Business. Big Business, in fact, regualated itself to hurt small competitors. Gabriel Kolko’s “The Triumph of Conservatism” is a great book on the subject.
— Paul said in the debates he would eliminate the Commerce Cabinet position.
— Big Business and Big Government LOVE each other. When he was on the daily show, Paul was asked by John Stewart is he was worried about “turning over controls” to corporations. Paul said there is a difference between Having corporations and the gov’t in cahoots under “corporatism”, and having consumer driven firms like Microsoft. It was a high-level argument that many leftists overlook. Part of the Left attacks corporations because they are seen as “appendages of the state”; Paul pointed out the clear distinctions between the bloodsuckers that depend on Gov’t pork and regulation to survive and the true entrepreneurial firms.
— If Ron Paul is elected, the American people, at least half of them, would have to agree with Paul. He’d have a mandate for change.
— How do you return to a hard money standard without inflicting massive pain? — Easy! The first economy to go back on the gold standard will be the most successful. The first one gets gold at the cheapest price, and all others will follow. Investment will flow to the economy with the strongest, soundest currency, which would be a gold-backed one. There would be a massive inflection in the price of Gold; whoever is on the left side of the curve wins! I am actually concerned that the Chinese may use part of their massive reserves to go on a gold or silver standard, putting themselves at the head of the economic table for the next 100 years. Also, the amount of value in the world does not need to be backed up by gold, just the currency; they are not the same thing. Currently, GDP is higher than dollars in circulation, for example. As long as the monetary authority guarantees a fixed amount of gold for their currencies, that’s all you need.
— If we pulled back in the world, we would be on par militarily with the EU, Russia, and China. We would have a multi-polar system and a true balance of Power. We had a similar setup in the 19th Century and we saw relative peace and the blossoming of international capitalism.
— In my opinion, our last chance is to elect a guy like Paul to reverse the tide. If it is not reversed, eventual secession may be the only option. By eventual I mean decades , 50 years, or even a century. Who knows how long it will take to travel down the Road to Serfdom.
At first, yes. But in the absence of a countervailing force, capital tends to accrete. This is why our early decentralized industrialization had turned centralized by the 1850's.
Perhaps we could tax state treasuries, a sort of membership fee for being in the Union.
This was what the Constitution prescribed, but it wasn't followed. Once Andrew Jackson's appointees came to the Supreme Court, the Court was not willing to give the federal government the authority to collect from the states involuntarily. That made the constitutional provision moot.
The Progressives were not Jeffersonians using Hamiltonian ends. The Progressives were tihgly aligned with Big Business.
Later that was true, but not at first. The Progressives originated in eastern and midwestern Republicanism in the 1870's in reaction to robber baron capitalism. They took a Protestant view of the world and wanted to regulate business before more radical folk like the Populists (who originated in the Grange movement) could nationalize everything in sight. It was only after the government regulatory bureaucracies were created that Big Business suddenly discovered that once it controlled the agency, it controlled the marketplace. The Interstate Commerce Commission which regulated the railroads was created in 1887, and it was only by 1900 that the railroads gained control of its members and worked their will on the markets.
If Ron Paul is elected, the American people, at least half of them, would have to agree with Paul. He’d have a mandate for change.
Not necessarily true. He could be a minority president in a multiple-way race. He could even be elected by the House due to a deadlock in the Electoral College. A mandate isn't a given.
The first economy to go back on the gold standard will be the most successful.
The Swiss franc is the only gold-backed currency in the world -- at the ridiculously low price of $42.22 per ounce. The Swiss economy is doing well, but its strong currency (in a world of floating currencies) hurts it. You also have the problem of the IMF treaty banning a return to gold and requiring sanctions against nations that attempt it. You'd first need to destroy the IMF, its treaty and the major fiat currencies of the world. It's not as simple as you think.
I am actually concerned that the Chinese may use part of their massive reserves to go on a gold or silver standard, putting themselves at the head of the economic table for the next 100 years.
A Chinese return to gold would be a brilliant way of destroying the world's fiat currencies and economies. But it would be a doomsday option for the Chinese. We're their biggest buyer. And the rest of the world would treat it as an act of war.
If we pulled back in the world, we would be on par militarily with the EU, Russia, and China. We would have a multi-polar system and a true balance of Power. We had a similar setup in the 19th Century and we saw relative peace and the blossoming of international capitalism.
The Congress of Vienna put Europe back on the gold standard in 1815, thus ending France's (and others') experiments with paper. War is a matter of credit, and under a gold standard and an inflexible currency regime, you can't fight a world war. You can fight a quick war like Bismarck's mini-wars of conquest to create Germany, or a long brushfire war like the Crimean affair. But not a world war. Yes, the gold standard kept the peace in Europe for 99 years, but it took the Napoleonic Wars to create a situation where such a draconian measure was hailed as progress. As soon as the guns of August fired in 1914, the Brits went off the gold standard, followed by the rest of Europe.
The idea of a multi-polar world under gold has a nice ring to it. But that would require that the US be defeated in our current war. After watching what happened after Vietnam, I'd hate to see us humiliated by lesser men again. (Maybe that's the army veteran in me talking.)
And that reopens the Macchiavelli question -- what happens to the world after we come home and mind our own business?
(I'm headed off to bed, so take your time.)