U.S. Elections Approach: America is Better Than This Spectacle

Candidates sound off on hot button issue but have no ideas. (courtesy of palmbeachpost.com)

Simply stated, this November’s election in the United States are a disaster. Detrimental to the existence of America and dangerous to the world. Both of the leading candidates for President are imbued with the diseased “rules based order-zero sum” ideology. Neither of them is qualified to lead America, much less articulate a vision to fashion a better world. This is not an exaggeration to the slightest degree.

In this grave time of multiple crises, the United States is bereft of a capable leader, who possess the intellectual acuity to navigate our nation and the world safely through these stormy waters. Sadly, candidates of both parties can at best repeat their talking points, which must include the hot button phrases to evoke mindless applause.

I have been involved in American politics, in one form of another, for over half a century, and have painfully witnessed the moral and intellectual decline of America. Recently, I re-read the speeches of President John Kennedy, our last American statesman, delivered before, during, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is no comparison to the pathetic utterings of our lilliputian nominees today.

This is not what the United States was created to be and not what we are as Americans.

This leads to the substantive conceptual intent of this essay: re-discovering the principles upon which the United Staes of America was established. This is no easy task. I sympathize with the difficulties my African friends have in understanding the core of what America actually is. Unlike myself, my fellow Americans have made little effort to study the real history of America. To help us learn the truth of the unique American story, I recommend reading, Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress, from Franklin to Kennedy.* The author, Anton Chaitkin, an historian who I have known for decades, goes beyond the popular narrative of the U.S., in digging deeper to discover the underlying beliefs that created and guided our republic.

How the U.S. became an industrial economic power is unknown even to the overwhelming majority of Americans, many of whom out of ignorance, would rather attack the U.S. with silly myths. Yes, the U.S. is not perfect, but what we are today is quite different from what we were and created to be. Our revolution and emergence as an industrial republic changed the world. Chaitkin, in this book unearths the secrets of how this was accomplished, and who were the principal leaders.

The U.S. did not achieve its economic power as a result of slavery, greedy capitalist, or free trade, as it has now become popular to repeat. Rather, it was achieved by extraordinary entrepreneurs, industrialists, engineers, scientists, economists, inventors, and brilliant military and political leaders. Chaitkin insists that the U.S. was designed, by exceptional individuals, who were committed to the concept of improvement and progress, not selfishness. This incredible story is disclosed in rich detail in Who We Are.

Who We Really Are
The American Revolution, the defeat of the British Imperial oligarchy, was for something more than simply freedom. Freedom to do what? Chaikin supplies the answer:

The American Revolution carried with it the promise of something beyond civil liberties and self-government. There now existed a new productive power that a free people could use to raise their own living standards.

Adam Smith’s free-trade dogma, and his Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, was an attack on the aspirations of the colonies. Smith, sponsored by the City of London, and the British East India Company, was deployed to counter the intent of the colonies to establish a manufacturing sector. British Imperialism required the colonies be preserved as exclusive exporters of agricultural products. The British oligarchy outlawed the “production of even one horseshoe nail.” Chaitkin writes: The 1750 Iron Act forbade Americans to build any steel making furnace, or any factory or machine for slitting, rolling, or hammering of iron…

They feared the colonists would build an independent capability for the production of goods, undermining England’s colonial policy of dumping cheap products on the colonies.

Chaitkin’s primary thesis is:
Over the course of the long American Revolutionary War with Britain, a small group of nationalists associated with [Benjamin]Franklin in Philadelphia, and with General Washington in the field, came to form the core of a ‘national party,’ with its particular political economic tradition, that persisted well beyond the Revolution. It may be said to have brought about the modern world, by industrializing the United States, and fighting for the industrialization of other countries, over the determined opposition of the rulers of the British Empire.

Alexander Hamilton, the young genius, who served as General Washington’s aide de camp during the war, led the political battle for the creation of a national government from thirteen bankrupt colonies. It was Hamilton’s design of a national bank to issue credit for development, and his sound policy to pay off their huge debt from the war, which saved the colonies from collapse after their successful revolution. His insistence on a strong central government, creation of a manufacturing sector, and use of tariffs to build nascent industry, became the foundation of what was later named, the American System of Political Economy. It is no exaggeration to assert, that what became the United States, was built by Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin. And that the export and application of these ideas in the nineteenth and twentieth century transformed the rest of the world.

For a thorough treatment of Alexander Hamilton and his thinking, I suggest you read historian Nancy Spannaus’ book Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles Of the American System of Economics. Nations Must Study Alexander Hamilton’s Principles of Political Economy

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (courtesy of americanjourneys.com)

What We Built
Chaitkin writes on Hamilton’s American System:

The American mission of progress, embodied in Hamilton’s proposals, and the fight over implementing that program, form the essential core of world history ever since. All later economic progress has preceded from that revolutionary policy outlook. The fundamental contest of the two sides, progressive nationalism versus finance-based imperial interest, has continued up to the present.

Hamilton, Franklin, their followers and many states opposed slavery as immoral, and economically regressive practice that would retard progress. They believed that the full implementation of Hamilton’s design for a manufacturing driven economy would end the plantation economy with its slave labor conditions and destruction of the soil.** Everyone Should Know The Truth About Slavery in America

Not accidentally, beginning in the early nineteenth century, the industrial economy of the U.S. entered a new phase of physical economic growth, becoming the engine of the world. This exciting development is depicted in Liftoff (chapter 9).

The cooperating nationalists who together attained national power in 1824-1825 went on to solve fundamental problems that had kept the USA backward and weak. They would develop the first canals and railroads, connecting regions separated by natural geography. They would create the American coal industry and America’s modern iron industry, making the essential components of advanced production. They would bring to life new globally-important centers of skilled work and engineering genius…

Pennsylvania would become the center of America’s great industries, and the world headquarters for nationalist economies.

This effort was led by such luminaries as John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, James Monroe, Matthew Carey, Nicholas Biddle, Friedrich List, and other leaders of the American system.

“Erie Canal dramatically reduced the cost of moving people and goods between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.” (Courtesy of ppaccone.medium.com)

The accomplishments included:

• 
  Anthracite coal production increased from 400 tons in 1820, to 3.5 million tons in 1847.

• Iron production increased from about 20,000 tons in 1820, to 800,000 tons in 1847.

• The 363-miles-long Erie Canal was completed in 1825, and 15 years later over 3,000 miles of canal have been built.

• There were three miles of railway in operation in 1826 and nearly 6,000 in 1847.

The growth in physical economy in the first half of the nineteenth century was spectacular. It transformed the U.S. and gave the world a new, non-imperialist model of development, which was successfully disseminated to Europe, and Asia. President Lincoln was to continue this progress, despite the Civil War, with initiation of the first ever continental railroad.

Conclusion
Since the death of President John Kennedy, America has lost any semblance of its commitment to scientific industrial progress. U.S. has also lost its enthusiasm to uplift other nations achieve physical economic growth. Using the principles of Hamilton’s American System of Political Economy, discussed above, we could have assisted African nations in already having eliminated poverty. Our failed political leadership, supported by a largely uneducated citizenry, has also irrationally opposed China’s progress in eliminating poverty.

Thus, we have brought ourselves to this crisis point. Americans will be faced with a tragically sad quandary of not having a candidate who truly represents the profound principles upon which the U.S. was established. How we got to this point is another conversation, that I addressed in an earlier article: Why Is US-Africa Policy So Bad? Decline of American Culture!

The purpose of this commentary today is to demonstrate to you, by reviewing Anton Chaitkin’s new book, Who We Are, that America was once a better nation, with qualified leaders. Now, our challenge is to find our way back to being those kinds of Americans.

*Volume I: 1750s to 1850s. published 2020, paperback-435 pages. Who-We-Are

** Nancy B Spannaus, Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way. Published 2023, paperback-383 pages.

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World.”

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