Made in the USA -- the Hamilton Way

Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury. Let that fact sink in a moment. There had never been a US Secretary of the Treasury prior to President George Washington appointing Alexander Hamilton. Often, the first person to do anything is just lucky if they do not screw up so horribly that they also be come the last person to do the job. We often admire the first folk to do stuff because they have no pattern to follow; they are pathfinders, leaders, hacking out a path for the rest of us to follow. Later, the path may become a super highway and while the later results are far superior to the first effort at least most of us realize there could be no current success without those first crude brave efforts by those that went first, those who dared to be Founding Fathers.

While this crude first brave leader pattern may often be true, it was most decidedly NOT true in the case of Alexander Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton set in place a plan for the United States that remained in effect for nearly 200 years. What Mr. Hamilton did was look at this fledgling United States, he looked at the world super power of the 1700s, England, and he figured out how England became a world power and what the United States MUST do if we were to become a world leader.

Alexander Hamilton wrote a document that outlined a plan for turning the United States into the premium manufacturing superpower in the entire world. What Mr. Hamilton wrote was entitled: The Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791). The Report on Manufacturing is the main document to reveal Hamilton's plan for industrializing the United States. Mr. Hamilton argued that this new Republic, the USA, should concentrate on developing industry. Hamilton saw that England was the richest and most powerful nation on earth (at that time) because it had the strongest and most effective manufacturing base in the world, far surpassing every other nation.

If the US was going to develop a better, more effective, more powerful, more pervasive manufacturing base Mr. Hamilton felt that the US had to take the following steps:

The government of the United States must nurture American industry in its formative years. Mr. Hamilton could clearly see that you do not go from zero percent to 100 percent over night, that if America was going to have a strong powerful industry then it was going to have to be grown, protected, nurtured, nourished. How is this done?

1. Mr. Hamilton proposed the government impose protective tariffs. Tariffs would prohibit imported manufactured goods from flooding America supplanting OUR efforts to develop our own domestic products.
2. Mr. Hamilton also suggested that OUR government prohibit the exportation of raw materials in order to give our manufacturing base an advantage by having plenty of our own raw materials readily available.
3. Mr. Hamilton proposed that the US set up an effective method for inspecting manufactured goods to ensure that Made In the USA products meet the high standards of quality.
4. Mr. Hamilton urged the government of the United States take serious steps to encouraging our citizens to create more inventions.
5. Mr. Hamilton recommended the support the building of roads and canals to encourage internal trade.
6. Mr. Hamilton felt it was important that the US become independent of any and all control by foreign powers through reliance on our own goods for domestic needs and especially our own defense supplies.

These six standards were key to the United States becoming the richest nation on earth, with the strongest manufacturing base on the planet. However, Mr. Hamilton had more in mind than just protecting US industry, he also sought not only to alteration America's economic base, but also he hoped to change the very nature of our people. Mr. Hamilton believed that American success was not just dependent on our raw materials, and effectively run companies, but it was even more important that we infuse the people of the United States with a new spirit of industriousness, energy, and innovation. What was to make America great was our imagination, our commitment, our positive can-do attitude; it is pride in ourselves that matters most.
The problem is that we the People have become Myopic People. We are shortsighted, and not farsighted. You see, in the short run, it is cheaper to let people in other countries make our steel, because the people "over there" will work under dangerous, crappy conditions for less money, making the steel cheap. Of course, by allowing our steel industry to die, we are now at the mercy of these countries. Now that we can no longer provide for our own steel needs, we are vulnerable, and can be forced to pay higher prices because, well, what other choice do we have? It is not as if we can make the stuff ourselves.

If we did not always go for the fast buck, and instead took the time to allow our manufacturing then we would become richer through investment in ourselves. It is the ole give us a fish and we eat for a day, teach us to fish and we eat for life.

While other countries protect and infuse money into their industries, in recent years we the Myopic People have fallen in love with deregulated free enterprise. We do not protect our manufacturing, other countries do, and we are now surprised to discover that we have failed to compete effectively. Why are we surprised? We are not playing on a level playing field. We do not protect, or nurture our industry, other countries do, and so their manufacturing is healthier than ours is.

At one time, the US manufactured more stuff, the stuff we made was of the highest quality, and we were the richest nation on earth. Today, what we manufacture a tiny fraction of what once was made here, much of what we make is of poor quality, and we are no longer the richest nation on earth, we are the nation with the highest level of debt on this entire planet.

I would suggest that perhaps we should dust off Mr. Hamilton's Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791) tweak it just a bit to make it fit with the technology of today, and do now what was done then.

1. impose protective tariffs,
2. prohibit or closely regulate the exportation of raw
3. set up an effective method for inspecting manufactured goods in order to ensure that our manufactured products meet the high standards of quality, and
4. take serious steps to encouraging our citizens to create more inventions.
5. to build roads and canals to encourage internal trade.
6. to become independent of any and all control by foreign powers through reliance on our own goods for domestic needs and especially our own defense supplies

The protection and encouragement of infant industries, Mr. Hamilton argued, would produce a better balance between agriculture and manufacturing, promote national self-sufficiency, and enhance the nation's wealth and power. This sounds like something we would enjoy having today.

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