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HAMILTON WAS AN ECONOMIC ELITIST
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HAMILTON WAS AN ECONOMIC ELITIST1. HAMILTON IGNORED HUME’S WARNINGS ABOUT THE SYSTEM HE FAVORED Lisa Marie de Carolis, Department of Alfa-informatica, University of Groningen, A Biography of Alexander Hamilton, 1997, p. np, http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/B/hamilton/hamil00.htm, accessed May 1, 2002. Hume in particular was cautionary about the British system, but pointed out some advantages to a credit-based economy. Securities, Hume observed, provide ready capital with the value and function of specie, the availability of which enables merchants to engage in more extensive trade enterprises, which in turn makes commodities cheaper and easier to procure, and thus helps spread "arts and industry throughout the whole society." Landed wealth, Hume contended, makes "country gentlemen" out of wealthy merchants; whereas paper capital fosters a more international mentality, and a more diverse economy. However, Hume emphasized the many evils of a credit-based economy, warning that a funded debt necessitates oppressive taxes to pay the interest, creates dangerous disparities in wealth, indebts the nation to foreign powers, and renders the stock holders largely idle and useless for everything but playing the market. Hume felt that the evils greatly outweighed the advantages. Hamilton dismissed Hume's warnings and instead focused on the positive aspects of national credit; the continuing vitality of the British economy was enough to prove the efficacy of their system. Hamilton based his program primarily on the British model, with variations more suited to the United States' unique characteristics. Public credit was to become the pillar of Hamilton's fiscal reform package, the "invigorating principle" which would infuse the United States with the energy and international respectability he had envisioned. 2. HAMILTON’S GOVERNMENT IDEAS FOCUSED ON PROTECTING THE RICH Charles Beard, historian, FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION, 1912, p. 31. Nevertheless, by the system of checks and balances placed in the government, the convention safeguarded the interests of property against attacks by majorities. The House of Representatives, Mr. Hamilton pointed out, "was so formed as to render it particularly the guardian of the poorer orders of citizens," while the Senate was to preserve the rights of property and the interests of the minority against the demands of the majority. In the tenth number of The Federalist, Mr. Madison argued in a philosophic vein in support of the proposition that it was necessary to base the political system on the actual conditions of "natural inequality." Uniformity of interests throughout the state, he contended, was impossible on account of the diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originated; the protection of these faculties was the first object of government; from the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately resulted; from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors ensued a division of society into different interests and parties; the unequal distribution of wealth inevitably led to a clash of interests in which the majority was liable to carry out its policies at the expense of the minority; hence, he added, in concluding this splendid piece of logic, "the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered by their number and local situation unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression"; and in his opinion, it was the great merit of the newly framed Constitution that it secured the rights of the minority against "the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." 3. HAMILTON RELIED ON THE WEALTHY ALLYING THEMSELVES WITH STATE POWER Lisa Marie de Carolis, Department of Alfa-informatica, University of Groningen, A Biography of Alexander Hamilton, 1997, p. np, http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/B/hamilton/hamil00.htm, accessed May 1, 2002. In order to stimulate the economy, Hamilton needed big investors. The support and capital of the nation's wealthiest citizens would provide the foundation and security of his system. He wrote in 1780: "The only plan that can preserve the currency is one that will make it to the immediate interest of the monied men to cooperate with the government in its support. ...No plan could succeed which does not unite the interest and credit of rich individuals with that of the state." Vaclav HavelDissident, playwright, president, poet, philosopher, politician. Vaclav Havel is a difficult figure to classify. He is a philosophical thinker who acts out his political beliefs on the stage of Czech politics. His opinions can be seen through examination of his life and the numerous books, essays, plays, and speeches he has written. Havel’s early work focuses on the dangers of totalitarian governments that quash the individual spirit by restricting artistic and intellectual freedom. He was inspired by his own experience of repression under Czechoslovakia’s communist regime to write plays and poetry that criticized and ridiculed totalitarian bureaucracies. As a dissident, Havel voiced his opinions despite his government’s attempts to silence and jail him. Havel’s later work focuses on the disconnectedness and irresponsibility that modern people feel in response to a lack of faith in certain and universal truths and values. Although Havel was no believer in communism, he also criticizes the consumeristic egotism of the Western world. Havel’s work is an invaluable resource for L.D. debaters, who can use his arguments to appeal to such values as human rights, freedom, and political responsibility. WHO IS VACLAV HAVEL?Vaclav Havel was born in 1937 in what was then Czechoslovakia. The son of a wealthy businessman, he grew up in a building that had been constructed by his grandfather in 1905. After the Soviet backed communists took over the Czechoslovak republic in 1948 coup, Vaclav was denied access to the high schools and universities because his family was formerly part of the “bourgeois” class. But this did not stop him from educating himself. He enrolled in night school while working as a taxi driver during the days and graduated from the Czech University of Technology in 1957. After his graduation, he served in the army for two years. Havel had a passion for the theatre. Although he was barred from attending Czechoslovakia’s liberal arts colleges or performing arts academies, he found a job as a stagehand at the ABC Theatre in Prague, Czechoslovakia’s capital. Also working there as a cloakroom attendant was Olga Splichalova, who would later become his wife. Splichalova read many of Havel’s plays and offered him support and encouragement. Havel wrote about Olga, “I’m a child of the middle class and ever the diffident intellectual. Olga’s a working-class girl and very much her own person….In Olga, I found exactly what I needed: Someone who could respond to my own mental instability, to offer sober criticism of my wilder ideas [and to] provide private support for my public adventures.” Havel eventually became the theatre’s literary advisor, contributing scripts and assisting the producer. His first play, The Garden Party, premiered in December of 1963. Even as a teenager, Havel actively protested the repression of Czechoslovakia’s communist government. At one conference of young writers and government officials and argued for official recognition of dissident poets. Havel’s plays ridiculed the bureaucracy and corruption of communist government and made fun of its attempts to control the way people think. Havel was influenced by the 1960’s counterculture of the U.S., including its rock music, especially Frank Zappa and Lou Reed. The Theatre on the Balustrade produced Havel’s plays until the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, rolling their tanks down the streets of Prague, in 1968. At that time, a much more repressive government came to power and Havel’s books were removed from libraries and his plays were banned. In 1969, Havel’s passport was revoked and he discovered a bugging device in his apartment that indicated the government was watching his every move. But this did not stop him from writing. His plays became very popular outside of Czechoslovakia and by the mid-1970’s, he had become internationally famous. He drove a Mercedes Benz he had bought with foreign money every day to his assigned job loading barrels of beer at a brewery for $50 a week. Despite the risks to his personal safety, Havel continued to publish materials that criticized the government, including letters demanding the release of jailed political prisoners. In 1977, Havel became outraged at the Czechoslovakian government’s trials and arrests of rock bands and artists. He joined other Czech dissidents in forming the Charter 77 human rights organization. The group was made up of intellectuals, musicians, and church leaders. The Czechoslovakian government charged him with subversion for leading the organization and sentenced him to hard labor. He was also punished for his involvement in VONS, the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. Between 1977 and 1989, he was imprisoned four times. His longest imprisonment lasted from 1979 until 1982. While in prison, he continued to write about his political opinions to his wife Olga. The collection of those writings was published under the title Letters to Olga. In 1989, Soviet communism faltered, and the collapse spread to Czechoslovakia in what has been called Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution.” The regime collapsed in 1989 and Havel was directly and democratically elected as the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic’s president. However, with the collapse of central Soviet authority, the glue that bound Czechoslovakia together dissipated. Ethnic divisions emerged and disagreements over the way state run industries were to be handled caused the breakup of Czechoslovakia in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Havel resigned the presidency in protest, but in 1992 he was elected to a five year term as the Czech Republic’s first president. As the president, he serves as a moral leader, although he does not preside over many of the day to day operations of the government. The prime minister is the hands-on leader in the Czech political system. In 1996, Havel lost his wife Olga to cancer. He continues to serve as the Czech president and he remains a prolific writer and speaker. He has received many honorary degrees from universities all over the world as well as several international awards for his literary works and human rights activism. 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