Excerpts from Matt Stoller's review of the musical Hamilton. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/hamilton-hustle-stoller
"Miranda’s play is one of the most brilliant propaganda pieces in theatrical history."
"But Alexander Hamilton simply didn’t believe in democracy, which he labeled an American “disease.” He fought—with military force—any model of organizing the American political economy that might promote egalitarian politics. He was an authoritarian, and proud of it....To assert Hamilton disliked democracy is not controversial. The great historian Henry Adams described an evening at a New York dinner, when Hamilton replied to democratic sentiment by banging the table and saying, “Your people, sir—your people is a great beast!” Hamilton’s recommendation to the Constitutional Convention, for instance, was to have a president for life, and to explicitly make that president not subject to law."
"Indeed, most of Hamilton’s legacy is astonishingly counter-democratic. His central role in founding both the financial infrastructure of Wall Street and a nascent military establishment (which supplanted the colonial system of locally controlled democratic militias) was rooted in his self-appointed crusade to undermine the ability of ordinary Americans to govern themselves. We should be grateful not that Hamilton structured the essential institutions of America to fit his vision, but that he failed to do so. Had he succeeded, we would probably be living in a military dictatorship."
" By 1947, a post-war congressional report titled “Fascism in Action” listed Hamilton as one intellectual inspiration for the Nazi regime. Hamilton’s name practically became an epithet among Democrats of the New Deal era, which makes it all the more surprising that he is the darling of the modern party."
"In the 1780s and 1790s, Hamilton won this battle, and the effects were catastrophic. Interest rates shot up as a monopoly of finance gathered in the hands of the merchant class. The debt was owned by the wealthy, while ordinary farmers who had fought in the Revolution had to pay the tax in gold that they didn’t have. It was a heavily deflationary policy, and the era after the Revolution saw an economic contraction similar in size to that of the Great Depression, with a foreclosure crisis as severe. According to Bouton, “There were more Pennsylvanians who had property foreclosed by county sheriffs during the post-war decades than there were Pennsylvania soldiers who fought for the Continental Army.”
Protests broke out in the western parts of the country, similar to pre-Revolution-era revolts against the British, who, in extracting revenues for the Crown and its allies, were pursuing the same policies that Hamilton did. These protests were a response not to taxes, but to the specific tax structure Hamilton constructed. Western farmers, though not poor, had little access to cash, so they used whiskey as currency—a medium of exchange that farmers in many cases produced sporadically in backyard stills. Hamilton’s tax was a political attack on these farmers, whom he saw as his political opponents. The levy targeted whiskey because western farmers had converted this commodity into a competitive monetary system. The whiskey levy was also regressive, with a low rate on industrial distillers and a high rate for small farmers, with the goal of driving the farmers out of the whiskey business. Furthermore, Hamilton placed the collection authority for the tax in the hands of the wealthiest big distillers, who could then use it to drive their smaller competitors out of business. This was all intended not only to destroy the political power of small farmers, but to foment a rebellion that Hamilton could then raise an army to crush. And that’s just what happened.
In 1795, Washington and Hamilton raised more than ten thousand troops to march into Western Pennsylvania, the strongest redoubt of opposition to the new tax (known forever after as the Whiskey Rebellion). Washington, halfway through the march and perhaps doubting the wisdom of this use of military power, handed over command to Hamilton, and went home. Entrusted with executive power, Hamilton used indefinite detention, mass arrests, and round-ups; seized property (including food stores for the winter); and had soldiers administer loyalty oaths. He also attempted to collect testimony to use against his political enemies, such as William Findley and Albert Gallatin (who would later be Jefferson’s and Madison’s secretary of the treasury), which he “hoped to use,” as Hogeland writes, “to silence his political opponents by hanging them for treason.” This is the strong-armed tyranny that David Brooks (to take one among countless exemplars of latter-day Hamilton worship) celebrates when he says that Hamilton gave us “the fluid capital markets that are today the engine of world capitalism.” It is also, far from incidentally, what John Yoo cited as precedent when defending George W. Bush’s national security policies."
"Much of the far-reaching contemporary Hamilton PR offensive is connected to the Gilder Lehman Institute, which is financed by bankers who back the right-wing Club for Growth and American Enterprise Institute (and support Hamilton’s beloved gold standard)."
"The Obama era looks like an echo of the Federalist power grabs of the 1780s and 1790s, both in its enrichment and glorification of financial elites and its open disdain for anything resembling true economic democracy. The Obama political elite, in other words, celebrates Hamilton not in spite of Hamilton’s anti-democratic tendencies, but because of them."
"That said, Hamilton is a great musical. The songs are catchy. The lyrics are beautiful. But the agenda is hidden, because in America, no political leader, not even Donald Trump, can credibly come right out and pronounce democracy a bad thing and agitate for rule by big finance. And the reason for that is that Alexander Hamilton, despite his success in structuring Wall Street, lost the battle against American democracy. Thank God for that."
"Miranda’s play is one of the most brilliant propaganda pieces in theatrical history."
"But Alexander Hamilton simply didn’t believe in democracy, which he labeled an American “disease.” He fought—with military force—any model of organizing the American political economy that might promote egalitarian politics. He was an authoritarian, and proud of it....To assert Hamilton disliked democracy is not controversial. The great historian Henry Adams described an evening at a New York dinner, when Hamilton replied to democratic sentiment by banging the table and saying, “Your people, sir—your people is a great beast!” Hamilton’s recommendation to the Constitutional Convention, for instance, was to have a president for life, and to explicitly make that president not subject to law."
"Indeed, most of Hamilton’s legacy is astonishingly counter-democratic. His central role in founding both the financial infrastructure of Wall Street and a nascent military establishment (which supplanted the colonial system of locally controlled democratic militias) was rooted in his self-appointed crusade to undermine the ability of ordinary Americans to govern themselves. We should be grateful not that Hamilton structured the essential institutions of America to fit his vision, but that he failed to do so. Had he succeeded, we would probably be living in a military dictatorship."
" By 1947, a post-war congressional report titled “Fascism in Action” listed Hamilton as one intellectual inspiration for the Nazi regime. Hamilton’s name practically became an epithet among Democrats of the New Deal era, which makes it all the more surprising that he is the darling of the modern party."
"In the 1780s and 1790s, Hamilton won this battle, and the effects were catastrophic. Interest rates shot up as a monopoly of finance gathered in the hands of the merchant class. The debt was owned by the wealthy, while ordinary farmers who had fought in the Revolution had to pay the tax in gold that they didn’t have. It was a heavily deflationary policy, and the era after the Revolution saw an economic contraction similar in size to that of the Great Depression, with a foreclosure crisis as severe. According to Bouton, “There were more Pennsylvanians who had property foreclosed by county sheriffs during the post-war decades than there were Pennsylvania soldiers who fought for the Continental Army.”
Protests broke out in the western parts of the country, similar to pre-Revolution-era revolts against the British, who, in extracting revenues for the Crown and its allies, were pursuing the same policies that Hamilton did. These protests were a response not to taxes, but to the specific tax structure Hamilton constructed. Western farmers, though not poor, had little access to cash, so they used whiskey as currency—a medium of exchange that farmers in many cases produced sporadically in backyard stills. Hamilton’s tax was a political attack on these farmers, whom he saw as his political opponents. The levy targeted whiskey because western farmers had converted this commodity into a competitive monetary system. The whiskey levy was also regressive, with a low rate on industrial distillers and a high rate for small farmers, with the goal of driving the farmers out of the whiskey business. Furthermore, Hamilton placed the collection authority for the tax in the hands of the wealthiest big distillers, who could then use it to drive their smaller competitors out of business. This was all intended not only to destroy the political power of small farmers, but to foment a rebellion that Hamilton could then raise an army to crush. And that’s just what happened.
In 1795, Washington and Hamilton raised more than ten thousand troops to march into Western Pennsylvania, the strongest redoubt of opposition to the new tax (known forever after as the Whiskey Rebellion). Washington, halfway through the march and perhaps doubting the wisdom of this use of military power, handed over command to Hamilton, and went home. Entrusted with executive power, Hamilton used indefinite detention, mass arrests, and round-ups; seized property (including food stores for the winter); and had soldiers administer loyalty oaths. He also attempted to collect testimony to use against his political enemies, such as William Findley and Albert Gallatin (who would later be Jefferson’s and Madison’s secretary of the treasury), which he “hoped to use,” as Hogeland writes, “to silence his political opponents by hanging them for treason.” This is the strong-armed tyranny that David Brooks (to take one among countless exemplars of latter-day Hamilton worship) celebrates when he says that Hamilton gave us “the fluid capital markets that are today the engine of world capitalism.” It is also, far from incidentally, what John Yoo cited as precedent when defending George W. Bush’s national security policies."
"Much of the far-reaching contemporary Hamilton PR offensive is connected to the Gilder Lehman Institute, which is financed by bankers who back the right-wing Club for Growth and American Enterprise Institute (and support Hamilton’s beloved gold standard)."
"The Obama era looks like an echo of the Federalist power grabs of the 1780s and 1790s, both in its enrichment and glorification of financial elites and its open disdain for anything resembling true economic democracy. The Obama political elite, in other words, celebrates Hamilton not in spite of Hamilton’s anti-democratic tendencies, but because of them."
"That said, Hamilton is a great musical. The songs are catchy. The lyrics are beautiful. But the agenda is hidden, because in America, no political leader, not even Donald Trump, can credibly come right out and pronounce democracy a bad thing and agitate for rule by big finance. And the reason for that is that Alexander Hamilton, despite his success in structuring Wall Street, lost the battle against American democracy. Thank God for that."
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