Russell Kirk on Alexander Hamilton's economic views

Among many theorists in the libertarian movement, Alexander Hamilton is looked upon with disdain as the father of crony capitalism.  A more sophisticated and truer view of Hamilton's economic views is set forth by the intellectual father of modern conservatism:

It ought not to be thought that Hamilton either intended or desired the industrializing of the United States on the scale which was achieved after the Civil War and has been much intensified since then.  He argued that much manufacturing could be done in farm households, or by farmers working part of the time in small factories of neighboring towns -- the early pattern of the New England shoe industry.  He did not anticipate the growth of industrial cities with a population of millions, believing mechanized industry a liberation from monotonous drudgery.  he began writing on economic subjects when the Industrial Revolution was but thirty years old, and neither he nor any other public man wholly foresaw the consequences, demographic and social, of increasing mechanization, specialization, and division of labor -- though Smith had misgivings, and Burke would soon express some.

- Russell Kirk, Rights and Duties:  Reflections on Our Conservative Constitution (Spence:  1997), pg. 86.

Hamilton's vision was of small businessmen and farmers working in manufacturing in order to guarantee our nation's self-sufficiency.  That's a worthy vision, particularly suited to the 21st century economy.  Given the current hostility to Hamilton amidst some on the Right in our current political climate, the sage words of Kirk are like water in the desert.