Here’s something I meant to post a few weeks ago, when President Obama was delivering that Osawatomie speech. It’s an essay by Walter Russell Mead, in which he examines the persistent Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian threads in American political history, and argues that after a long period of Hamiltonian ascendancy, the time is right for the tide to turn.
Here.
One Comment
“But there is also no doubt that the Hamiltonian-social democratic synthesis of the twentieth century is not adequate for the times in which we live. Corporatism has bred the kind of cronyism and corruption Jeffersonians have always feared.”
Really well done article, however as a Hamiltonian and TR lover I couldn’t disagree more about the usefulness of the Hamiltonian-social synthesis for today’s problems. One can make the argument (Jeffery Sachs being one of the people that does so) that the increasing and historic income and wealth inequality is a result of the deterioration of efficient governmental controls ever since the Reagan Administration.
What is really needed is to create more creative regulatory systems. One such example would be turning S&P and Moody’s obsolete by outsourcing financial asset ratings. WIRED magazine had an interesting article about how normalizing financial reports would allow anyone with an accounting degree to asses the financial health of a company. By regulating how companies report their financials we can get rid of the conflict of interests that S&P and Moody’s represent and allow the marketplace to actually understand the assets they are trading.
In others words how can we Wiki more of the regulatory system and at the same time make them more effective.