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Hamilton Was Asking For It
I understand Mona Charen’s outrage at the Treasury Department’s announcement that it will eventually replace — or at least demote — Alexander Hamilton as the face of the ten dollar bill.
The Treasury move certainly fits right into the Obama Administration’s craven “identity politics” strategy, presumably intended to shore up Democratic support among key constituencies. As if the switcheroo wasn’t sufficiently poll-driven to begin with, the clincher of course is that Hamilton will be replaced by a woman to be selected… by popular demand.
But I cannot feel too sorry for Hamilton. The Department of the Treasury is, after all, the House that Hamilton built. No individual is so responsible for consolidating national power over economic affairs as Hamilton. He managed to have the central government assume the states’ debts and then establish a Bank of the United States, despite the utter lack of any constitutional authorization for the federal government to get into the banking business (as James Madison and many others pointed out at the time). He did not manage to wipe out state currency in his lifetime, but his political heirs — the Republicans and erstwhile Whigs who emerged victorious from the Civil War — did so with national currency legislation that taxed state legal tender out of existence. This aspect of Hamilton’s legacy is well documented in Thomas DiLorenzo’s book: Hamilton’s Curse.
Absent the centralizing legacy of Hamilton, we might still have 50 competing state currencies and no one person could dictate what image Americans see on their money. Instead, we have given the central government a monopoly on circulating currency, as Hamilton would no doubt have wished.
Mr. Hamilton, you were an admirable man in many respects, but the Leviathan you helped to create has turned against you!
Published in Economics, History, Politics
Just for the record, I’d like to point out that you can do pretty well for yourself with a degree in medieval history and philosophy.
On the other hand, a Master degree in music is also evidence of some musical talent (with music theory, talent composing, arranging, or performing are all possibilities). Maybe not a talent in enough demand to support yourself without also being a barista, but there are other degrees whose total uselessness I’d be a bit more worried about. There are highfalutin’ early-music groups where folks with MAs in the subject manage to make a living – they must draw their talent from somewhere.
Never even alcohol? Hmm…
Midge! Why did you have to go and find the loophole?!
No, no, no–Medieval music theory. No actual talent is required.
I know what you’re trying to say, but the music-theory curriculum has highly nontrivial musicianship (dictation, sight-reading, performance) and composing requirements ;-)
But what if you take your studies on-line?
Then it’s probably not a music theory degree :-) And understandably so, since tests in music theory, like science or engineering tests, are generally about whether you can do the skill, not just talk or write about it, and it’s still rather costly to accurately test musical skills online. It got stuck with the name “theory”, which I realize makes it sound like you don’t do anything. But typically, you do. It’s an applicable skill, quite different from Gender Theory or Critical Race Theory.
Midge. I was being cheeky.
:-)