On the $10 dollars note

Hamilton is there because, unbeknown to most Americans today, he is the architect of the modern American economic system. Two years after becoming Treasury Secretary in 1789 at the outrageously young age of thirty-three, Hamilton submitted to the Congress theReport on the Subject of Manufactures, where he set out the economic development strategy for his young country. In the report, he argued that ‘industries in their infancy’, like the American ones, need to be protected and nurtured by government before they can stand on their own feet. Hamilton’s report was not just about trade protectionism – he also argued for public investment in infrastructure (such as canals), development of the banking system, promotion of a government bond market – but protectionism was at the heart of his strategy.

So there we go. Every day, tens of millions of Americans go through the day paying for their taxis and buying their sandwiches with a Hamilton or a Lincoln, getting their change with Washingtons, not realizing that these revered politicians are nasty protectionists that most of their country’s news media, conservative and liberal alike, love to lambast. New York bankers and Chicago university professors tut-tut through articles criticizing the anti-foreign antics of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, in copies of theWall Street Journalbought with an Andrew Jackson, without realizing that he was far more anti-foreign than Chavez.

CHANG, Ha-Joon Chang. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism