America and her base ideological principles: Pt3

* These 4 political ideology groups are referred from “Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World” by Walter Russell Meade, 2002. But, these descriptions combines Meade's analysis of politics and history of the international relations and mine mainly based on economic policy.


3.1. Wilsonianised Status-quo

Since Woodrow Wilson was elected and then he started aggressively intervening to the international politics such as the World War I, America stated behaving as the guardian of liberal democracy in not only inside America but also outside America. This started to be called Wilsonian policy. One of Wilson's quotes “Right is more precious than peace. The world must be made safe for democracy.” (0:25:06 American Experience: Woodrow Wilson Part 2) sums up the characteristics of Wilson's won policy as well as the follower of Wilsonian ideology.

Majority of the Democratic supporters, Modern Liberals (also known as Political Liberalists), and socialists in all over the world tend to think that the Republicans are war-mongers and fiscally extravagant. Nonetheless, the time when the Republicans were aggressive and extravagant are the Lincoln's administration time periods and the time periods from 1980s onward. By contrast, the Democrats, since Wilson was elected as the president, have been far more aggressive and fiscally extravagant than any other political parties. In particular, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the president, the Democrats have always engaged enemies, and started the war.


The Republicans also provoked some wars, but they cared about the fiscal prudence and the productive consequence derived from their cause and action. Therefore, the Republicans used their force to a certain limit to secure the safe trade routes and American national defence. Like Theodore Roosevelt's administration, their ulterior motive of provoking wars in outside America was to deserve their national material interests, and they were only eager to defend the liberal democracy and the natural right in inside America.

The reason why they intervened to the South America and the pacific ocean was that building relationship with these nations there would be the necessary condition to compete with the contemporary European empires and also highly beneficial for American future. These nations were struggling with the contemporary unilateral diplomatic relationship with Europe which deserves European sides more than their South American counterparts. Then, America emancipated them from the occupation under European colonisers by fighting against their European rulers. However, Theodore Roosevelt avoided intervening to both Atlantic Ocean and Europe itself by following Monroe Doctrine. He and the old Republicans knew that the excessive intervention and the devotion in moral objective would result in unproductive consequences.


The Democrats have been far more aggressive and fiscally imprudent and provoked wars. These wars provoked by the Democrats resulted in various unproductive consequences for both America and the others and the heavy reliance of citizens and American economy on the federal government. The aggression of the Democrats were motivated by their devotion in the universal moral principle which Wilsonian Democrats demand to encourage the entire world to follow.

In the domestic policy, Wilson also put a harsh persecution against his opponents and severely restricted freedom of speech among citizens during his regime. He even imprisoned those whom he suspected as oppositions to his politics under the name of his devout cause in the Natural Right. As explained in Ch1, the Natural Right principle basing American Liberal Democratic ideal itself is a very attractive cause. Nevertheless, having learned from the history, any enthusiasm based on good cause and principle may lead to a bloodshed when these devout supporters become fundamental to stick to it. Then, they tend to ignore the prudence and the consequence derived from their zealous action.

Wilson's intervention to the European war in the Wold War I (WW1) was encouraged by a good loyal cause to defend the Liberal Democratic alliance oppressed by the old monarchist totalitarians based on the Continental Realism. Despite of his good cause, the excess negative sanction toward the enemy nations created a strong antagonism and ressentiment of these former enemy nations enough to let them establish a new form of the oppressive politics. In addition, the ally nations have became excessively dependent on American foreign aids since then. All in all, America have been obliged to keep intervening to European politics in order to aid the dependent allies and repress the old and the new oppressive nations. Monroe Doctrine had avoided inducing this kind of result so that Americans had followed Monroe Doctrine as their wisdom to avoid their excessive intervention to the world outside America. But, Wilson ignored and destroyed the teaching of this wisdom.

Wilson himself faced a lot of enemies in his own party. In the contemporary Democratic party, there were still a large proportion of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian members who opposed the federal government power expansion. Wilson's reformation was a revolutionary movement in inside the Democratic party, which was transformed from the old conservative isolationist party to the aggressive progressive party. The Democratic party in 20th century onward completely follow the latter model, and the former model has been repealed off gradually from Wilson's administration to F.D.Roosevelt's administration. Afterward, the Democratic party has completely turned up to be a pure Wilsonian party.

In the late 20th century onward, the Republican party also became converted to Wilsonian, and started promoting American guardianship of Liberal Democracy. In particular, it was obvious that the Republican government under George W Bush, Jr.'s administration was a typical Wilsonian style i.e. the moral idealist (Moral Universalist) as well as the global interventionist.

Bush Jr. seemed to attempt to look like a Jacksonian (A moral relativist isolationist populist) in order to pretend a populist to attract countryside Americans and urban American mobs. At the same time, he restored the old moralist tradition before the secular moralist like Kantinan deontologist and John Rawls's secular Political Liberalism became popular. He tried to attract Christian voters who have been disappointed by the current Democratic party which is secularised nowadays, and adapted the religious side of Wilsonian politics to his new Republican party. All in all, in order to attract those who detest the Democrats' interventionist policy, and to distinguish his new religious sort of Wilsonian policy from the Democrats' secular sort of Wilsonian, he played with the two face mask which contains the two opposing personalities. On the other hand, the outcome of Bush Jr.'s administration was completely a Wilsonian.

However, since Bush Jr. and his fellow Neoconservatives took over the office, Jacksonian votes have realised that the Bush Jr.'s administration was completely based on their opposing Wilsonian policy. Then, some Republicans started forming a new faction called the Tea Party which clearly distinguishes themselves from Bush Jr. and his fellow who pretended as though they were Jacksonians. Because both the Democrats and the Republicans are now Wilsonian, and the only difference between them is that the Democrats are secular and the Republicans are more religious, these Jacksonian votes were frustrated in finding their favourite party. Then, the Tea party members of the Republicans fulfilled their favour.


The Wilsonian transformation of the Republican party started at the time when Ronald Reagan was elected as the president. Reagan himself was not a pure Wilsonian, and reminded many characteristics of the other 3 American political party ideology groups. Reagan was a unique and flexible politician who cannot be fit in the box. His Wilsonian side of personality was recognised in his federal government policy. Many political philosophers think of his tax cut and minimising public expenditures other than the military expenditure as Jacksonian minimisation of the federal government compared to states'. Nonetheless, his policy domestic policy he introduced far more focused on the big centralised scale rather than the small decentralised scale. He verbally put emphasis on the interest of small local communities in order to attract the isolationists' voters. But, his ulterior motive was to create promoting strong individualism and big private business growth which deserved more for the individuals favouring diversity more than the communitarian traditionalism and the corporations thriving with deregulation and tax cut in the urban areas. Ronald Reagan was wearing Jacksonian Cloth but Wilsonian inside.

Reagan should rather be seen as Wilsonian by means of his economic policy. Wilson tried to regulate excessively deregulated economy meanwhile Reagan tried to deregulate excessively regulated economy. The characteristic of these two are different but their quality of policy is same. Both Wilson and Reagan were willing to achieve in the economic system following the Natural Right principle which protects the individual freedom and right. The similarity of both is that they go extreme to reform the government policy. Wilson made the government too big meanwhile Reagan made the government too small.

At the time when Wilson was in charge of politics, the federal government power of Wilson's government imposed the regulation on the contemporary capitalists and their owning private sector industries, which operated the monopoly violating majority citizens' Natural Right, to protect the individuals' Natural Right from the contemporary capitalists owing the big private sector businesses. By contrast, the structure of American capitalist economy significantly changed from that time period. Erik Olin Wright, one of Neo-Marxist sociologists, described that the bureaucrats nowadays are closely tied up with the owner of big corporations and have started controlling the means of production as the new capitalist class since the Welfare state policy was introduced to capitalist nations. Furthermore, Wright mentioned that various entrepreneurs not fortunate enough to have a close relationship tie with both the big corporate tycoons and the bureaucrat have lost their power as the bourgeoisie since then. Therefore, the federal government power of Reagan's government reduced the tax taken by the bureaucrats, the new capitalists, and deregulated the entire market to discourage the monopoly of capital by the bureaucrats and their owning public sector industries.


All in all, Wilsonian, inspired by Lincoln's policy, became the mainstream political ideology of the status-quo in the 20th century onward.


3.2. The New Rebels: Jeffersonian (Libertarians) and Jacksonians (Tea Party)

Both the mainstream parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, have become Wilsonianised, and the majority members of these parties have also become Wilsonians. The other political ideology groups are expelled from the competition in the party politics, and then Wilsonian monopolised the power of the party politics. Since both the main parties became Wilsonian, American politics transformed the government to be an intensively centralised and interventionist one, which Jeffersonian and Jacksonian detest, and transformed the financial management to be an extravagant style, which the old Hamiltonian accused. Furthermore, due to this centralisation and monopolisation of American politics, less American citizens obtain the opportunity to represent American politics.

Compared to any other nation, America has been a successful modern democratic nation where majority of citizens are interested in politics and ambitious to reflect their opinion. So, unlike the other nations, America has had provided these ambitious citizens with the democratic opportunity of representing their opinon. American political structure used to allow four unique political ideology groups to compete in obtaining the political power. So, in order to defeat the opponents, these groups always had to recruit their supporters as many as possible. Therefore, this structure enabled many citizens to participate into politics by joining one of these groups.

By contrast, as the power of American politics is monopolised by fewer groups, as these mainstream groups no longer need to make an effort to either aggressively recruit supporters nor aggressively advertise for the campaign, they require less citizens to help them. Thus, nowadays, more Americans are frustrated in their ambition of reflecting their political opinions than ever.

Those who disagree with the centralised autocratic government who intensively interfere with foreign affairs now no longer trust any mainstream political parties, and lost their interest in participating in the mainstream politics. However, this does not mean these citizens have lost their interest in the entire American politics. They have started a new revolution against the mainstream American politics which has been hijacked by the monopolistic status-quo. This seems to be a new American Civil War between the federal government of the status-quo and the isolationist popular politics lead by the new rebellion groups. This new rebellion is called Libertarianism which promotes for an isolationist foreign policy and the decentralised domestic policy.


There are two streams of Libertarian movement. Majority of Libertarians belonging to the political party called the Libertarian party are Jeffersonians, the booked based Civil Libertarian idealists. Self-dependent countryside citizens and the Republicans who are disappointed with the Wilsonianised mainstream party members are Jacksonians who prefer the straightforward policy to the complicated book based idealism.

Jeffersonians had had disagreed with Wilsonian federal autocracy which violates states' right and minimises individual sovereignty. However, Jeffersonians have realised that some federal intervention is necessary to avoid the complete collapse of the United States of America, and to negatively sanction against some states starting to violate individual citizens' liberty and right. Then, Jeffersonian and Wilsonian once allied to maintain the federal government power as a guardian of Natural Right because both groups are devout worshiper of American Liberal Democratic ideal based on the Natural Right ethical principle.

Since the beginning, Jacksonian has always been the most notable antagonist against Wilsonian politics, and been once disappointed by Jeffersonian when it formed an alliance with Wilsonian. Because Jacksonian is the populist derivation of Jeffersonian ideology, Jacksonians used to consider and call themselves as Jeffersonians even though Thomas Jefferson would have disagreed because of their unsophisticated characteristics. The obvious differences between Jacksonian and Jeffersonian are as follow. Jacksonian always puts priority on the states' right unless the USA is engaging a foreign enemy. Meanwhile Jeffersonians insist on their individualism for pursing American ideal,
Jacksonians support their individuality for their own basic need and want. Of course, Jeffersonian also encourages all citizens to be honest about clinging to their need and want. But, Jacksonian cause is far more straight forward and simplistic than Jeffersonian methodology.

A while after the Cold War, since the status-quo started being controlled by Wilsonian style politics, Jeffersonians have started to be sceptical about its former ally Wilsonian due to Wilsonian's monopoly over American political power and the current intensively centralised extravagant governance. Jeffersonians have then realised that their original way of pursing American ideal has been violated, and then started thinking that Americans now need to thinking the basic and the original spirit of American establishment. This is the cause to create a new revolutionary political party called the Libertarian party which rebels against both the Democratic party and the Republican party.

The old Republicans who are more fiscal conservative and realist in politics than the mainstream Republicans started feeling insecure under their current imprudent party politics. These fiscal conservatives and political realists of the Republicans used to be Hamiltonians who claim for the foreign intervention for their national material well-being. By contrast, nowadays, they are more likely to become Jacksonians, who are more aggressively insisting on minimising the federal government expenditure than any other political ideology groups. The other reason they have decided to choose Jacksonian path instead of Hamiltonian path is to gain the popular supports from countryside citizens and urban mobs. These countryside citizens and urban mobs are considerably more frustrated in ambition than Hamiltonian leaning rationalist individuals. So, these rebellious Republicans have chosen to be Jacksonian to attract these frustrated supporters in order to accomplish in their fiscal prudence which both realist groups Hamiltonian and Jacksonian put emphasis on. Then, this derivation of the Republican party, which declares the populist Libertarianism, is called the Tea Party named after Americans' rebellion against British autocratic occupation.


Both the Libertarian party, the new Jeffersonian, and the Tea party, the new Jacksonian, ally to challenge against the current authoritarian status-quo under the same shared interest of their Libertarian movement. Although both of them are prevented from being the mainstream, their influence among ordinary American citizens has become not ignorable. Their aggression is resemblance to the American rebels who fought for American independence. They aspire to resurrect the good old American life style, which they think of as America's attractive uniqueness from the rest of this world. They are also keen to show their proud traditional American economy as the freest economic model, which is detached from a heavy government intervention to economy, where citizens and entrepreneurs freely live and thrive purely by means of their voluntary will. Their motivation is encouraged by both their nostalgia of the original America-ness and their ambition to experiment an attractive and ideal economics.

On the other hand, their insisting isolationist policy is concerned to reduce American economic strength and cause the loss of the global order maintained largely by America's intervention as a guardian of the global market and the international human right. In addition, the disintegration of the macroeconomic policy, which Libertarians claim for, will cause the domestic economic instability and reduce the aggregate productivity level of American economy. Therefore, these Libertarians' policy is pretty much a resemblance to the original Jefferson's over-idealistic proposal which was highly criticised by Hamilton due to its inability to strengthen the national economy and expand the international trade network.

On the top of the structural issue, Libertarians' fundamental belief in their universal morality is warned to repeat the similar mistake as Wilsonian, which Edmund Burke would have criticised if he had been alive then. Furthermore, Libertarian reasoning process is critically normative (Quite vague and over expecting) so that their action tends to put priority on clinging to their right regardless of its costs more than keeping their action prudent, and on accomplishing their very long term ideal more than the affordable productive consequence. Both the Wilsonianised status-quo and Libertarians share the essentially same quality which contains a worrying risk of the moral universalism previously mentioned in Ethical Principles explained by Mathematical Logic Ch3 to Ethical Principles explained by Mathematical Logic Ch4.

American idealism was a strong manifesto which successfully liberated people of this world from the old traditional tyrannical autocratic politics of the Continental Realism which bases the philosophy of monarchism, aristocracy, and socialism. However, the nonhuman sovereign power influence of Americanism consequently transformed America from a super individualist nation to a centralised aggressive nation. Some of political philosophers wonder whether or not there can be an alternative political philosophy which is neither the traditional autocratic politics based on collectivism nor the moral universalism seen in America.


3.3. Who are Hamiltonians nowadays?

The question about the current American political ideology map is that where Hamiltonian has gone. Having observed the current American politics, there does not seem to be any remarkable Hamiltonian figure there. Republicans used to have more Hamiltonian leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and George Howard Walker Bush. By contrast, nowadays, the Republicans are divided into the two opposing groups, Wilsonian, the aggressive missionary spreading the universal morality in the world, and Jacksonian, the populist realist following the moral relativism who insists on leaving American alone and let the others do what they want unless they threatens America i.e. "Don't tread me!". So, Hamiltonian characteristics of the trade expansionism under a prudential fiscal management and promoting the huge international relationship based on the material interests seem to have ceased away from the Republican party.


Despite the situation that Hamiltonian looks like having disappeared from American politics, there is still a politically influential group which promotes Hamiltonian. What has to be focused on is that politics of a nation is no longer controlled only by the political party members elected in a representative indirect democracy. Since the end of the Cold War when the information technology started to be rapidly developed and the world economy is globalised, various world financial institutions and multinational corporations have grown big.

When the global economy became globalised, a global scale reserve bank mediates and balances global economics and financial activities in order to stabilise the business cycle of all other the world. So, the financial institutes such as the IMF and the World Bank became authorised to hold the power to influence the world monetary policy which are independent from any national politics. As their objectives are clearly indexed, their action is not motivated by the abstract moral principle which is either impossible to achieve within resource and technology available or required to fulfil in an extremely long run. So, they require a strong prudence in their fiscal policy and encourage a pragmatic method to achieve their clearly indexed objectives.

The financial institutions such as investment banks and insurance companies freely invest beyond the national border lines as long as these investments are profitable, and nations have allowed them to do since the end of the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the high politics such as the military power and the charisma of an ideological belief such as religion and political ideology has become less significant to enable a nation to have a strong initiative in the international politics. Since then, the low politics such as an economic management and a financial strength has become the key to hold an initiative in the international politics. Furthermore, individuals and companies have become less loyal to their own country's national politics, and then they have started welcoming foreign investors, who provide them with the opportunity to expand their business, and willing to invest to foreigners who seem to provide them with an enough return. The global corporations also build their branches and expand their business activity owing to the same cost and benefit analysis.


Many political philosophers and student of political or any social science may disagree with the analysis of this essay categorising financial engineers and global corporate entrepreneurs as Hamiltonian because these critiques may criticise financial engineers and global corporate entrepreneurs as too speculative to be Hamiltonians. Some anti-capitalist protestors argue that their investment strategy is highly speculative so that these financial engineers cannot be Hamiltonians. These anti-capitalist protestors seem to be ignorant of an economist point of view. The investment motivation of global investors is rather transactional than speculative. Their investment resource comes from the saving income, and their job is to convert the saving income to profitable investment. The investment methodology which anti-capitalist protestors know is merely an amateur technique rather than a financially professional technique. These anti-capitalists protestors seem to only guess how the professionals trade in the real world rather than deeply researching about the basic investment analysis and the complex algorithm used in it.

Furthermore, these critiques may also criticise that financial engineers and global corporate entrepreneurs are too imprudent to be Hamiltonians. But, this argument is contradicting by means of the economic theoretical point of view. Their government expenditure to recapitalise these financial institutes in the crisis was not a loose fiscal policy: These financial engineers and financial institutes have paid a high volume of the income tax. The government have already imposed taxation on them as the insurance to be prepared to a predicted financial collapse. In addition, the financial market is the most regulated market among all kinds of market due to avoid the rick caused by the fluctuant nature of this market. Therefore, the crisis was rather the accidental outcome than the federal government’s negligence to regulate.


These politically independent financial engineers and global entrepreneurs have become more influential and accountable to the national economy than political parties and electors owing to their financial influence which has grown even bigger than national governments' economic policy. They have realised that the proactive policies by political party of their country are no longer significantly affecting their economy. Since then, they have been indirectly manipulating American politics bypassing the party politics competition based on the ideological principle.

On the other hand, despite their detachment from the party politics competition, their business activities deserve for national economy and the well-being of the entire America is more likely to depend upon them than ever. As long as these financial engineers and global corporations are American base, their individual internal profit is transferred to American public finance via taxation by government and voluntary donations of these financial engineers and global enterprises. Thus, even though they are detached from pursuing American political ideal, their material contribution to American public still benefit to America thriving as an ideal nation of Liberal Democracy based on the Natural Right principle. This pragmatic political characteristic is indeed Hamiltonian.


The reason why these financial engineers and global entrepreneurs tend to be seen with some negative image by many citizens is that they are the elite members of America whose life style is different from the average ordinary Americans'. The rest of this world has the same situation as this American situation. The elites usually enjoy their distinctive life style which is different from the local life style of their home country. Furthermore, their highly rationalist mentality tends to be incompatible with the emotional whim which these local citizens stick to.

Since America was founded, Hamiltonian has been the least American and more European ideology even though it has lead the mainstream American politics so that Hamiltonian can be seen as the least nationalistic and the least idealistic of these 4 alignments introduced in this essay. Majority of Americans still put emphasis on the spirituality and their transcendental world view which enables them to keep pursing in American ideal. By contrast, Hamiltonian severely focuses on the material interest more than the spiritual and moral interest, and on the substantial world view rather than the transcendental world view. Even though American politics is often driven by this perspective, the deep characteristics of America and Americans have not take Hamiltonian policy for granted all the time. So, the opposing competitors have always attempted to overthrow Hamiltonian regime in their government since Thomas Jefferson. The antagonism of nowadays between the ideologically apathetic elites and the rest of American citizens can be seen as the resemblance to the antagonism of the past between the contemporary Hamiltonian governors and the rest of American citizens. Thus, these financial engineers and global entrepreneurs should be called the new Hamiltonian.


As same as the old Hamiltonian, the Pragmatist philosophy of the new Hamiltonian has also caused the academic authoritarianism since the new Hamiltonian became influential after the Cold War. The philosophy of the financial engineering has transformed economics, as the academic subject, to be ignoring the philosophical aspects of it. Then, the aim of studying economics has become the straightforward method of the indexed economic outlooks. Therefore, the loyal philosophical objective, such as what Adam Smith, the father of economics, aspired in, has been ignored since the introduction of Pragmatism in economics, and then the competition among different schools of economics has ceased away due to the imposition of the intensive peer group assessment by the authorised minority academics.

The epidemic of nihilism has been spread out to all over the world due to the denial of creating and believing in each human-being's own cause and reason. Chasing after the indexed economic outlooks used to be supposed to be simply a good tool to help our life, but has been only regarded as the goal after the Pragmatist philosophy became influential. When they become materially rich, they will no longer have the aim to live. When they suffer from the financial loss due to the crisis hitting the world market, they cannot analyse the market to look for the way out from this crisis when the existing algorithm does not help them. When the existing theories in one subject does not work, the comprehensive analyses involving the other sorts of subjects helps to draw an alternative conclusion. Nonetheless, the specialisation encouraged by Pragmatism has restricted majority scholars thinking this way, and excluded many non-mainstream ambitious thinkers away from the opportunity of reflecting their opinion. Thus, many individuals have become apathetic or relying the others such as a religious hope, a government, or authorised elites.


The new Hamiltonians were successful to grow the financial strength of individuals, their belonging institutes, and their nation in the market economy. But, its Pragmatist philosophy has castrated many individuals enough to lose their interest in economics, active participation in politics, and proudly believing in themselves with their own loyal cause and reasoning. The fundamental idealism based on the universal moral principle seems to contain the risk of violence and negligence of taking the material stability and prosperity into consideration. Nevertheless, the new Hamiltonian Pragmatism also contains the risk of excessively growing the academic authoritarianism and the nihilism. Hence, again, some of political philosophers wonder whether or not there can be an alternative political philosophy helping out from this world wide crisis.

America and her base ideological principles: Pt2

2.1. From Natural Right to Kantian Deontology:

The previous chapter explained that the idea of Natural Right is the base ethical principle for all various political ideology groups in America. There is no one mainstream opinion leader of politics, and various political ideology groups compete each other to gain the popularity. However, there is one shared fundamental principle which all these different political ideology groups share, and this principle exists as a nonhuman sovereign of America. This is called Natural Right, which means the naturally given right, which regards that there is a naturally given impregnable right provided equally to all human-beings, and all individual citizens and their nation must use their best effort to protect and furthermore promote.

American theists believe that the provider of this Natural Right is God. Natural Right theory is heavily influenced by Christianity because John Locke, the father of Natural Right, was a devout Christian. The original founding principle of America was Protestantism because majority of European immigrants moved to America during the establishment period were Protestants. The founding fathers of America were devout Christians, and aspired to enable be Christianity more influential in their new home country America than their previous home country in Europe.

When several years after American independence had passed, the change in American people's mind started taking place. During the 20th century, the new modern political ideology emerged in Europe, and this spread the strong scepticism about religion, history, culture, and the pre-existing perception of this world in Europe, and then the rest of the world afterward. The mastermind of this movement was Immanuel Kant, and his followers encouraged this movement. America was not an exception from its influence, and in a different form from the others, the influence was way stronger than the rest of the world.

The speed of spreading its influence was slower in America than the rest of the world due to Americans' strong resistance against this European born politics which seemed to decay the traditional American Liberal Democracy based on the Natural Right ethics originated from Christianity. Nevertheless, because Kantian ethics was evolved from Lockean Natural Right theory, Kantian Deontology was familiar to American political culture. As same as American traditional Natural Right theory, Kantian theory puts emphasis on the universally right morality, an absolute truth, and the challenge against the reality, and these characteristics of Kantian philosophy corresponded to American personality. More than Europe, because the natural right ethics is more influential in America, Americans are more likely to constantly put emphasis on the universally right morality, aspire after an absolute truth which they believe in, and express their world view by means of their idealism. Then, Americans adapted Kantian philosophy to America as a different form from the European counterparts.

After some time passed, agnostics and atheists started appearing in America. But, even though the characteristics of someone changes, the fundamental quality of the innate personality of all the people tends to remain unchanged. As America, the nation, was born as a Christian and Liberal Democratic nation who has a strong invincible universal ethical principle, American agnostics and atheists tend to look for the agnosticism and the atheism whose fundamental characteristics is similar to both Christianity and the traditional Natural Right. Kantian characteristics of God-less monotheism has attracted many American individuals who were disappointed by Christianity for some reason, and then Kantian Deontology has become an alternative belief for these Americans which is different from Christianity but whose characteristics is similar to Christianity.

Kant was a German, but his ethics as well as the legal philosophy influenced by Kantian ethics seemed to be more influential in America. In European and any modern secular nations, the objective of creating legal codes of law and imposing the law enforcement is the economic and political stability. Then, in these nations, morality is considered to be relative to various different cultures and situations in these nations so that morality tends to be considered not as a primary matter in law. Therefore, their social justice tends to refer to the objectively (Kantian theorists call "hypothetically" instead) determined measures and values such as property values, utility (pleasure minus pain), and any form of physical or psychological sanctions predicted to induce a desired consequence i.e. the stability. By contrast, American social justice regards highly of the abstract but absolute universal moral code equally important as or sometimes more than any legal legal codes of law which Kantian theorists may call hypothetical (Not categorical). All in all, Kantian ethics and legal philosophy deeply corresponds to American mentality and was adapted to one of the big political ideology groups of America (The other groups tend to be deeply sceptical about Kantian philosophy due to its compatibility with their characteristics and political aim).



2.2. Rise of Wilsonian

Woodrow Wilson shaped a new form of American politics, and his political philosophy, called Wilsonian, has become the most dominant American political ideology in 20th century onward. Moreover, Wilsonian is a compatible American ideology with the modern idealism created by Kant and Hegel even though Wilson himself was not categorised as either Kantian or Hegelian. The combination of Wilson's political philosophy and the ethics of Kant and Hegel became to be known as the international Human Right activism.

Wilson himself had not declared to enthusiastically support Kantian philosophy, and his admiring political philosopher was Edmond Burke whose philosophical principle is totally different from the counterpart of Kant and those influenced by Kant like Hegel. However, Wilson's original political philosophy somehow shares a very distinctive similarity with Kantian deontology, and Wilson's political principle had turned up to be similar to Kant's ethical principle. Kant's ethics attempts to create an ethical principle because it is totally unique from any existing philosophical principles. Wilson’s Burkean philosophy encourages thinking beyond any existing philosophical principles. All in all, both Kant and Wilson aspire to invent the new methodology of imagining and accomplishing in their transcendental ideal world which completely deviates from the philosophical axiom and the wisdom of life which had ever been invented. The characteristic of their idea was very different from each other, but the quality of both was identical to each other.


Since Wilsonian became popular in American politics, America has started aggressively intervening into various foreign affairs of the international politics as the opinion leader of the International Human Right activism. American international interventionism used to be merely motivated by the materialistic interests. Nonetheless, when Wilsonian politics was introduced, America started intervening to the international politics by means of her moral interests on the top of the materialistic interests. Wilsonian attempts to combine the power of the federal government, which Hamiltonian puts emphasis on, and the consistent attitude toward the pursuit in the political ideal which Jeffersonian insists on.

Wilson himself condemned Jeffersonian politics and admired Hamiltonian, but his enthusiasm of pursuing in American Liberal Democratic ideal was very similar to how Jefferson did. Wilsonian also insisted on the strong federal government for not only the economic and domestic political stability but also maintaining the strong unified moral standard and protecting and promoting American Liberal Democracy and its base principle Natural Right. It is similar to Jeffersonian in terms of its moral obligation. Both Jeffersonian and Wilsonian expect America and her citizens to be well-enlightened with American Liberal Democracy and her ideal.

Nevertheless, Wilsonian accuses Jeffersonian scepticism of a strong paternalistic federal government. Wilsonian regards that the federal government is responsible to be operated as a guardian of American Liberal Democracy, and the union of states under this ideal. Meanwhile Jeffersonian believes that securing and prospering Liberal Democracy in one country is already a big challenge, Wilsonian states that the international corporation of spreading Liberal Democratic ideal is essential to establish stability and prosperity in the liberal democratic world as well as maturing the own liberal democratic nation.

* These 4 political ideology groups are referred from “Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World” by Walter Russell Meade, 2002. But, these descriptions combines Meade's analysis of politics and history of the international relations and mine mainly based on economic policy.

As Wilson was a big admire of Alexander Hamilton, the way of Wilson and his follower Wilsonian to structure American political system is very similar to Hamiltonian way. Wilsonian insists on the stable unified monetary system under the common currency usage and the central bank's supervision. The traditional Wilsonian claims for regulations imposed on the private sector intensive market economy unless it interrupts the healthy economic growth. Wilsonian assists American international trade expansion and big businesses unless these things threaten American national interest.

The big difference between Hamiltonian and Wilsonian is budgeting the public finance. Hamiltonian is far more sensitive about balancing the budget than Wilsonian. Hamiltonian purpose of the government expenditure is to secure the necessary infrastructure basing both economic growth and domestic political stability, and the peaceful international trade roots. By contrast, Wilsonian government expenditure plan is aimed to achieve its political and moral objective in both the domestic politics and the international relations on the top of what Hamiltonian insists on. Hamiltonian objective of government expenditure plans are materialistic and regard the moral issue can never be the primary purpose. So, meanwhile Hamiltonian objective is more visible and a shorter perspective, Wilsonian government expenditure plan is motivated by the moral achievement. The Wilsonian plan is quite difficult to estimate when the objective will be fulfilled and how much cost will be incurred upon this plan. In addition, Wilsonian moral objective may sacrifice the material objectives such as an economic stability and cause a strong antagonism from the other political ideological groups from both America and abroad when this plan takes significantly long enough.


On the other hand, despite the critiques of Wilsonian imprudent fiscal management based on its zealous moral commitment, there were several occasions which demanded a stubborn persistence encouraged by Wilsonian kind of an intensively strong moral commitment in order to keep America united for American future prosperity and her strong initiative in the foreign diplomacy. Wilson was the remarkable figure who established a distinct political ideological group retaining his political ideology. But, before Woodrow Wilson was born, there were already some political leaders and political thinkers who had a similar political ideology to Wilsonian. There have been various political events in American history which required the stubborn persistence even to cause the fiscal imprudence and the antagonism from enemies as well as allies. The most notable one of them is the American Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln could be seen as the most remarkable Wilsonian who had already existed before Wilson was born. In fact, the best role model of Wilson was Lincoln, and so Wilson looked upon Lincoln and imitated many Lincoln's policies and customs. Therefore, it can be quite legitimate to categorise Lincoln as one of Wilsonian politicians.

* The description about these American political ideologies refers to “Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (Vintage)” by John Milton Cooper, Jr., 1 Jun 2011



2.3. Discussion on American Civil War: Prequel of the Fate: Lincoln’s Fundamentalism over Consequence

The American Civil War from 1861 to 1865 was the most remarkable political event in the entire American history. The way American behaved in this war describes the fundamental characteristics of America. Also, this time was recognised as the first time when America reinforced her federal government power to impose their law enforcement by means of the moral reasoning and the political idealism on the citizen of this nation.


It is still a very controversial topic to define what the exact causes of this civil war. Despite that many historians and political scientists concluded that this was caused by the slavery issue and the South's secession from the union, there seemed to be so many various causes, and the Confederacy (The South) had many legitimate reasons to fight against the Union (The North). The Southerners nowadays call this war the "The Aggression from the North" instead of the American Civil War. To be fair, both the Union side and the Confederacy side certainly had their own politically and morally legitimate causes and reasons to fight against the other. Regardless of the cause of this war and the reason of both sides, this chapter of this essay focuses on the consequence of this war and the contemporary attitude of the Union government lead by Abraham Lincoln.

The war was prolonged longer and the war damage was more severe than estimated. The resistance of the Confederacy was overwhelming and persistent enough to prolong the war more than the Union government expected due to the Confederate able commanders, soldiers' morale, and geographic advantage.

The scale of this war was incomparable with any war having existed in the past. The newly invented technology of weapons was destructive enough to dramatically increase the death toll per its usage. The logistic for the supply in this war incurred the huge cost because it required to build locomotives and railroads as fast as possible. The Confederacy requested for the assistance of Europe, their important trade partner, to secure the sea trade routes after the Union imposed the naval blockage on the Southern sea to sabotage the Confederacy's trade with Europe. Then, the Confederacy and Europe started increasing the speed of building transport and war ships. However, the Union productivity was significantly higher than the Confederate counterpart so that the Union overwhelmed the Confederacy in this competition. All in all, the industrial productivity level was a critical key aspect to defeat the opponent so that both the Confederacy, assisted by Europe, and the Union competed for increasing their industrial power as faster than the opponent as possible.

The high price inflation hit the entire America due to this tremendously resource consuming war. The demand of production was always consistently higher than the supply capacity. So, the transaction speed of goods and services were high, and the government's demand of goods and services produced was very high so that the currency was always in short during the war. Therefore, when the war broke out, Lincoln administration started printing the new currency notes called Greenbacks in order to finance this expensive war. This caused the quantity of currency issued to be significantly higher than the increase in the aggregate supply of productions. This was the trigger of the high price inflation which harmed American people's life and the post war economic recovery. The income gain of people was always lower than the price rise of goods and services. Furthermore, the perpetuated inflation after the war harmed businesses due to the rising operation costs.


Due to these critical material disadvantages, any Hamiltonian would claim to stop the war when it was predicted to burden a sizable cost on economy which would haunt badly in the future. But, at the beginning of the war, Hamiltonian in the Union side would agree with the war in order to keep the national economic well-beings secured under the stable union of states. Hamiltonian in the Confederacy side would support the secession to put priority on the trade with Europe over remaining in the Union. The Union started enforcing the South to suddenly alternate their industrial features and follow what provided more advantages to the North then the South. In addition, the Union started interrupting the international trade between the Southern states and Europe, and then Hamiltonian in the Southern side supported the Confederacy to maintain the socio-economic stability and the international relationship with Europe. Nevertheless, when they started recognising that the Union naval force was invincible enough to keep blocking the trade route and the Union productivity level was far superior to the Confederacy combined with their European Confederacy supporters, Hamiltonian realised that it was far more costly to support the Confederacy, and more profitable to support the Union.


Not only these previously mentioned physical living standard but also this war severely depreciated the mental and spiritual living standard as well. Majority of historians and political scientists recognise this war as the first modern total war in the human history because the aggregate material productivity of one nation significantly affected the national military strength in this war. Therefore, a military force started using the mass destruction such as a scorched earth policy to reduce the aggregate production level of the opponent. Then, this war is seen as the typical example how more ordinary citizens have started to be involved in a war than ever, and the strength of national economy and the foreign diplomatic relation have become the key to win a war since then. Therefore, this war killed not only many soldiers but also many civilians, and also severely affected their life style so that a strong ressentiment attached to this war remained in both sides.



George McClellan, one of the Union generals and the nominee opposing Lincoln in the 1964 US presidential election, supported the ceasefire of this war due to the tremendously high cost and the unexpected tragedy of American people. McClellan himself was a devout supporter of the Union cause as well as abolition of slavery and defending Natural Right for all Americans. His philosophical commitment in these cause was stronger than majority of Americans. Nonetheless, he realised that the war damage was underestimated and the cost of it would keep haunting after the war ended as long as the war was prolonged further longer. Therefore, after dealing to the Confederacy enough to exhaust the Southern majority citizens and weaken the Southern economy, he recommended America to wait until the Confederate economic and political power naturally collapsed due to its lack of ability to compete with the Northern economy. As a matter of fact, his plan was materially efficient and peaceful, and sounded far more plausible than Lincoln's perspective by means of economic and social aspects.

By contrast, Lincoln persisted to continue this war until the Confederacy's defeat became clearly certain and the Confederate government officially surrendered to the Union even by using some ruthless brutal forces. For example, on the top of the previously mentioned huge economic loss and people's unbearable sufferings, the Union decided one notirous scorch earth policy called "Sherman's march to the sea". This march destroyed the entire towns and villages on their passage in order to cut the Confederate supply base and transportation network. In America, Lincoln's aggressive manifest, which is often seen as even brutal, was favoured by majority, and the majority Union politicians were not hesitate to completely agree with him. Moreover, even though McCellan's passion for the Union cause was never weak nor diluted, McCellan started to be condemned as being too soft on the traitors, and then he was miserably expelled to Europe from America due to his unpopularity among Americans then.


Lincoln affirmed that this war was not based on the material interests so that the meaning of this war was to maintain the impregnable spiritual characteristics of America. This was the ideal of America created of people by people for people. This ideal is the natural right initially explained by John Loch and the American founding fathers, and evolved further by the modern idealists inspired by Immanuel Kant. Lincoln thought that defending the Natural Right ideal was an unremovable factor of American identity, and then authorised the Union federal government to become the guardian of protecting and promoting the Natural Right ethical principle. In order to keep the Natural Right principle surviving, Lincoln believed that there should not be any exempted state from strictly following the universal morality based on this principle. Hamiltonian regards that, as long as America is a wealthy nation, the Union will be maintained because Americans will assume the Union brings their wealth. Lincoln also thought of the material well-being and keeping the Union was the key to achieve it. Nevertheless, he was afraid that any small collapse of this American spiritual identity would induce the domino-effect of this continuous collapse of this identity, which would eventually collapse the material well-being when America would no longer be united.

These stories convinced Lincoln to put priority on defending and promoting the unified fundamental ethical principle for all individuals and their states under the federal paternalism even by sacrificing the fiscal stability and causing some big antagonism. This war conducted by Lincoln certainly characterised the modern America and her future. Wilson reincarnated Lincoln's policy, and theorised Wilson's own thoughts inspired by Lincoln. Afterward, the mainstream democratic party members became converted to the policy of Lincoln and Wilson after observing the remarkable Wilson's Democratic party administration. Since America became powerful in both economy and foreign diplomacy and her action became influential to the entire world, the paternalism manifested by both Lincoln and Wilson was put into practice for not only the united states of America but also the other foreign countries.


Jeffersonian at this time strongly disagreed with Lincoln because Natural Right also puts emphasis on each state's right and sovereignty not violated by the federal authority. By contrast, Lincoln, and Wilson later, criticised Jeffersonian disadvantage of not able to guarantee to secure the system providing all American people with Natural Right when many states decided to compromise the Natural Right ideal. Thus, Lincoln and Wilson claimed that there has to be a strong cohesive force preventing states deviating from American ethical principle. The modern Jeffersonian accepted this claim, but Jeffersonian is still highly against Lincoln's and Wilsonian style big federal authority. Jeffersonian is worried about "The power to do good is also the power to do harm." as Milton Friedman said.



2.4. What Edmund Burke could not predict about America

Edmund Burke, one of the famous Classical Liberalist philosophers as well as the supporter of American independence, could not predict such future outcomes like the rise of Wilsonian ideology and this transformation of America. Burke noticed that American independence was emerged in order to provide people in the new land with liberty even though Burke tends to be seen as a devout British monarchist. One of the reasons why Burke supported American independence was that the over-expansion of British empire resulted in the expansion of bureaucracy in both her domestic policy and colonial management. He was worried that this was a big threat for the healthy stable development of Great Britain, and the cause of the collapse of the traditional laid-back British culture. In addition, the contemporary British bureaucratic administration was brutal enough to deteriorate the culture of British new land America. Burke detested brutality especially imposed by authority, and despised the loss of beauty and sublime caused by this brutality. Therefore, Burke stepped up to encourage American independence as the negative sanction against the contemporary British policy.

Nonetheless, despite his enthusiastic support for American independence, America has actually become the nation which Burke would disagree if he were still alive in several decades after the independence. Even though Burke supported American independence, and he despised and protested against French revolution. He distinguished American Revolution from French revolution because each of them was based on the different political reasoning process from each other. American independence did neither attempt to replace the American culture nor imposed a notorious brutality like massacre and an execution of the state figure head. French revolution incurred the tremendous pains such as committing a huge scale massacre of the old status quo.

What the point that Burke criticised at most was that French revolution was motivated by sticking to the fundamental principle. He warned that human-beings' experience, knowledge, and rationality to construct logical inferences are still way too limited to enough to draw and construct their dreaming ideal politics. Therefore, there principle basing their political ideal can never be rigorous as much as mathematical axiom. Moreover, sticking to one principle tends to misguide individuals to ignore obtaining the furthermore sets of knowledge and impression from new experiences when they deviate from their believing principle. He also insist that the traditions having existed in the past which the believers of the fundamental principle reject may have some beneficial characteristics useful in the future. Many traditions have to be evaluated and contradicted in order to expect a productive progress from the past to the present, and to the future. He insisted that human-beings should neither stubbornly stick to the entire traditions nor completely ignore them.

Burke described that the danger brought by French revolution was caused from this fundamentalism of believing in the ethical principle and the complete abandonment of the past traditions. He recognised that American revolution was not detached from carefully reevaluating the traditions which retains beauty and sublime from the past, and then American revolution was motivated by the basic needs rather than the fundamental principle. He argued that American independence was the natural transition of British governance to transform British administration more able to handle with the smaller bureaucratic scale. By contrast, French revolution was motivated by the fundamentalist bureaucrats of their new national legislature based on their believing fundamental principle.

Burke could not predict that American ethical principle called Natural Right became to govern the entire America as a nonhuman sovereign after throwing a human sovereign, a British monarchy away through her life. Burke was sceptical about John Locke's ethics as he had written a lot of criticisms about Locke's ideas. Nonetheless, Burke's understand of the contemporary America was a piece of British colonial territory, cohabiting the other European colonial territories inside American continent, who was struggling with the contemporary overgrown British bureaucratic occupation. He did not imagine American have finally occupied a large land mass of the Northern American continent, chosen to unify themselves under a strong unified principle in order to maintain their big nation, and become a stronger and influential nation than her former suzerain Great Britain.

After America abandoned the colonial master, they started worshiping their political idealism as their alternative sovereign of their new nation. American politics is still never comparable with the French fundamental principle base politics causing a brutality and political and economic inefficiency. However, it has shown that American worship of Natural Right as her ethical principle contains some element motivating an aggressive pursuit in their strongly believing ethical principle such as the political action taken by Lincoln, Wilson, and onward. Burke might have shrugged and revised his own political agenda if he had been alive and observed how Lincoln and Wilson changed America to be.

America and her base ideological principles: Pt1

1.1. Rise of a Recklessly Idealistic Nation called America

The birth of a nation called the United States of America (America) was a miracle at the contemporary time period. This was a democratic republican nation whose political administration was lead by democracy where majority of the people were actively participating in the political and diplomatic decision making processes. This was a Liberalist nation whose foreign diplomatic strength was derived from well played strategies in peaceful international trades rather than military power struggles. Nobody could believe that a nation who had no strong unified sovereign power could sustain both her domestic political stability and her defence strength against aggressors.

America looked bizarre and was unthinkable at the contemporary time period. Montesquieu and Rousseau aspired after establishing an ideal world where individuals and their nations keep their peaceful diplomacy without strife by promoting an equitable trade among them. This ideal was certainly desirable, but it was seen as a reckless if it were to put into practice in the real world politics.

Great Britain has partially taken this ideal politics into practice since she expanded her international trade network. The policy of other European countries in their international relation during the modern time period was based on the extortion of wealth from their colonies as well as the other territories in the world by their military might under the command of their sovereignty. By contrast, though it was to the certain extent, Great Britain treated her colonial countries as her trade partners so that she allowed her colonies to accumulate their own wealth. Furthermore, Great Britain took an advantage of her dominance in seas in the world, and she expanded her friendly international trade relationship with the other countries and territories. She combined her military strength with her wisdom in the free international trade. Aristocrats and bourgeoisie in Britain seemed to know that they would certainly be able to extort more from both their colonies and the other trade partners after letting them grow in the free and equitable trades.

Great Britain is also the nation which has developed the modern democracy from a much earlier time period than any European nations. The notion of the equality of all aristocrats and commoners under the law since the Magna Carta was signed, of the republicanism provoked by Cromwellian revolution, and of the parliamentary democracy under the constitutional monarchy established by the glorious revolution are complementary with establishing a modern democratic nation. Both British monarchies and aristocrats (Though there were some reactionary ones who opposed to the democratic development in British politics) tolerated the freedom of speech and choice promoted by the modern democracy because it has actually produced huge profits for not only bourgeoisie, the emerging well off social class, and the commoners but also the monarchy and the aristocrats. The openness offered by the democracy encouraged various new inventions which profited the entire British nation. The competition among politicians and entrepreneurs with their voluntary will, rather than the unilateral autocratic command enforcing them to act involuntarily, was the efficient and effective way to motivate them to work for the monarchy's interest and providing the aristocratic investors with high returns.

The combination of these political notions and the wisdom of liberalism gained from the free trade have grown the modern liberal democracy ideal in practice. Great Britain took advantage of the liberal democracy, and resulted in the situation that one of her colonies increased the political and diplomatic influence. This was America. America has taken over these characteristics of Great Britain as America was once a part of Great Britain. In addition, since America became independent, America has promoted the domestic policy and the foreign diplomacy based on democracy and the international trade, which used to be seen as utterly idealistic, furthermore. America was a nation which was seen as recklessly idealistic as well as unique more than Great Britain.

There were several schools of political ideologies competing in the decision process of inducing their desiring outcomes for both the domestic policy and the diplomacy. Unlike Great Britain, as there was no hereditary monarchy who shares with his/her family, there was no strong single sovereign who had the right to choose the final choice of decision making process. The president could be seen as a sovereign, but the president was constantly replaced, and the political ideology was also frequently switched over again and again because a newly elected president often believed in and supported for a different school of political ideology from the previous one.

Before Great Britain and America emerged, all the nations believed that America's policy was unreal. The realistic view of politics at the contemporary time regarded that a strong military might commanded with one charismatic sovereign was the primary importance to secure and increase the wealth and hold an initiative in foreign diplomacy. Even nowadays, some schools of politics and foreign diplomacy still claim that there always needs to be a solid guardianship by an executive branch with a unified ethical principle. These realists assume that there always needs someone who is effective and virtuous enough to lead the others to stabilise the decision making process and derive the expected outcome. Then, they argue that it is utterly unrealistic to "expect" for spontaneously stabilising outcomes by letting all various individuals do freely. They consider that the autocratic executive branch needs to exist to stabilise the decision making outcomes and instruct citizens to follow a certain form of norm and value which the unified ethical principle suggests citizens to follow. Furthermore, they also insist to collectively plan economy to avoid the unwanted actions and outcomes instead of letting individual agents to freely choose and act. This traditional realism in domestic policy and foreign diplomacy is called the Continental Realism. America has been following to what the school of the Continental Realism describes as unrealistic at the contemporary time. None would believe that such a fragmented idealistic nation could grow so much as becoming the world most strongest nation in the future.

America seemed to be an unstable nation. However, although American politics has been administrated by fragmented groups of political thought, these groups and American people shared the common ethical in politics. Because America is a democratic republic nation without a unified political decision making code, majority of American people think their voice frequently represents American politics and American future and so actively participate into politics. Because there is neither a hereditary monarchy nor any paternalistic autocratic executive branch who would have a final say in politics, it looks like resulting in unstable outcomes where the ongoing havoc continues to takes place.

Nonetheless, even though there are more than one fragmented groups of political thought which American politicians and people belong to, majority of them share the common ethical principle which is called the natural right. When America was founded, both Christian value and the enlightenment philosophy of the natural right, most notably spread by John Locke and Thomas Paine, were introduced to be the base universal ethical principle of American nation. There was no monarchy, or no autocratic executive branch, who guides the nation to follow or refer to their suggesting principle, American nation is endowed with a nonhuman/non-manmade sovereign, and then all American have become equal under it since American establishment.

This nonhuman sovereign is called God by believers, and called either humanity or the categorical imperative by agnostics and atheists. In America, even agnostics and atheists tend to have a faith in a mystic transcendental being. Even though they challenge against the traditional faith in God, their custom of worshiping a nonhuman sovereign above all human-beings has never changed since America was founded. This characteristics of American ethics still forms American politics and influences how America as a whole nation changes over time. This aspect has encouraged Americans to share and aspire in pursing one universal moral principle, the natural right created by either God or any transcendental being.



1.2. Jeffersonian Natural Right V.S. Hamiltonian Opposition

The comparison between Jefferson's political ideology and Hamilton's is the most remarkable and the most traditional topic in American political discourse. Jefferson persisted in pursing the American ideal and the ethical principle basing it meanwhile Hamilton insisted on what are required for the national security and growing the wealth of nation in real. Jefferson argued that America should be concentrated on maturing and protecting the American born liberal democracy at home and put priority on securing this ideal politics at home over intervening to political issues outside America. By contrast, Hamilton was aware of fiscal reality and defending America from potential aggressors, and so he put emphasis on the need of the strong federal government administrating the centrally planned public finance and hold the nation wide military power. Hamilton also insisted on growing America as a wealthy nation, and encouraged to actively involve and intervene to the foreign affairs. Both Jefferson and Hamilton are right by means of talking about what America and her people need. But, their ideologies are never compatible with each other, and these two schools of American political ideology, Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian, has been disputing each other since American establishment.


1.3. Jeffersonian: The American Revolutionary

Since America was founded, the Natural Right ethics has been American underlying ethical principle. John Locke was the most remarkable Natural Right theorist, and his logic and its basing ethical principle is certainly what Jeffersonians have adapted to their political ideology. Another Natural Right theorist Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers, has never read Locke's thesis but his political ideology and ethical principle is coincidentally identical to Loch's.

The political ideology of Thomas Jefferson, called Jeffersonian, is indeed regarded as the first base ideology of America and represents the initial purpose of American establishment. Jeffersonian supports the impregnable individual rights for freedom of choice, owning and defending their property, and equality in opportunity regardless of any human category. It protests against the government intervention to their choice and extortion of their property, and then supports the government intervention only when the government collective power is required to secure these rights from the violators with a forcible intervention. Jeffersonian insists on a strong each state's right but also on the reasonable level of the federal government power in case when it becomes necessary to give a negative sanction against a state government neglecting of the duty of defending the impregnable individual rights.

Jeffersonian promotes the private sector intensive laissez-faire economy motivated by the voluntary will of individual citizens, and then strongly opposes both the government intervention into economic activities and the existence of huge public sectors financed by the tax which is an involuntary force to extort from citizens. In addition, Jeffersonian also disagrees with the existence of big corporations whose economic power is influential enough to change people's life style and monopolising the purchasing power of property ownership. It expects individual citizens to voluntarily protest against deserving for these big corporations without relying on the government sanction when it becomes necessary. All in all, Jeffersonian pursues in the truly competitive laissez-faire economy, which expects majority of individual citizens to be enlightened themselves with both the rationality to analyse cost and benefit of their choice and the voluntary spirit required for the self-governance.

Jeffersonian supports the international trade because it regards of the openness of American national economy as the virtue of American liberal democracy. America has to provide Americans with the opportunity to sell their products abroad as well as the freedom of choice to buy foreign products. She should also provide talented immigrants with the opportunity to succeed in business or any other productive activities and enjoy the luxury living standard with liberty. Furthermore, in order to thrive as a peaceful liberal democratic nation, America has to advertise herself as a beneficial trade partner whose productivity level meets foreigners' demand and whose purchasing power. Then, America would no longer need to rely merely on her military might, and then be able to hold her initiative in foreign diplomacy by attracting the other nations as the foreign customers of America.

However, it disagrees with the over expansion of it when its reliance becomes too big to violate individuals' natural rights and sovereignty. Jeffersonian national economic model regards highly of the self sufficiency which does not have to rely on importing some foreign products. When people and economy become reliant on a big scale of production and foreign products, the intervention by a government, any big public sector institute, and big multinational private corporations will be inevitable to mediate their trade, and individual people's autonomy will become too small to act on behalf of their own want and will without depending on the interest of these big institutes.


Jeffersonian is indeed a revolutionary political ideology. The establishment of the United States of America is called American Revolution, and Jeffersonians were considered to be the leading faction of American revolution. Jeffersonian politicians and citizens nowadays still aspire to establish America as the true genuine utopian nation of liberal democracy based on the Natural Right principle. This aspect is very similar to the Russian revolution in which Russians aspired to establish a genuine socialist nation enthusiastically following Marxist doctrine. Even though the characteristics of American Revolution is totally opposite from the counterpart of Russian Revolution, the quality of both revolutions is very identical and strong. As same as Bolsheviks advocated their ideal and pursued the universal moral objective, Jeffersonians believe in one universal moral objective which all humans are ought to follow and cling to creating an utopia which they imagine.


1.4. Hamiltonian: Balancing the Liberal Democratic Ideal and the Reality

While Jeffersonian persists in its dream and so attempts to create a nation whose political model is deviating from any nations which have already existed in this world, Hamiltonian warns of the danger that Jeffersonian stubborn attitude toward the ideal may collapse the nation's existence itself due to the unreal financial management, lack of the national defence ability, and a disregard for wealth of nation. He focused more on what were more inevitably required for the prosperity of a nation and her citizens rather than stubbornly persisting in the ideal which might result in shrinking the national wealth and the defence strength.

Of course, as one of American founding fathers, Hamilton also supported American Natural Right principle, and he tried not to violate this principle as much as possible. So, Hamilton was sympathetic to Jefferson and his idealism at a certain extent. This characteristics differentiated Hamilton's realism from the Continental Realism, and created a new form of the realism in political science. Hamilton thought highly of American liberal democracy and the free trade, and his realism was different from the Continental Realism. His realism was considered to be an antithesis of Jeffersonian idealism, but at the same time its realism is totally distinguished from the Continental Realism. So, Hamiltonian realism can be seen as a synthesis between the liberal democratic ideal and the traditional Continental Realism, and then was born as the new political realism which can be called the economic/commercial realism.

The Continental Realism regards that increasing the power of central authority is the primary key to increase economic strength, and supports extorting individuals' property and wealth and controlling individuals' activities to cover the budget of the central authority. By contrast, Hamiltonian realism putting priority on both the power of a central authority and economic strength as both are the primary importance for a nation's initiative in diplomacy. Both Great Britain and America were the first modern nations who found that growing their economic strength is the necessary factor to invest to the public sector administrated by their central authority, and not the other way around like the Continental Realism regards. So, Hamiltonian demands the minimum optimum rate for extracting the public finance from private citizens and institutes. This extraction rate is supposed to be feasible enough to allow individuals and their institutions to enjoy the free competition encouraged by their own voluntary will, which consequently increases the aggregate public finance.


Hamiltonian imitated the political model of Great Britain which regards highly of the liberal democratic domestic policy and the diplomacy based on the free international trade, and adapted it to America's own politics. As same as British model, Hamiltonian regards that there need to be some central authorities mediating political decision making processes and economic activities, and America needs to secure her dominance in sea in order to enable her to expand her trade ties in this world. So, it insisted on having one sovereign leader and a unified federal government supervising all state governments who have the final say in political decision making processes. Furthermore, one strong national military, a navy in particular, securing national defence as well as securing America's dominance in seas expanding and sustaining the peaceful trade routes.


Hamiltonian focuses on the fiscal reality such as balancing budget under the federal government's supervision and the sufficient level of intervention to people's personal activities such as imposing taxation and regulations. When Hamilton was appointed as a secretary of the treasury, he proposed the plan called the Assumption which was aimed to clear the American national debt under the collective fiscal administration conducted by the federal government. Each state had to contribute to the Assumption by paying the tax to the federal government, and the level of each state's accountability to the Assumption was determined by the federal government owing to each state ability and responsibility. The Assumption was imposed to free America from the interest payment to the nations lending money to America and any responsibility burdened on America due to holding debt.

The tight fiscal policy like the Assumption is an essential act to provide Americans with a healthy free market economy where both their income and their activity are not restricted by the debt responsibility. Also, it provides America with the free choose of their trade partner by means of their favour without any pressure from the lending countries. Since the Assumption was put into practice at American establishment period, Hamiltonians have put emphasis on defending the tight fiscal policy which stabilises American domestic policy as well as the international diplomacy. Even though some opponents insist on increasing government expenditure for either an economic stimulus or a military campaign, Hamiltonian opposes an excess expenditure which is not guaranteed to pay off for its cost. Hamiltonian is against the speculative fiscal policy, which contains the high residual cost (E.g. Risk of the estimated variation of the cost and benefit forecast), and supports for the optimum but minimum level of expenditure for the foreign affairs.

Hamilton initially proposed the plan to unify American monetary policy among all states with a shared common currency usage. A national central bank was established to control the overall money supply level and the central interest rate, which are set to stabilise American economic indices such as the business cycle and the price inflation rate. Then, each state was prohibited from issuing its own currency under Hamilton's plan in order to avoid the possible havoc caused by the excess money supply and the interest rate fluctuation. His fellows Hamiltonians also defend his plan so that they claim for the consistent and rigorous monetary policy management under the strict supervision by the selected executive branch of the central bank.

Jeffersonian, even nowadays, is highly sceptical about Hamilton's plan of the tight centralised monetary policy because this plan contains a very high risk of violation of states' right as well as individual citizens' right. Jeffersonian suspects that the central bank may take the advantage of its control over money supply. When the right to issue only one unified currency is owned by one elitist institute, only limited number of authorised elite executives will monopolise their right to print money, and then they may start using their power to supply money to deserve their favourite groups of individuals and corporations regardless of the interest of American majority people. On the top of the monopolisation of the right, Jeffersonian also concerns about the high price inflation caused by the excess money supply which harms majority of American people's life. Nonetheless, because Hamiltonian is a fiscal realist, as long as these executive follow Hamiltonian principle, they are supposed know their primary duty is stabilising economy. The economic stabilisation consequently benefits to not only the majority people but also these executives themselves. If they violated this role to seek their own short term interests, the economic unrest resulted by their violation would depreciate their interests in the long term. Therefore, Hamiltonian claims that the moral hazard of the central bank only takes place when they ignore the rational monetary policy management originally suggested by Hamilton.


While putting emphasis on the necessity of the central authorities, Hamiltonian promotes the private sector intensive free market economy encouraging the competitive economy as well as a big entrepreneurship leading American economy. Hamiltonian admires the existence of the gigantic enterprises and the financial institutions in American liberal democratic economy. Because Hamiltonian economic model focuses on the globe rather than being restricted to inside America, it encourages many American enterprises to become big enough to expand their business abroad. Also, many foreign corporations are welcomed to America to compete with American counterparts. Hamiltonian regards highly of meritocracy which encourages all entrepreneurs and workers to have an equality of opportunity to succeed in the market competition owing to their merit.

Jeffersonian also assists meritocracy as much as Hamiltonian does. But, Hamiltonian view on meritocracy is global scale meanwhile Jeffersonian view is much smaller. Jeffersonian warned of the over stratification of social class caused by Hamiltonian favour for a big business. By contrast, Hamiltonian focuses on the high aggregate productivity growth which consequently deserves for all the citizens living in America. Hamiltonian economic model follows what Adam Smith said about the income gap, "The poorest in a richer nation is better off than the richest in a poor nation due to the high market potential to succeed in the competition, the access to education and high culture, and the free civil liberty".

Nevertheless, when the monopoly power of American enterprises becomes excessively huge and the foreign corporations start invading American economy, then Hamiltonian claims for the government negative sanction toward them in order to balance the power among all economic agents in order to maintain the free competitive economy. Whenever it comes to the government intervention to the market economy, several Hamiltonians dispute with each other. Some Hamiltonians are in favour of big enterprises leading the market as it is a healthy outcome of the meritocracy whereas the other Hamiltonians argue that constantly stimulating the meritocratic competition by avoiding monopoly is a primary objective.


Hamiltonian philosophy is considered to be Pragmatism. It aims at achieving in the philosophical objective of this idealistic nation by using the inevitably required methods of developing and defending this nation. As long as these methods are useful to deserve for the well-being of the survival of this nation as well as they are not extremely deviating from the philosophical objective, they are allowed to ostensibly violate what the natural right principle at a certain degree. Therefore, Hamiltonian policy frequently changes owing to various different principles across different times, places, and occasions so that Hamiltonian politicians policies are often significantly different from each other even though they seek the same goal.

Moreover, Hamiltonian also promotes the specialisation of industries and academic subjects in order to encourage individuals to be efficiently concentrated on putting their effort into what they are working for. Hamiltonian pragmatism has induced many industrialists to merely seek their own material profit and many academics to study merely for the approval by the authority of their belonging academic peer group. Unlike Jeffersonian who demands every citizen to be enlightened with American idealism, Hamiltonian does not pay much attention on the ideological principle of all individual citizens as long as they consequently deserve for the survival and the prosperity of America.



1.5. Jacksonian: A Populist Derivation of Jeffersonian

There was another remarkable figure who formed his own unique form of American political philosophy. This person was a war veteran, and neither was a privileged family background nor had a high intelligence. His name is Andrew Jackson, and his philosophical followers are called Jacksonian. He called himself a Jeffersonian Democrat, but Jefferson called Jackson as a dangerous man. (The Presidents of the United States: Episode 2 - 1789-1825 (History Documentary), 2013) He believed in Jeffersonian way of American revolutionary politics but did not pay attention to the ideology politics like Jefferson had a strong commitment in.

Jackson gained popularity from American people because of his heroic characteristics and his straight forward thoughts of politics which was easy for majority of people to understand. His politics was derived from the interests of ordinary American mass who were frustrated with the widening gap between them and the elite Americans, and also with the increasing power of the federal government authority and the big enterprises' monopoly over their economy. These American mass found that their life style was miserable relative to the elite members of America. Jackson proposed his aggressive popular politics which corresponded to the contemporary American mass's wish and antagonised the rich elite status-quo. Jackson was far radically opposed both the federal government and big businesses, and he even demanded abolition of the national currency. Although, majority of the modern Jacksonians are not radical as much as Jackson himself, they strongly support for a decentralised political economic model and put priority on states’ right over the federal power far more than Jeffersonians.


Most of Jacksonian believers are from the good old country sides who are willing to fight with their muscle and arms for securing their own property right, their family’s well-being, and their romanticism of American tradition. Jacksonian is a down to the earth ideology which puts priority on the slow traditional American country-side life style which detests the diversity. Even though Jacksonian shares a lot of similarity with Jeffersonian, Jacksonian politics is totally distinct from Jeffersonian. Jefferson's politics was understandable for educated and young citizens who create their logical arguments to fight for their rational ideal, but seemed to be often difficult for relatively uneducated mobs and nonacademic elderly citizens to understand. By contrast, Jacksonian ignores applying the complicated methodology of idealism and its rationale so that they tend to follow the straight forward politics.

The follower of Jackson Jacksonians can be categorised as Hobbesian realists who believe that the moral is relative, and the political stability is created and sustained by the physical power balance rather than how impregnable the political ideal of a nation and her citizens is. In Jacksonian politics is attached to neither a strong idealism, which Jeffersonians claim for, nor a solid objective principle which Hamiltonians’ action is based on.

Nonetheless, as an American born political ideology, Jacksonian is still implicitly influenced by Lockean idealism even though Jacksonians may not realise: They always claim their “rights”. Their claim for the rights is not based on an idealist rationale: Their claim is based on their realistic needs in their life. In a way, Jacksonian clings to individual right, freedom of choice, and self-governance based on citizens' voluntarism far more than any other American political ideological group. Moreover, Jackson is more radically isolationist and support more radically for decentralisation of government than Jeffersonian. For example, Meanwhile Jeffersonian supports for a reasonable size of the federal government and an existence of the common currency system, Jacksonian radically protests against both the existence of the federal government itself and sharing the common currency which, Jacksonians suspect, deserves the privileged minority elites monopolise the advantage of its usage.

Jacksonian political ideology is popular among labourers and small and medium entrepreneurs, and majority of the trade unions are Jacksonian leaning. Because American proletariats are not interested in Marxist socialism from the Continental Europe which is based on the centralised proletariat dictatorship, they tend to stick to American own traditional ways of protecting workers' right. Jacksonian is the decentralised proletariat libertarianism which is close to an Anarcho-Syndicalism which existed in Spain during Spanish Civil War. Jacksonian libertarian socialism is the private sector intensive in which all workers defend themselves rather than relying on forming a politicised collective pressure group. As many Americans detest calling themselves socialists, they avoid using the terminology “socialism” and substitute it with American State Nationalism or Civil Libertarianism.

Furthermore, Jacksonian politics assists a decentralised economic model based on self-employed and small and medium size companies. As same as Hamiltonian, Jacksonian focuses on the profit maximisation of entrepreneurs. However, meanwhile both Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian cling to meritocracy, Jacksonian entrepreneurs support more for the equality of outcome. Jacksonian interest in business is maintaining the traditional way of living in small country-sides which is opposite from Hamiltonian dynamic economic model. Rather than a competition, development, and diversity, Jacksonian economy affirms that state should be responsible to subsidise them to survive in order to maintain the traditional shape of their local life style.

Even though Jacksonian is against the welfare organised by the federal bureaucracy, it clings to the state base welfare which deserves the state own interest and maintains the traditional laid back American life. As same as Jeffersonian, Jacksonian insists on the voluntarism, the self-governance, and the small scale economy. The difference is that Jeffersonian seeks a long term idealistic goal meanwhile Jacksonian focuses on the realistic short term goal which is the survival of the ordinary majority American people.


Jacksonian is a fond of militarism as Jacksonian takes over Hobbesian realist foreign diplomatic view which regards that moral is relative, and the physical power balance among individuals and nations is only the key to stabilise the domestic policy of nation and securing the national initiative in the international diplomacy. Jacksonian characteristics is resemblance to the Continental Realism in terms of its power politics. However, unlike the Continental Realism, Jacksonian militarism is based on each state and individual citizens of America because Jacksonian detests the centralised nationwide autocracy which the Continental Realism affirms.

Jacksonian is generally the isolationist, but it demands the international intervention by temporarily allowing the federal government to be strong only when American national interest is threatened. Jeffersonian, which clings to its dovish attitude to any costly interference to the international affairs, was once very unpopular during the Cold War which constantly threatened American national interest. During the Cold War, most of Jeffersonians resisted against any costly military action, and expected all enemies would not attack if America would not show any aggression against them. By contrast, Jacksonian promoted the need of preparing for war and put emphasis on reinforcing American military might during the war crisis. So, Jacksonians gain a huge popularity among isolationist American citizens during the Cold War.


Jeffersonians and Jacksonians often form the civil libertarian alliance together in order to protest against the excessively grown federal government power except when a big war, such as American Civil War and the Cold War, breaks out. Their common opponent used to be only Hamiltonian, but the new political ideological faction, who perpetuated the growth of the federal government power more than Hamiltonian has done, emerged in American politics. This new faction has become the most dominant, politically influential, and controversial in not only inside America but also this entire world since it arose. This political ideology is called Wilsonian, which is regarded as a big rival by Jeffersonian, utterly imprudent by Hamiltonian, and the most hated enemy by Jacksonian.


* The description about these American political ideologies refers to “Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World” by Walter Russell Meade, 2002