In honor of Independence Day, Forbes contributor Peter Ferrara takes a look at the rise of the American Dream, as well as how Alexander Hamilton and the other Founding Fathers established an economic system that became the “premiere industrial power in the world,” just over a century after our independence from Britain:
Alexander Hamilton was America’s first Secretary of Treasury under President George Washington. When he first entered office in 1789, America was an agricultural nation of just 4 million still broke from its financially costly victory over the British Empire in the Revolutionary War.
Hamilton boosted America’s economy first by advancing legislation for the federal government to assume and pay off the debts of the states…but even more importantly for the nation’s long term economic growth and prosperity, Hamilton promoted The Coinage Act of 1792, which established the first U.S. Mint, and fixed the value of the dollar at $19.39 per ounce.
“Overnight the economy sprang to life. Capital poured in from the Dutch and also America’s former enemies, the British. Barely a century after Hamilton’s reforms, the United States was the premier industrial power in the world, surpassing even Great Britain.”
While America was under the gold standard, the economy boomed at an astounding 4% real rate of economic growth. At that rate, our economy, incomes and standard of living would double every 17 years. That was the foundation of the American dream and our historic, geometric explosion into the world’s leading “hyperpower.”
Economic Benefits of the Gold Standard
Fixing a nation’s currency to gold assures that the currency maintains a stable long term value, without inflation, or deflation. That enables a nation’s money to serve as a measure of value, like a ruler measures inches, or a clock measures time. Such a stable measure of value, in turn, means money can best perform its most essential function in facilitating transactions.
Read the full article on forbes.com