, Columnist
Alexander Hamilton's Comeback
A new musical about the "10-Dollar Founding Father" offers lessons on how nations succeed.
Some things never go out of fashion.
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What is the key to national economic success? In one view, let’s call it the Hamiltonian, big business and government work together to achieve national prosperity and greatness. In the other, the Jeffersonian, the government that governs best is the one that stays out of the way of -- and occasionally helps -- plucky small businesses.
There are other views too, of course, but in the U.S. these have been the big two. The taxonomy is borrowed from Michael Lind, who outlines it near the beginning of his book, “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States,” before boldly asserting that: