Entry

Report on the subject of manufactures

Hamilton links national power to productive capacity and treats manufactures as a strategic base, not merely a commercial sector.

Author: Alexander Hamilton
Year: 1791
Track: foundations
Citation: Alexander Hamilton, Report on the Subject of Manufactures, 1791.

Alexander Hamilton, portrait by John Trumbull, 1806 — John Trumbull, 1806, Google Art Project via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Hamilton links national power to productive capacity and treats manufactures as a strategic base, not merely a commercial sector. Its place in the canon is not decorative. It marks a recurring problem for American economic statecraft: how law, capital, operators, and legitimacy combine when a nation tries to build strategic economic terrain.