Hamiltonian Credit American economist Lyndon LaRouche

Hamiltonian Credit

American economist Lyndon LaRouche spelled out “Alexander Hamilton’s credit principle” succinctly in a Jan. 22, 2011 webcast:

“Honest debt to the future can be paid only through honest creation of future physical and equivalent wealth, including the development of the relevant creative powers of the individual citizen, and also the children and adolescents of those families.

“Such debts of a credit system must be paid by the fruitfulness of future production, as this principle was already understood by the Winthrops and Mathers of the original Massachusetts colony. Such debts require that the government delimit such accumulations of debt to the efficient commitment to promote that production. Such debt can be lawfully incurred only by a decision premised on a reasonable expectation of the relevant creation of the increased physical wealth, and of the increased physical productivity of the nation. Debts incurred on the account of financial speculation are not legitimate debts of a government.

“This describes, in rather plain language, Alexander Hamilton’s great principle, as embedded in the subsuming intent of the Preamble of our Federal Constitution. Debts are good, when they are designed to be made good, as by a credit system based on a commitment to increase the creation of net wealth per capita, and per square kilometer of the territory of a nation.”