The Individual's Liberty and its Impact on the USA's Economic Structure

This article discusses the contrasting views of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton on the concept of individual liberty and its impact on the economic structure of the USA. It explores Jefferson's belief in self-power and self-governance, while Hamilton favored industrialization and a centralized economy. The article also examines the implications of these differing viewpoints on the formation of an industrialized economy.

The individual’s liberty ends with an interruption in the liberty of the others
Right after the independence of the USA, two major schools of the thought were popular in
the country. Both these schools were related to the economic structure of the future society of
the USA. Feudalistic leader Hamilton was in the favor of a centralized industrial economy,
whereas Republican Party leader Thomas Jefferson was in the favor of an agriculture-based
economy where the powers were distributed to various states. During that era, Thomas
Jefferson's liberal approach won the battle against Hamilton's federal viewpoints. However,
in the long run, it was Hamilton's viewpoints that propelled the USA to become an economic
superpower of the world. In spite of a redundancy, Jefferson’s idea about the individual’s
liberty is still in practice and forms the crux of the basic sentiment of the constitution (Boyd
544).
The spatial concept of the individual’s liberty given by Thomas Jefferson
The definition of the Individual's liberty given by Thomas Jefferson describes this concept
with the help of a “spatial range” of rights and duties. According to him, an individual's
liberty ends once it starts interrupting the liberty of the others. It also indicates that he was an
advocate of the self-power and self-governance, however, he was not in favor of absolute
power to anyone. This we can see in the case of the definition of government’s power given
by him, according to him government has all the reasons to practice power with an intention
to gain grounds in the life of people and weave a system around it. However, the power of the
government should be limited by the democratic choices otherwise it will become despotic
(Carson).
Hamilton's view was different on this issue, he was in the favor of industrialization and
economy of mass. This concept of the economy of the mass was fixing some duties for the
citizens as the government or the greater public good was needed to flourish an industry at a

large scale. Jefferson was against it, according to him this centralization of power, policies in
the favor of big industry and taxation to support an industrial structure could give rise to a
quasi-government and this cartel can force any democratic government to act like a despotic
government.
In the views of Jefferson, in order to serve an individual's liberty, the power of any
government should be dispersed into various segments (Neem 38). These democratically
elected segments should have some powers to keep a check and balance on each other's
actions and policies. On an ideological level this constitutional arrangement looks
convincing; however, once we get into the details of various conflicts then we find that under
this agreement, the interpretation of the constitution by two democratically chosen bodies
could have attracted a difference in opinion. The concept of an individual's liberty somehow
failed in explaining an independent yet accountable role of three different parties. The first
party were the citizens of the United States, the second party was the state government
elected by them and the third party was the central government elected by them (Wolfson).
This failed arrangement was not apt for the formation of an industrialized economy because
this type of an economy thrives on a top-down approach where the policies of the states
dictate the terms for individuals and other stakeholders under various capacities.

Bibliography
Boyd, Julien. "Thomas Jeffersons Empire of liberty." VQR (Volume 24) (1948),Print.
Carson, Clarence. "Thomas Jefferson: Liberty and Power." Foundation for Economic
Education (1993): https://fee.org/articles/thomas-jefferson-liberty-and-power/.
Neem, Johann. "Developing Freedom: Thomas Jefferson, the State." Western Washington
University (2013),Print.
Wolfson, Dorothea. "Thomas Jefferson: America’s Philosopher Statesman." The Heritage
Foundation (2017): https://www.heritage.org/american-founders/report/thomas-
jefferson-americas-philosopher-statesman.