ALEXANDER HAMILTON AND ADAM SMITH

In Novus Ordo Seclorum, McDonald emphasizes that Hamilton, the Founder who wanted a National Bank, was no slavish follower of Adam Smith.  From pages 136-37:

One key departure from Smith had to do with what was "natural" economic behavior. Smith posited that profit maximization was natural and universal: "Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command," and every individual "necessarily endeavours" to direct his industry so "that its produce may be of the greatest possible value." Hamilton perceived that this thinking was flawed; he recognized that social values and habits normally dictate economic activity, not the other way around. "Experience teaches," he wrote, "that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements, in the [most] ordinary occupations, are adopted with hesitation, reluctance and by slow gradations." Men would resist changes that would improve their lots so long as even "a bare support could be ensured by an adherence to ancient courses," and possibly even longer.

[snip]

Rather, Hamilton's method was, in the language of modern economists, to structure market alternatives—that is, to make it convenient and advantageous for all people to conduct their economic activity in ways that would lend strength and stability to the national government and to make it difficult, if not impossible, to conduct their affairs in detrimental ways.