[Bigun]

At 56, Hamilton observes the Laffer Curve in action centuries before Arthur Laffer drew it on a cocktail napkin, yet at 57, he does not foresee that government will ignore that rule. Why did he fail to see that coming?

I doubt that anyone of that period could have foreseen the abandonment of sound free market principals in favor of communistic social engineering but that is indeed what happened in 1913 under president Woodrow Wilson.

[Publius]

While communistic social engineering wasn't on the horizon -- Marx had not yet been born -- there was plenty of social engineering favored by the churches in England. In fact, the Tory Party was the party of the Monarchy and the Established Church, and Tories had no problem with using the tax system to procure socially favorable outcomes. Hamilton slides into this position in an earlier paper where he pushes the idea of a tax on alcohol to curb drunkenness.

Hamilton did not foresee that the government's appetite for money would become so ravenous.

What tickled me in this essay was that Hamilton anticipated Laffer by two centuries. (Or did Laffer read his Hamilton?)