AM
(an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind): Gadfly, we are now starting to hear the term
progressive mentioned more and more in the public narrative. It sounds, well, “progressive,” implying
deliberate efforts toward “progress.”
Old
Gadfly: Yes, the term is very seductive.
IM
(an American citizen with an inquiring mind):
I have even heard some of my relatively “conservative” friends claim to
be progressive, typically as in a Teddy Roosevelt progressive. As I understand it, Teddy was
one of the first American advocates of progressivism, a political movement
historians refer to as the Progressive Era, 1890s-1920s.
AM: This progressive era
focused on (a) cleaning up corruption in government (i.e., political machines)
through direct democracy: and (b) reigning in monopolies through antitrust laws
and actions, mostly for the benefit of fair competition and for the benefit of
consumers. Proponents of these
objectives consisted of Republicans (e.g., Teddy Roosevelt and Wisconsin’s
Robert La Follette) and Democrats (e.g., William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow
Wilson).
Old
Gadfly: The focus seemed appropriate,
whether Republican or Democrat. So, it
seems to me that the progressive era was a good thing for America. Am I wrong?
IM: Good question.
Old
Gadfly: What was going on in America at
the time?
AM: America was still transforming based on
technology-driven industrialization. America shifted from an agricultural,
rural nation to and industrialized, urban nation that lacked institutions to
accommodate these changes.
Old
Gadfly: What do you mean by
“institutions”?
AM: I found one of the books in your study
particularly useful for answering that question. Douglass North, in his book, Institutions, Institutional Change and
Economic Performance, defined an institution as simply, “the rules of the
game.”[1] North expands on this simple definition by
explaining that institutions are “the humanly devised constraints that shape
human interaction. In consequence, they
structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social, or
economic. Institutional change shapes
the way societies evolve through time and hence is the key to understanding
historical change.”[2] Thus, in answer to your bigger question,
Teddy Roosevelt advocated new rules of the game to better accommodate the technology-driven
changes taking place in America.
Old
Gadfly: All this sounds like a good and
needed approach. Yet, why was the term
progressive used as opposed to modernism, solutionism, or some equivalent word?
IM: Do you think it related to the idea of
progress?
Old
Gadfly: What do you think? Is there such an idea?
IM: Yes, it stemmed from the Age of
Enlightenment.
Old
Gadfly: Explain.
IM: The theory of the idea of progress
subscribes to a combination of technology, science, and social action (e.g.,
social engineering) to improve the human condition.
AM: We have seen where single elements or
combinations have produced positive and negative results. For example, nuclear energy can be used for
electrical power for the benefit of many people or it can be used for death and
destruction. So, these concepts can
improve or adversely impact the human condition.
Old
Gadfly: Excellent point, AM. So, if the idea of progress can have
different paths, that is, creative versus destructive, then what is the
determinant of those paths?
AM: Any application of technology, science, or
social action is based on human decision-making.
Old
Gadfly: I agree. Now, how does this decision-making relate to
the nature of progressivism?
IM: It requires someone or a like-minded group to
make decisions.
Old
Gadfly: And this is why progressivism is
seductive and dangerous. The notion of
progressivism emerged based on reasonable expectations to accommodate major
changes taking place in the American culture with new institutions; yet, the scope
and application of progressivism evolved over time. As a consequence, many today who favor progress
believe they are a “progressive.”
IM: So, those who understand the seductiveness
and danger of progressivism are considered “conservative” and opposed to
progress. That is why it is so customary
today to hear the left accuse the right of being anti-women, anti-black,
anti-gay, anti-equality (this runs the gamut from income inequality,
gender-based wage inequality, to marriage inequality), anti-immigrant, anti-reproductive
rights, and so forth.
AM: It appears that the major leftward evolution of
progressivism took place during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency.
Old
Gadfly: What was Wilson’s view?
AM: The main tenet of Wilson’s progressivism is
that central planners with superior knowledge could advance policy to promote the
idea of progress for the benefit of the people.
Wilson was critical of a constitutional republic because it was based on
property ownership and individual rights.
He believed that the principles of democracy and socialism were essentially
the same, with socialism being a more advanced condition that only the
historical evolution of organizational institutions (i.e., a large, national,
central government) could support. Ronald
Pestritto provides evidence of this view based on a critical analysis of
Wilson’s documented writings and actions in his book, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism.[3]
IM: Pestritto
also provided an excellent analysis, often ignored in histories and
biographies, of Wilson’s view on the role of “progressive races” in the
historical development of the modern state.[4] He was openly critical of post-Civil War
Reconstruction because “blacks were an inferior race.”[5] Thomas Sowell, in his book, Intellectuals and Race, provided a
wealth of evidence about Wilson’s and the American political elite’s
fascination with and advocacy of eugenics.[6] Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood is a
modern legacy of this thinking.[7]
Old Gadfly: A little more than a year
ago, I visited the presidential library of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In one of the displays, I was amazed to read
the explicit acknowledgement by FDR of his admiration for Wilson’s progressive
views. So, as I turned the corner and examined
a series of panels listing all the New Deal policy changes FDR instituted
during the course of his presidency, I began to realize how serious this group
of American progressive political elite was in transforming America from a
constitutional republic to a socialistic democracy.
IM: It was also during this timeframe that
American political elite traveled to Europe and Russia to see first had the
great experiments by Hitler and Stalin to advance the human condition. As Amity Shlaes described it in her book, The Forgotten Man, collective freedom observed
by these elite seemed superior to individual freedom.[8]
AM: The American political elite’s admiration of
the statist and social engineering efforts taking place under Hitler and Stalin
gave birth to the neoconservative movement.
Francis Fukuyama explained this development it in his book, America
at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and
the Neoconservative Legacy.[9]
He traced the roots of neoconservatism
to City College of New York in the mid-1930s to early 1940s, where a group of
Jewish intellectuals attended as students.
A late-comer to this group was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. There were two major reasons for splitting
away from their left-wing liberal colleagues.
The first reason was their disgust for communism and those who
sympathized with communist developments in the 30s and 40s. These founding neoconservatives generally had
no issue with the idealism of
socialism; yet they saw the realities
of socialism—its evil manifestations stemming from the Hitler-Stalin pact and other
significant unintended consequences—and wanted nothing of it. The second major reason for the split from
their liberal colleagues was the liberal’s passion for social engineering. Social engineering, as an egalitarian
approach to shaping society, assumed perfect knowledge by elite who conceived
the engineering. These elite were
members of a central planning effort within the government. The evolving progressive ideology had already
demonstrated its similarities to the statist and socialist movements in Germany
and the Soviet Union.
Old Gadfly: When you say, egalitarian approach. What do you mean by that?
AM:
Egalitarianism is a manifestation of modern liberalism and progressivism. Its guiding principle is equality of
outcomes. Thus, egalitarianism chooses
equality of outcomes over freedom of choice.
According to Milton Friedman, a classical liberal is encouraged by
greater material equality in a free society, trusting that material equality is
a by-product of a free society. Progressives
are not content with this dynamic; they feel morally obligated to take control
of society and justify taking from some to give to others as the “just” thing
to do.[10] Even the celebrated John Rawls, a Harvard
political philosopher, argued for egalitarian approaches in his book, A Theory of Justice. Rawls claimed an impartial system of justice
is not possible, even in modern, civil societies because of various conceptions
of justice. Thus, he argued, “Clearly
this distinction between the concept [ideal, impartial justice] and the various
conceptions of justice settles no important questions. It simply helps to identify the role of the
principles of social justice”.[11] Consequently,
in Rawls’ reasoned judgment, justice in the form of “social justice” is a
means, not an end. Egalitarian
approaches, as a form of social justice, are morally coercive because they “take
away” and “give to” in the spirit of equal outcomes. Progressives believe central planners of
superior intellect can make these types of decisions. Forced redistribution of wealth is a classic
example.
IM: C.S. Lewis addressed this coerciveness in his
book, The Abolition of Man.[12] His chapter, “Men without Chests,” challenges
political correctness and the threat to free and spontaneous expression and
behaviors. Lewis wrote in the mid-1940s. During this same period, “progressive”
developments in the Soviet Union prompted Winston Churchill to give his “Iron
Curtain” speech (the real title was The Sinews of Peace, delivered on March
5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri—after losing reelection). Stalin denounced
Churchill’s speech and accused him of “racism.”
AM: Stalin’s reaction is interesting and
ironic. In modern America, it is typical
for a progressive to accuse those on the right as being racist (as well as
homophobes, xenophobes, anti-women, etc.).
IM: Incidentally, F. A. Hayek, like C. S. Lewis,
explained how progressive central planners even insist people internalizing
values that the planners determine. In
Chapter 11, “The End of Truth,” in The
Road to Serfdom, Hayek explained:
The most effective way of making everybody serve the
single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody
believe in those ends. . . . It is essential that the people should come to
regard them as their own ends. Although
the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must
become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as
far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants.[13]
AM: Lewis and Hayek wrote in the 1940s. Their observations certainly apply to the
emotional reaction and labeling by those on the left in America today. Secretary of State Kerry recently called
global warming skeptics members of the Flat Earth Society. Yet, while the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) politicizes a consensus view among 52 scientists, there
are over
700 who disagree for a variety of legitimate, scientific reasons.
Old
Gadfly: What you are describing AM is
how progressives use scientism, not science, to advance their notion of progress. In another conversation, we’ll discuss
scientism in greater depth. Meanwhile, we have discussed the Progressive Era
and some of its spinoff manifestations from Wilson and FDR. Is there any other evidence of progressivism
in America since FDR?
IM:
As I understand the evolution of the neoconservative movement, there was
a “second wave” stemming from the emergence of the “New Left” led by Tom Hayden
who authored the Port Huron Statement
in 1962 that spawned the Students for a Democratic Society. As Fukuyama asserted, the New Left fueled a “revival
of large-scale social engineering on the part of the U.S. Government, in the
form of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and Great Society Programs.”[14]
AM:
In 1966, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven published an article that
laid out a political strategy to overload the welfare system to precipitate a
crisis that would justify (a) blaming capitalism for its inherent flaws, and
(b) replacing our economic system with socialism and a government run guarantee
of equal income for everyone.[15]
Given this New Left momentum, combined
with significant Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress (see table
below), Lyndon Johnson resurrected progressivism after significant
stability and infrastructure investments under the Eisenhower Administration.
IM: Barack Obama has taken progressivism even
further leftward with his hope and change agenda. The further left it moves, the more coercive
it becomes. Obamacare is an obvious
example.
Old
Gadfly: Excellent analysis, gentlemen.
So, we have arrived at a definition of modern progressivism: a belief that central planners with superior
knowledge can combine technology, science, and social action in such a way as
to improve the human condition, using coercion if needed. This approach seems to completely disregard
the importance of individual liberty. We
have also mentioned other concepts such as Democrat, Republican, modern
liberalism, classical liberalism, and so forth.
In our next conversation, let us further define various terms and then
place them on a political map to see if we can further understand where we are
today in America.
[1] Douglass C. North, Institutions,
Institutional Change and Economic Performance. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
[2] Ibid, p. 3.
[3] Ronald J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern
Liberalism. (New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,
2005).
[4] Ibid, pp. 43-45.
[5] Ibid, p. 44.
[6] Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Race. (New
York, NY: Basic Books, 2013)
[7] Vanessa Murphree and Karla K. Gower, “’Making
Birth Control Respectable’: The Birth Control Review, 1917-1928.” American
Journalism, Volume 30, Issue 2 (2013), pp. 210-234.
[8] Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History
of the Great Depression. (New York,
NY: Harper, 2007), pp. 78-139.
[9] Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative
Legacy. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 14-21.
[10] Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 40th
Anniversary Edition, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 195.
[11] John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2003 (originally published in 1971]), p. 5.
[12] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man. (New
York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996
[originally published in 1944]).
[13] F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, The Definitive Edition, Edited by Bruce
Caldwell. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2007 [originally
published in 1944]), p. 171.
[14] Fukuyama, op cit., p. 18.
[15] Richard Cloward and Frances Piven, “The
Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End
Poverty.” The Nation (May 2, 1966). Available at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-4.
If you visit the website, note the
subtitle under Common Dreams: “Building
a Progressive Community.”
