Against Progressivism: Whatever the Label

When the forces of American progressivism emerged in the 1880s and 1890s, those who would one day be labeled as conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians found themselves quite ill-prepared for the intellectual and political onslaught. Perhaps the best analyst at the time progressivism emerged, somewhat surprisingly, was E.L. Godkin, the venerable founder of The Nation.

t was the rights of man that engaged the attention of the political thinkers of the eighteenth century. The world had suffered so much misery due to the results of dynastic ambitions and jealousies, and the masses of mankind were everywhere so burdened by the exactions of the superior classes, so as to bring about a universal revulsion against the principle of authority. Government, it was plainly seen, had become the vehicle of oppression, and the methods by which it could be subordinated to the needs of individual development, and could be made to foster liberty rather than to suppress it, were the favorite study of the most enlightened philosophers. In opposition to the theory of divine right, whether of kings or demagogues, the doctrine of natural rights was established. Humanity was exalted above human institutions, man was held superior to the State, and universal brotherhood supplanted the ideals of national power and glory.*

Liberal Anti-Democrats

Economics, Politics and Public Opinion, Society and Culture

Steven F. Hayward | October 11, 2011 | American Enterprise Institute

Liberalism has been schizophrenic about democracy for about a century.

It is always amusing to watch the contortions liberals put themselves through when things aren’t going well for them. At the end of the dismal Carter years, liberal intellectuals blamed their failures on the defects of the presidency itself, claiming the office wasn’t powerful enough for modern times. This argument was necessary because Democrats enjoyed large majorities in Congress and couldn’t blame their failures on obstructionist Republicans, unlike today. So our Constitution itself had to be blamed for the “gridlock” that prevents “progress.”

Liberalism has been schizophrenic about democracy for about a century, alternating between deploring anti-majoritarian features of our system such as the electoral college and the filibuster, or maligning populist democratic majoritarianism when it delivers uncongenial results, such as California’s Proposition 13 or last fall’s midterm election beat-down of the Democratic Party—an election that increasingly looks to be a harbinger of more wipeouts ahead at the hands of ingrate voters. So right now liberals are in one of their periodic anti-democratic moods, most remarkably expressed by North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue’s thought experiment last week about suspending congressional elections for two years so that Congress can “help this country recover.”

She’s hardly an isolated example of this strain of liberal thought. President Obama’s first director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, took to the pages of The New Republic recently to make the case that “we need less democracy,” saying “we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.” And need we even mention Thomas Friedman’s periodic “China is awesome” columns envying Beijing precisely because of its authoritarian capacities? On the other hand, Harold Meyerson argues in the latest cover story of the American Prospect, “Did the Founders Screw Up?” that “The problem isn’t that we’re too democratic. It’s that we’re not democratic enough.” Following the spinning liberal compass on democracy can give you a headache.

Liberalism has been unable to decide whether it is for or against more democracy for nearly a century now, ever since it underwent a radical transformation from a creed believing that advancing the cause of individual liberty meant limiting government power and protecting individual rights into the creed we know today of believing that larger and more powerful government is the primary means of securing the realization of individual liberty.

None of the liberal complaints about ‘gridlock’ are new; Progressives like Woodrow Wilson deplored the separation of powers and other limiting features of the Founding.

At the core of “Progressivism,” as it was called then and is again today, was the view that more and more of the business of individuals and society was best supervised by expert administrators sealed off from the transient pressures of popular politics. So at the same time that Progressives championed “more democracy” in the form of populist initiatives, referendum, and recalls, they also developed a theory deeply anti-democratic in its implications. As the famous phrase from Saint-Simon had it, “the government of men is to be replaced by the administration of things.” But this undermines the very basis of democratic self-rule. No one better typifies the incoherence of Progressivism on this point than Woodrow Wilson, an enthusiastic theorist of the modern administrative state who couldn’t clearly express why we would still need to have elections in the future. In Wilson’s mind, elections would become an expression of some kind of watery, Rousseauian general will, but certainly not change specific policies or the nature of administrative government.

The heart of the matter is that liberals are incapable of questioning their presumption of being the force for Progress, and as such always repair behind arguments about process when their policies are unpopular. Meyerson gives away the game when he writes that reform is necessary to enable “decisive legislative action and sweeping social change,” because apparently “sweeping social change” is what government must be doing at all times.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment to try out on a people-loving liberal: If we had a national referendum, and a majority voted to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, would it be legitimate in the eyes of “Progressives”? If you think the liberal compass on democracy is spinning fast now. . .

Here is the full article from The Nation.

https://books.google.com/books?id=H-Q_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA105

THE ECLIPSE OF LIBERALISM.

As the nineteenth century draws to its close it is impossible not to contrast the political ideals now dominant with those of the preceding era. It was the rights of man which engaged the attention of the political thinkers of the eighteenth century. The world had suffered so much misery from the results of dynastic ambitions and jealousies, the masses of mankind were everywhere so burdened by the exactions of the superior classes, as to bring about a universal revulsion against the principle of authority. Government, it was plainly seen, had become the vehicle of oppression; and the methods by which it could be subordinated to the needs of individual development, and could be made to foster liberty rather than to suppress it, were the favorite study of the most enlightened philosophers. In opposition to the theory of divine right, whether of kings or demagogues, the doctrine of natural rights was set up. Humanity was exalted above human institutions, man was held superior to the State, and universal brotherhood supplanted the ideals of national power and glory.

These eighteenth-century ideas were the soil in which modern Liberalism flourished. Under their influence the demand for Constitutional Government arose. Rulers were to be the servants of the people, and were to be restrained and held in check by bills of rights and fundamental laws which defined the liberties proved by experience to be most important and most vulnerable. Hence arose the movement for Parliamentary reform in England, with its great outcome, the establishment of what was called free trade, but which was really the overthrow of many privileges besides those of the landlords. Hence arose the demands for Constitutional reform in all the countries of Europe; abortive and unsuccessful in certain respects, but frightening despots into a semblance of regard for human liberty, and into practical concessions which at least curbed despotic authority. Republics were established and Constitutions were ordained. The revolutions of 1848 proved the power of the spirit of Liberalism, and where despotism reasserted itself, it did so with fear and trembling.

To the principles and precepts of Liberalism the prodigious material progress of the age was largely due. Freed from the vexatious meddling of governments, men devoted themselves to their natural task, the bettering of their condition, with the wonderful results which surround us. But it now seems that its material comfort has blinded the eyes of the present generation to the cause which made it possible. In the politics of the world, Liberalism is a declining, almost a defunct force. The condition of the Liberal party in England is indeed parlous. There is actually talk of organizing a Liberal-Imperialist party; a combination of repugnant tendencies and theories as impossible as that of tire and water. On the other hand, there is a faction of so-called Liberals who so little understand their traditions as to make common cause with the Socialists. Only a remnant, old men for the most part, still uphold the Liberal doctrine, and when they are gone, it will have no champions.

True Liberalism has never been understood by the masses of the French people; and while it has no more consistent and enlightened defenders than the select group of orthodox economists that still reverence the principles of Turgot and Say, there is no longer even a Liberal faction in the Chamber. Much the same is true of Spain, of Italy, and of Austria, while the present condition of Liberalism in Germany is in painful contrast with what it was less than a generation ago. In our country recent events show how much ground has been lost. The Declaration of Independence no longer arouses enthusiasm; it is an embarrassing instrument which requires to be explained away. The Constitution is said to be “outgrown”; and at all events the rights which it guarantees must be carefully reserved to our own citizens, and not allowed to human beings over whom we have purchased sovereignty. The great party which boasted that it had secured for the negro the rights of humanity and of citizenship, now listens in silence to the proclamation of white supremacy and makes no protest against the nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Its mouth is closed, for it has become “patriot only in pernicious toils,” and the present boasts of this “champion of human kind“ are

“To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,

Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey;

To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils;

From freeman torn, to tempt and to betray.”

Nationalism in the sense of national greed has supplanted Liberalism. It is an old foe under a new name. By making the aggrandizement of a particular nation a higher and than the welfare of mankind, it has sophisticated the moral sense of Christendom. Aristotle justified slavery, because Barbarians were “naturally” inferior to Greeks, and we have gone back to his philosophy. We hear no more of natural rights, but of inferior races, whose part it is to submit to the government of those whom God has made their superiors. The old fallacy of divine right has once more asserted its ruinous power, and before it is again repudiated there must be international struggles on a terrific scale. At home all criticism of the foreign policy of our rulers is denounced as unpatriotic. They must not be changed, for the national policy must be continuous. Abroad, the rulers of every country must hasten to every scene of territorial plunder, that they may secure their share. To succeed in these predatory expeditions the restraints of parliamentary, even of party, government must be cast aside. The Czar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany have a free hand in China; they are not hampered by constitutions or by representatives of the common people. Lord Salisbury is more embarrassed, and the President of the United States is, according to our Constitution, helpless without the support of Congress. That is what our Imperialists mean by saying that we have outgrown the Constitution.

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