I think I found the El Dorado of progressivism

PGA Weblog ^

[ProgressingAmerica]

When I got up this morning and sat down at my computer, I started searching. I don't quite know why, but once I got started I had a feeling. This morning, I was going to find something special.

And, I did. As someone who is still realizing just how powerful of a weapon against progressivism that the progressives' own history is against them, I have found many useful things. But nothing like this.

Arguably the most ardent planner of the New Deal, Rexford Guy Tugwell, gave a speech in 1939 titled "The Fourth Power". This speech is amazing for its brevity, its loquacious and direct statement of goals, and also its footnotes. The footnotes, are in some instances even better than the speech itself!

I have always known, even before I officially began the progressingamerica project so many years ago, that the New Deal was a cesspool of progressive authoritarianism; however, I have mostly stayed away from it for three reasons:

1) It is not the beginning of our troubles. Progressivism already had a 30+ year track record by the time the New Deal began. It simply could not as a function of basic mathematical principles be the beginning.

2) Perhaps more importantly, the vast majority of New Deal propaganda is all buttoned up tightly behind a firewall of copyright. There's nothing for me to search and research. Ergo, nothing to blog and nothing to record.

3) Lastly, and I mean both lastly and minorly, most conservatives already recognize the New Deal for what it is, albeit, mistakenly as the beginning. So I don't really have to do much work to educate people of what they already know: The New Deal is a poisonous and unconstitutional chapter in American history.

In "The Fourth Estate", Tugwell talks about 'social control', which had been an obsession of progressives for decades, he talks about regulations - which without getting specific, goes back to Theodore Roosevelt. Other topics include collectivism, the failure of free markets, a strikingly honest outline of the concept of Democracy - which to progressives has nothing to do with ballot boxes, scientific management, and other topics. He mentions numerous important authors such as George Soule, John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, Simon Patten and others. And above all, he goes on and on about planning, planning, planning. And in the last section of the address, he continues the elitism against the Founding that we are all used to from progressives

The best part is, this is not in copyright.

Which means it will be my next audiobook. This is too good to pass up, it is too good to leave hidden and lost. We can use this. This is a powerful, powerful thing in our favor.

Tugwell's "The Fourth Estate" can be found here, flip to page 104. I'll post a transcript soon, so that it becomes super easy to find in any search engine.

[ProgressingAmerica]

This is simply not accurate. Even at best, if we point to the first bureaucracy, the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was birthed two decades after the war in 1887(but was practically toothless at the beginning) we can only find scant evidence of a full-throated drive toward big government for big government’s sake. The ICC was in many ways a compartmentalized department which was thought to deal with one single(set of issues) issue.

The fact remains that the first big government president who loved big government as his beginning, and loved big government as his end, who loved big government as his beloved all, his beloved everything, was Theodore Roosevelt.

There wasn’t one aspect of life that TR didn’t want to see government involved in. There wasn’t one aspect of life that TR and his followers didn’t think that long term, government shouldn’t be involved with. Government must meddle in all. Government must control all. That’s progressivism.

There’s 1081 executive orders with TR’s name on them to prove it. Big government for as far as the eye could see, and for longer than the human lifespan, that’s what the ideology is all about. There’s nothing like it prior in any chapter of American history. None.

[ProgressingAmerica]

I just realized that I made a small mistake.

Initially I correctly used the title of Tugwell’s speech “The Fourth Power”, but the second and third times I mention the speech I get the title wrong as “The Fourth Estate”.(we are probably all used to hearing that phrase)

The correct title is “The Fourth Power”.

[daltec]

Thanks for posting this, ProgressingAmerica!

And to support your comment that "Government must meddle in all. Government must control all. That’s progressivism," I was especially struck by this passage from the journal article:

"In certain respects it has to be recognized that the constitution-makers failed in foresight. They could not foresee the abject dependence of men on unified social organization and the consequent dangers of conflict. When they theorized about government, their interest was in protecting men from it, not, as later generations' was, in protecting men with it. What was an excellent interest for the one purpose was not so good for the other. And now that the need is to function through it rather than merely being protected by it, it is found to be even less suited to the purpose. It needs reorganization in many ways but no other can compare with the necessity for repairing the lack of an agency whose duty is to the whole and whose interest is in the creation of the future."

[Billthedrill]

Fascinating piece, and thanks for posting. The tendency of "social control" toward totalitarianism is too pronounced not to have been noticed by its proponents. Only a markedly different view of society can account for this blind spot - it is as if human actualization equates to freedom and the social controller can therefore order people to be free. Marx appeared to think so, but the fact that the state he predicted would wither away became ever stronger until it broke might lead the honest progressive to a little reflection.

Planned economies demonstrably do not work. Why should planned societies be otherwise? Both require planned people, and while that's fine for speculative fiction, in practice people don't seem quite as malleable as hoped by the progressive who would plan them into another, better state of being. That gets awfully messy when it fails.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yeah, that’s what I thought. You object to anyone having combated slavery, and derisively call that effort “progressive.”

Yeah, that's what I thought. As a fly goes straight for a pile of sh*t, so too do people immediately fly right to the slavery issue so they can "virtue signal" to the rest of us how much they are against it. That is not the point here.

Lost in all this is the fact that the Government was used as a weapon to force morality on people who did not want it, same as they are doing today at the behest of every progressive movement.

"There is too much sugar in people's drinks! Fine them or prohibit such drinks!

"Everyone should be forced to accept the goodness of "Gayness" so bake that cake or we will fine you by law!"

"Everyone should cut back their carbon footprint, to save planet earth, and if you don't do so, you need to be fined!"

"Vegetarian meals for the school kids!"

"Calling a transgender by other than their preferred pronoun constitutes a hate crime. We should put people in prison for hate crimes."

And so on. The notion that people who have morality different than that which is approved by liberal/progressives began with the Civil War. In fact, the aftermath of it was known as "the progressive era" and featured such ideas as banning alcohol, banning child labor, pushing for birth control and empowering women.

Now you may crow to the heavens how much you agree with what the "progressives" did regarding slavery, but the point remains that this entire business of using the government to force others to conform to liberal preferences, began with the Civil War.

And so did leviathan government power. Of course the age of corruption followed the Civil War as well.

[SoCal Pubbie]

All laws legislate morality. That's a simple fact. To object to antislavery movements as “forcing morality on people” is so ridiculous as to be laughable. Do you object to government outlawing murder too?

[Neoliberalnot]

Some laws yes, many laws are not legislating morality. Many are designed to line the pockets of the lawyers. Think about it.

[HLPhat]

>>drumbeat during that time period that aims at big government simply for the existence of big government.

When Abraham Lincoln arrived in the capital in 1861, he soon learned that his campaign managers had promised more positions in the cabinet than could be accomodated.

As the President slyly put it, "There are too many pigs for the tits."

=============

>>and doesn’t appear until the age of Theodore and Woodrow at the turn of the century.

In North America you mean, maybe?

Meanwhile, quacking, waddling, and assuming dominion over the faith and resources of others down South...

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=Jesuits+Reductions+Paraguay

Oh look - "progressive" collectivist duck!

[DiogenesLamp]

This is simply not accurate. Even at best, if we point to the first bureaucracy, the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was birthed two decades after the war in 1887(but was practically toothless at the beginning) we can only find scant evidence of a full-throated drive toward big government for big government’s sake.

Why are you trying to use motives as a means to dispute the point? Of course the people at the time had no intention of creating a monster, that was just the unintended consequences of them demanding government power to address a situation. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The fact remains that the first big government president who loved big government as his beginning, and loved big government as his end, who loved big government as his beloved all, his beloved everything, was Theodore Roosevelt.

That oversimplifies things. I think Theodore, having emerged from New York politics, exemplified the natural biases for government power that New Yorkers of the time shared. I think he also realized that so much of what was going on in the US Government at the time, was the consequence of too cozy a relationship between various power barons and governmental entities. (Buying congress, influencing bureaucrats.)

He spent a lot of his Presidential power on efforts to diminish the influence of corporate powers on government, and I have come to believe that it is this very relationship between industry power barons and government that was the actual cause of the Civil War.

I think one of the things we modern Americans have been seeing for quite a long time is the effect of influence on government coming from various corporate entities seeking to use it's power to maintain and increase their own wealth and power. It is my hope that Donald Trump will be like Teddy Roosevelt in this regard, and chop of a few of the nasty little fingers pulling on various strings of government.

There wasn’t one aspect of life that TR didn’t want to see government involved in. There wasn’t one aspect of life that TR and his followers didn’t think that long term, government shouldn’t be involved with. Government must meddle in all. Government must control all. That’s progressivism.

Once Abraham Lincoln revealed what was possible with the power of an Imperial Presidency, a lot of other people simply took what he gave them and ran with it. Roosevelt was one, Wilson another, FDR the next, and so forth right up to Barack Odumbo.

Lincoln broke the presidency away from it's previously restrained powers.

There’s 1081 executive orders with TR’s name on them to prove it. Big government for as far as the eye could see, and for longer than the human lifespan, that’s what the ideology is all about. There’s nothing like it prior in any chapter of American history. None.

How many executive orders did Lincoln write? Quite a lot, and more importantly, quite serious ones which destroyed previous restraints on power.

Arrest the legislature of Maryland? Really? Arrest News Paper editors for publishing opinions not approved by Lincoln?

Well if you can issue executive orders to do those things, you can issue orders to do pretty much anything. To quote you; "There’s nothing like it prior in any chapter of American history. None."

[SoCal Pubbie]

Yes, that might the actual motivation. But all laws in essence say “Thalt shall not...” whatever is being banned or regulated.

[DiogenesLamp]

To object to antislavery movements as “forcing morality on people” is so ridiculous as to be laughable.

You wish to see it as ridiculous. It is exactly what modern liberals are doing on a whole host of issues.

Do you object to government outlawing murder too? Let's see if you have the mental comprehension to grasp my next point.

If murder was an accepted right when a coalition of states joined the Union, and if murder was explicitly protected by a clause in the agreement signed between the parties as a condition of joining the union, then yes, I would have to object to government unilaterally outlawing murder.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Show me where secession was an accepted right at the outset of the Union, and where the process for doing so was detailed. Show me the instrument where the southern states were allowed to seize Federal property. Show me where Lincoln moved to take away southerners “right” to slavery before 1861. Do you also object to Washington using armed troops to put down the Whiskey Rebellion?

It’s interesting that a Southron like you sides with the Democrats who refused to accept the results on an election in 1860, as they did in 2000 and 2016.

[DiogenesLamp]

Show me where secession was an accepted right at the outset of the Union, and where the process for doing so was detailed.

There is so much inherently incorrect in this statement I have to borrow the comment from Wolfgang Pauli that you are "not even wrong."

The principle upon which this very country was founded is that People have a right "to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them".

Secession was not an accepted right of British colonies, nor was there a process in British law for doing so. The founders did not create such a right, they RECOGNIZED that this right, granted by God, already existed.

The right to leave a Union is implicit in our own nation's existence. We declared that we had such a right, the least we could have done was to recognize the very same right which we ourselves first declared!

[DiogenesLamp]

All law is legislating morality, so get over it.

In our system of governance, it requires the consent of the governed.

[DiogenesLamp]

It’s interesting that a Southron like you

I'm not from the South. My family is not from the South. We didn't get to the United States until 1900. I've never lived in a Southern State. To my knowledge, none of my family has ever lived in a Southern State.

I have no particular interest in the South, I merely recognize that they were within their rights to do what they did, while the Union (dominated by the power interests of New York) were very much in the wrong to go to war with them. ( A trade war which was fought over money, not slavery.)

[surroundedbyblue]

“....I would have to object to government unilaterally outlawing murder.”

Shall I assume that you’re ok with legalized abortion??

[DiogenesLamp]

Shall I assume that you’re ok with legalized abortion??

Absolutely not. Given how you have juxtaposed part of my statement with your question, it appears you are implying something that is easily refuted by including the rest of what I wrote.

Note I postulated a system in which such a practice was already regarded as a right, this was explicitly not a real existing example.

[SoCal Pubbie]

You’re forcing your morality on Abraham Lincoln! Oh the horror!!!!!

[DiogenesLamp]

You’re forcing your morality on Abraham Lincoln! Oh the horror!!!!!

You are responding to my unassailable point with a lame joke?

Did it go over your head, or was it that you had nothing else to work with?

[SoCal Pubbie]

I am simply pointing out the delicious irony that by supporting unilateral secession, you are saying that it is okay to enforce your morality by armed rebellion, but not via legislation. By the way, if it is of any interest to you, the Supreme Court ruled that unilateral secession was unconstitutional their 1869 ruling in Texas v. White.