Posted on 08/14/2017 4:13:48 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
In describing some of the history of American Progressivism, Dinesh D'Souza asks a very provocative question:
Think about this: we know the name of the philosopher of capitalism, Adam Smith. We also know the name of the philosopher of Marxism, Karl Marx. So, quick, what is the name of the philosopher of fascism? Yes, exactly. You don’t know. Virtually no one knows. My point is that this is not because there were no foundational thinkers behind fascism – there were several – but rather that the left had to get rid of them in order to avoid confronting their unavoidable socialist and leftist orientation. This is the big lie in full operation.
Now, what about Progressivism? Who is the foundational thinker behind that? Like Italian Fascism, American Progressivism has several. They are:
1) Henry George
2) Edward Bellamy
3) Herbert Croly
4) Woodrow Wilson (Prior to 1912)
Just as those behind fascism have been erased out of the history books, so too have these men - with the exception of Woodrow Wilson, but only because he was a president. Nobody hears the name of Wilson and considers his "philosophical" writings, despite just how impactful they really were when they started to be written in the late 1880s. If Wilson never would have been president, he would've been erased too.
Because people do not know the names of George, Bellamy, Croly, and Wilson, that is the big lie in action.
Had been swimming in the public pools(s) in Genesee Valley Park (they had separate pools for boys and for girls) and had bought a Sugar Daddy before getting on the bus. The driver noticed I had a whole candy unit and the kid in the next aisle had none so he came back, brought out a pen knife and cut my Sugar Daddy in half because "it wasn't right for someone to have so much while someone else had nothing. For all he knew, the other kid's old man might have been making multiples of what my Dad was but it didn't matter.
Mentioned it to my Dad and he asked some questions and mused on it for a while. I was 6 or 7 and he didn't go over in discussing it but a few days later he told me that I wouldn't have anyone "sharing" my candy on the bus w/o my permission anymore.
One important influence who's long been forgotten or ignored was Lester Ward. The "reform Darwinist" Ward was an early supporter of the welfare state who influenced Croly and others.
Edward A. Ross was another forgotten progressive thinker. If he's remembered at all, it's for some of his views on race and eugenics which would now be regarded as politically incorrect.
One thing I know for sure is we know very little for sure.
Amen to that. .
There are several people identified that are entirely correct namely, Herbert Croly, John Dewey and Karl Marx. Including President Woodrow Wilson in the list is also a good idea. However there is one other individual that should be included.
His name is Frederick Engels. While being no expert, I remembered something of how he impacted the early thinking of progressive social change. I’ve taken the liberty to include some snippets about him and his imput from: “Engels, Modernity, and Classical Social Theory” By Douglas Kellner. The entire article can be found at: Homepage: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html
Curriculum Vitae: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/DK97CV.htm if anyone is interested. What follows are some flavor quotes from the article.
“Frederick Engels and Karl Marx were among the first to develop systematic perspectives on modern societies and to produce a critical discourse on modernity, thus inaugurating the problematic of modern social theory. In most of the narratives of classical social theory, Marx alone is usually cited as one of the major founders of the problematic, while Engels is neglected. It is Marx who is usually credited as one of the first to develop a theory of modernity and a critical social theory that links the rise of modern societies with the emergence of capitalism. Yet Engels preceded Marx in focusing attention on the differences between modern and premodern society, and then on the constitutive role of capitalism in producing a new modern world. As I show in this study, from the late 1830s into the 1840s, Engels played a leading role in theorizing the distinctive features of the modern world, and he inspired Marx to see the importance of capitalism in constructing a distinctively new modern society.”
“Thus, as early as 1839, Engels deplores the horrific working and living conditions of the working class and depicts it as a reprehensible effect of modern industrial development. In the latter part of his “Letters,” and in many other newspaper articles written over the next few years, Engels describes in great detail “modern” literature, culture, and thought of the present, equating “modern” cultural tendencies with Enlightenment criticism and the contemporary literature of the “Young Germany” movement, which he champions against reactionary Pietistic thought and backwards German literature. In the voluminous newspapers articles and sketches of the early Engels, he reveals himself to be, like Marx, a great partisan of modernity, an avatar of modern ideas, as well as a sharp critic of the impact of modern conditions on the working class (see Engels in CW2).”
“’But as long as you continue to produce in the present unconscious, thoughtless manner, at the mercy of chance—for just so long trade crises will remain; and each successive crisis is bound to become more universal and therefore worse than the preceding one; is bound to impoverish a larger body of small capitalists, and to augment in increasing proportion the numbers of the class who live by labour alone, thus considerably enlarging the mass of labour to be employed (the major problem of our economists) and finally causing a social revolution such as has never been dreamt of in the philosophy of the
economists’(CW3, 434).”
Also, I've looked for information about Ward before, but if you could provide a direction on where to look that would help.
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