Posted on 02/27/2006 12:10:29 PM PST by Marxbites
The Constitution was written and ratified to secure liberty through limited government. Central to its design were two principles: federalism and economic liberty. But at the beginning of the 20th century, Progressives began a frontal assault on those principles. Drawing on the new social sciences and a primitive understanding of economic relationships, their efforts reached fruition during the New Deal when the Constitution was essentially rewritten, without benefit of amendment. In a new Cato book, Richard Epstein traces this history, showing how Progressives replaced competitive markets with government-created cartels and monopolies. Please join us for a discussion of the roots of modern government in the Progressive Era.//
This just might help !!
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram
Correct.
And central to that process was the high court's determination that the Constitution did not ensure economic liberty.
Progressives = liberals, commies, socialists, nazis, greens and other assorted subhuman filth.
The Enemy Within™.
Saw it as well...I need to read it...very interesting debate between the U Chicago and GU guys.
bttt
Economic liberty? Ha! Every progressive knows that the Constitution only protects sexual deviancy, pornography, and stuff of that degrading nature. That's liberty. Your money is not your own, but you can be a pervert anywhere and everywhere you want. That's liberalism. Oh, and they have every right to corrupt the minds of all children everywhere.
Real liberals do NOT belong on the same list that today our Founders would equate themselves with.
Tax and spend conservatives are no better than tax and spend lefties. The left stole the good name of liberal for themselves to obfuscate their socialism/statism.
In fact conservatives are worse for lying to us no differently than when Slick proclaimed "The era of big Govt is over".
It was the constitution's re-interpretation from the bench that gave Congress their unconstititonal and unlimited power to tax and spend that BOTH parties have abused continuously ever since. Reagan and Newt & Co being the few exceptions.
(Hey Muggs!)
That "professor" Sideman had a real hard time against Epstein's well reasoned and historically accurate bashing of the progressives.
BTW - the LINK is for a video/sound stream right on the net.
For me Epstein's best line was: "the Progressives saw the constitution for what THEY wanted it to be."
And he rightly stated it all primarily started with the ICC's creation to protect and set the profits of Big Biz against the fresh crop of small competitors.
IE - nearly everything Govt does when it intervenes in free markets has the effect of protectionism, and barriers to entry by competitors - and always results in higher consumer prices which had been falling in America from after the CW to the early 1890's. And even though child labor was also falling and becoming rarer as families got ahead - they still passed egregiuos labor laws that did NOTHING more than to protect union workers by giving them more rights than individuals.
The program surely demands watching several times to devine all the finer points which solidly demolish all the progressive propaganda we've been sold by our self serving public educators for the last century.
This sounds like it's up your alley.
Progressive, the progress of failure
Good post! I caught a tiny bit of this on C-Span over the weekend and went looking for the whole thing to listen to in more depth. Besides the .ram file, it's also downloadable as a PodCast for your mp3 player by right-clicking on this link:
http://www.catomedia.org/archive-2006/cbfa-02-15-06.mp3
In their present form, they do belong on the list. Otherwise, I'd agree with your statement.
Glad you liked it.
For me this issue of legislation from the bench is the sole reason we have such an expensive and oppressive Govt today with less individual economic freedom - the courts substituted their own will for that of the Founder's Constitution of liberty.
What has been the opportunity cost to the compounded wealth accumulation of generations of Americans of each and every misguided Govt program, whose sole purpose was short term political expediency without regard to disastrous long term unintended consequences, while always at the expense of one group for the benefit of others?
Epstein nails it dead on. Sideman showed himself and the left to be the intellectually dishonest fools and liars they are.
Thanks for the links. Such efforts and favors are never unappreciated.
Thanks for the ping. I'm buying Epstein's book.
Interestingly, he agrees with Kolko that the early 1900s progressives were all about monopoly and government-protected favor. Of course he and Kolko part ways when it comes to Labor's slice of monopoly... I'll be interested to see if Epstein listened to Taft. To Taft, Wilson's worst sin was the labor exemption in the Clayton Act.
The old boy is interesting in this scenario in that he was both a progressive and a conservative, with his loyalties strictly bound to the Constitution. His progressivism ran away with such things as child labor law, the Miners' Bureau, etc., while his conservativism ran his anti-trust extremism. Now studying the Civil War, I'm fascinated by Taft's 1912 stand for "individualism." This word during the Civil War was dirt to good Republicans. It meant "slave owner." For Taft to use it in 1912, not too far from Lincoln's day, was mighty brave. He used it, of course, in defiance of collectivism, but he nonetheless risked the ugly association.
Anyway, the Cato conference is great, and I look forward to the book. Thanks for pointing me to it.
You are very welcome.
It seems the advances of science of the times and men's ability to control their socio-economic environments vis central planning and banking in Europe, was too big a prize for America's politicians to increase their power with, to pass on.
These people clearly held themselves up as knowing better (like Hillary) how to plan citizen's lives than do citizens themselves. And once that power was tasted in DC, nearly all legislation prior to RWR was aimed at making citizens believe that Govt interference in free markets was crucial to their well being. Taxation is their fuel.
The whining left has been calling for an increase in American's taxes - we just aren't being taxed enough, making enough of a sacrifice they say. What they really mean is that politicians need more allowance to buy with OPM the votes they seek.
History has proven that free market capitalism is the only incentive ever found that works best in raising the standards of living for the maximum number of people within a society.
To quote Joel Miller - American's ability to persue happiness is inversely proportional to the size of Govt.
Watch this one too at Cato!
Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom (And Limits the Pursuit of Happiness)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-02-06.ram
The federal government grows each year. Taxes rise and regulations pile higher -- and our quality of life suffers. Bristling with data and drama, Size Matters warns of big government's measurable negative impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. The book argues that excessive government reduces family income, drives up the cost of housing and health care, hurts employment, and stifles vital marketplace creativity and innovation. Please join us for a discussion of how the federal government impedes the pursuit of happiness with the author, Joel Miller, and award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch.
I notice that Taft used the word "individualism" in his 1911 message to Congress, in reference to anti-trust:
ONLY SUPPLEMENTAL LEGISLATION NEEDED.
The opportunity thus suggested for Federal incorporation, it seems to me, is suitable constructive legislation needed to facilitate the squaring of great industrial enterprises to the rule of action laid down by the anti-trust law. This statute as construed by the Supreme Court must continue to be the line of distinction for legitimate business. It must be enforced, unless we are to banish individualism from all business and reduce it to one common system of regulation or control of prices like that which now prevails with respect to public utilities, and which when applied to all business would be a long step toward State socialism.
IMPORTANCE OF THE ANTI-TRUST ACT.
The anti-trust act is the expression of the effort of a freedomloving people to preserve equality of opportunity. It is the result of the confident determination of such a people to maintain their future growth by preserving uncontrolled and unrestricted the enterprise of the individual, his industry, his ingenuity, his intelligence, and his independent courage.
In the late 19th century, it wasn't yet entirely clear that the 20th would be dominated by conflicts between state socialism and private enterprises, so references to individualism weren't as common as they would later be. Terms didn't line up as clearly as they did later: capitalism on Rockefeller's scale and socialist ideologies were so new that people didn't quite know what to make of them.
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