Progressivism and the fate of Liberalism
I think there are many strands to the problem, but one was a fateful simplifying of liberalism that arose in response to its fragmenting over the new developments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This simplification led to a dichotomizing of liberal perspectives into 'ours' and 'theirs.' The result blinded all too many to similarities with many on the "other" side and contradictions with so-called allies against "the left." (or, at one time, ‘the right’.) I want to explore this topic below.
Over and over these past few years I have heard the crimes and horrors of the contemporary Republicans defended or belittled by so-called “friends of freedom” as amounting to little because “the democrats are worse” or “the left is still a threat” and similar imbecilities. Anyone who still believes this and considers themselves a friend of liberty needs psychiatric help more than rational argument. They are like the Reds who continued to look the other way as evidence for Stalin’s or Mao’s crimes became more and more obvious. Of course Bush is not Stalin – but the evidence is far less ambiguous than Stalin’s or Mao’s was in its early years, and the society being assaulted a far freer one to start with.
The origin of belief in a domestic enemy so bad that Republican crimes were small change by comparison was rooted in splits originating in the Progressive period – and among “classical liberals” the view that it divided people into true and false liberals, by means of some deep moral failing. (One of the best of these intelligent but flawed analyses in Schambra’s)
Last year I finally began a disciplined reading of the Progressives or myself – especially Addams, Dewey, and Croly, contemporaries such as W. J. Bryan and Henry George, and some standard histories of the era – Ekirch, Hofstader, Link, etc. At a minimum I found that the earlier liberal tradition seemed to split into three separate semi-coherent branches, each powerfully influenced by ONE of the emergent orders that arose as a result of the triumph of liberal principles especially in the US and Britain: science, democracy, and market order.
There were the “Techno-liberals” captivated by the successes of science and of corporate management. Then there were the “Egalitarian liberals who focused on the democratic process and increasing citizen equality. Finally there were the “Classical liberals” who emphasized the creativity and voluntary character of the market and fear of the state. Even this leaves important people out – such as Henry George. But it seems to better capture the complexities than a dichotomy does.
The blind nationalism strengthened by WWI added a new poison to this complexity.
But away from the extremes, all three of these approaches are still liberal, but with different emphases. The distinction between them was scarcely back and white. Milton Friedman supported government paying for education. Hayek supported a safety net and national parks. Von Mises supported the Vienna State opera. Liberal democrats generally supported civil liberties more than the right wing “allies” of classical liberals. When Bob Barr joined the ACLU his fellow members were disproportionately egalitarian and techno liberals. Paul Krugman is no socialist, Brad DeLong admires Hayek. This is in sharp contrast to “left” liberal thinking when I was an undergraduate in the 60s, when an econ professor of mine gave as his reason for ignoring the Austrians: “Mises is an old man.” Most environmentalists support markets over central control and favor government more for setting taxes or standards than mandating control. Most feminists support equality under the law. All these people have more in common with one another than they do with the most extreme representatives of positions with which they are associated. Jeff Greenwald, certainly associated with “the left” wrote a recent piece in Salon on why requiring doctors’ permission to get prescription drugs is an abuse of power. I doubt Pete Boettke could have made a stronger case – or given many different reasons.
My point is not that all these positions are right – or wrong – but that there is no deep dichotomy till you reach the extremes – and the extremes often ally themselves with anti-liberals and pull their more moderate fellows along with them into alliances made in Hell.
I would argue that a one sided emphasis of any single one of these responses takes their adherents into anti-liberal territory. (I define liberalism as the view that individuals are the fundamental moral and ethical unit of the human world.) Techno liberals all too easily became rabid nationalists and in some cases played footsie with communists and socialists or blurred into similar positions. Think Croly and Tugwell. Egalitarian liberals tended to be the least powerful nationally, though effective at the state level of progressive reforms. They can morph into radical egalitarians (Robert Dahl for example) or in another guise, silly or even poisonous multi-culturalists or McKinney style “feminists.”
But in my opinion and experience, classical liberals are not much better. Classical liberals all too often forgot the interests of free markets and businesses are often contradictory, seeing only government as a problem. Big business has been perhaps the strongest force for centralization in our history. Further, despite claims to the contrary, market rules are biased and as the market becomes more impersonal and all embracing it becomes more coercive. Civil society is squeezed between the impersonality of the market order and the hierarchy of the government. Finally, the one sided emphasis on economics made the satisfied consumer the controlling model of human well being. One symptom that something is incomplete in classical liberalism – I have heard ‘voluntary’ slavery defended three times in my life – always by “libertarians.” As if slavery could ever be voluntary. I know I am giving assertions without much argument in this case (as I did with less detail for techno and egalitarian liberals) but I am writing something in some detail on all this that some list members may enjoy trying to rebut once it is done and published.
Techno liberals too often supported socialists against the core of liberalism. They have mostly learned their lesson now. Now classical liberals have made the same error with the theocrats and neo-con fascists – while also becoming infected with the nationalist virus. The divisions that opened up during the Progressive era seem central to both tragic phenomena – hence the need to re-think it.