Barack Obama is the first black president of the United States, but his doctrine is by no means unique. He follows in the footsteps of other presidents with a similar vision, the vision at the heart of the Progressive movement that flourished 100 years ago.
Many of the trends, problems, and disasters of our time are a legacy of that era. We can only imagine how many future generations will be paying the price — and not just in money — for the bright ideas and clever rhetoric of our current administration.
The two giants of the Progressive era — Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson — clashed a century ago, in the three-way election of 1912. With the Republican vote split between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt’s newly created Progressive party, Woodrow Wilson was elected president, so that the Democrats’ version of Progressivism became dominant for eight years.
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What Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had in common — and what attracts some of today’s Republicans and Democrats, respectively, who claim to be following in their footsteps — was a vision of an expanded role of the federal government in the economy and a reduced role for the Constitution of the United States.
Like other Progressives, Theodore Roosevelt was a critic and foe of big business. In this he was not inhibited by any knowledge of economics, and his own business ventures lost money.
Rhetoric was Roosevelt’s strong suit. He denounced “the mighty industrial overlords” and “the tyranny of mere wealth.”
Just what specifically this “tyranny” consisted of was not spelled out. This was indeed an era of the rise of businesses to unprecedented size in industry after industry — and of prices falling rapidly, as a result of economies of scale that cut production costs and allowed larger profits to be made from lower prices that attracted more customers.
It was easy to stir up hysteria over a rapidly changing economic landscape and the rise to wealth and prominence of new businessmen such as John D. Rockefeller. They were called “robber barons,” but those who put this label on them failed to specify just whom they robbed.
Like other Progressives, Roosevelt wanted an income tax to siphon off some of the earnings of the rich. Since the Constitution of the United States forbade such a tax, to the Progressives that simply meant that the Constitution should be changed.
After the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, a very low income-tax rate was levied, as an entering wedge for rates that rapidly escalated up to 73 percent on the highest incomes during the Woodrow Wilson administration.
One of the criticisms of the Constitution by the Progressives, and one still heard today, is that the Constitution is so hard to amend that judges have to loosen its restrictions on the power of the federal government by judicial reinterpretations. Judicial activism is one of the enduring legacies of the Progressive era.
Thinking back to my pre-college education (and a lot of college too); successful presidencies were defined by the size and scope of their programs. Never a discussion regarding the implications of big government or the risks inherent in executive overreach. No dialogue on how expansion of the executive was achieved (i.e. consider F. Roosevelt’s victorious war upon the judiciary). Our executive has expanded in power with the blessing of the judiciary and the at the expense of our Constitution.
How frightening, we are deliberately educating our children that big government is what is important. The Constitution is ignored or if discussed, it’s in the context of how meaningless , irrelevant, outdated, and obsolete it has become.
We exist and achieved our greatness because of the Constitution, not in spite of it. Without it we will be a rudderless nation if a nation at all. It appears progressivism has won because that is the national memory passed along to our posterity.
The question I ask myself, has progressivism allowed us to become a hollowed out shell of a nation, are we a crack away from national implosion?
RobL -- very well said. My progressive/liberal friends and colleagues view the Constitution as only a loose "framework" at best. This will certainly affect the next generation of Americans because progressive/liberal educators probably write most of the textbooks and probably comprise the majority of public school teachers. And here in Northern Virginia there are many children of first generation Americans who come from non-democratic countries. In my son's 5th grade class there are seven children from Muslim or communist countries.
You forget to mention foreign military interventionism. Starting from TR's famous charge up San Juan Hill, ending with conscription of Americans to fight in WWI and the suppression of the pacifist movement, the US helped set the state for the horrors that followed later in the century. It also helped set the stage for the massive presence of the military in our national budget. Causes have effects.
I am glad you bring up this point. Without the Progressive movement, does America become involved in WWI? Without WWI do you you have WWII? Without WWII, do you have the Iron Curtain and the Cold War and if you do, what does it look like? Without the Cold War, and the interventionism from both sides, do you have a Radical Islamic movement and the War On Terror?
Of course this is all arm chair quarterbacking and we don't know if something worse or better may have happened, but it makes you wonder.
I disagree with what appears to be you implication that our Defense Department is too big however. It is near the smallest it has been, relative to GDP, in the post-WWII era and with the real world we have created (as opposed to the better possibilities you rightly bring up) I think we are pretty much stuck with having a very potent military capability and probably more intervention on the world scene than perhaps I would like. I think a Ron Paulesque (or Pat Buchanan) view of America's role in the world is a good long term goal but I think it will take a while to get there safely and in fact we may never get there entirely.
WWI, WWII, the Cold War and the War on Terror did happen (continue to happen) and we have to live with the world they created. (I think the next war is likely to be the NarcoTerror War.) We have to defend ourselves from the results of previous actions. At least for a while.
Regarding WWI - already well in progress when we got involved. A war best described as a total bungle. So...was already happening without us. The question becomes would it have reached the same conclusion without us. Probably. And the treaty ending that bungle pretty much assured WWII.
WWII absolutely HAD to be fought, and we HAD to do our part. Totally leaving out the Pacific theatre issues...lets say we "don't get involved in Europe's battle. End result is probably England still standing, and the rest of Europe controlled by Stalin...which means the cold war was not only unavoidable...but would have been worse had we not did our part in Europe.
So...it's always a good operational policy to NOT get involved in other folks squabbles, except as a last resort..BUT...in the reality we live in...there are times the last resort is reached. Evil MUST be confronted when it impacts the globe. Isolationism in the world of NOW will never be an option...and anyone who really believes we can just pull everything in behind our borders and do everything for ourselves and everyone will just leave us alone and let us be is naive.
Is this the same Dr. Sowell who has been advocating Newt Gingrich? Is he unfamiliar with Newt's embrace of TR? Or of his admiration for the methods used by FDR to advance executive power? Or that he has described himself as "the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson"?
Dr. Sowell has indeed praised Gingrich for his accomplishments -- the first republican congress in decades and a balanced budget by the end of the 90s. Dr. Sowell, however, is far more anti-Romney than he is pro-Gingrich. Before that he praised Governor Perry. I believe the more a candidate has real accomplishments and the more he is grounded in economic reality the more Sowell is inclined to be favorable to him. Now that Perry is gone and Gingrich has imploded, Sowell appears to have pretty much given up on the field. He has yet to weigh in on Santorum, for example, and my guess is, and it is only my guess, is that he views Santorum as a mini-Romney. It will be interesting to see what Sowell says if Santorum does indeed become a significant factor in the race. Many are, of course, already persuaded that he has.
I vivdly recall in 2008 Prof. Sowell brilliantly and succinctly writing, "There is nothing John McCain can say or do to convince me to vote for him. Only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can convince me to vote for John McCain."
I am guessing his sentiments are similar this year.
Sowell doesn't mention that Wilson took more repressive measures against dissent because America was at war, which is not uncommon during war. Republican Lincoln also took harsh measures during the Civil War.
Also, some communists were deported after the Russian Revolution, which occurred during Wilson's second term. That's much tougher than any measure any Republican president took subsequently.
Also, some progressive measures were needed. Was it good that people who worked in factories worked 12 hour days? Can laissez-faire policies and the "magic of the marketplace" ensure safe meat for consumption? It was a muckraking journalist who exposed the deplorable conditions at slaughterhouses, and progressives who enacted much needed reform. Republicans until TR were in the pocket of big business and didn't care much about reform.
A good thing to remember is the progressive movement didn't operate in a void, it emerged because of certain historical conditions. It perhaps didn't solve all problems, and it might have caused some unforeseen problems down the road, but many of the measures were overdue and necessary.
You make some good points about Progressivism being not all bad. Conservatives like me, even famous ones like Dr. Sowell I imagine, are willing to admit that modest "Progressive" policies like inspecting food for safety, child labor laws and so forth are ok.
The problem is, Progressives / liberals are never satisfied with just a few modest reforms. The Progressives relentlessly and perpetually just keep trying to expand the power of the state. This creates of all kind of economic and social problems. This expansion of state power also reduces freedom, and not just the political Constitutional kind, but the personal freedoms that make life worth living. We are currently being hounded and bullied by Progressive government bureaucrats telling us we can't eat medium rare hamburger meat if we choose, regulating water pressure in toilets, inspecting school kids' lunch boxes and regulating what kind of light bulbs we use. These examples just to skim the surface of Progressive government gone insane.
The basic Progressive idea is that some omniscient ruling class can create a utopia via central planning by a dictatorial government. Of course these rulers are all enlightened Progressives smarter than everybody else.This idea started over 2,000 years ago with Plato's The Republic and was also expressed in books over the centuries like Moore's Utopia, Hobbes's The Leviathan, Marx's Das Kapital. For modern updates, check the New York Times. This basic idea is dangerous, impractical nonsense of course which has inflicted endless misery on the human race. But America's own scholarly philosopher king, President Obama, probably read all those books in college and is now earnestly trying to impose their vision on America.
Here's one example among many of disastrous Progressive overreach. You ask "Was it good that people who worked in factories worked 12 hour days?" The answer in those early primitive Industrial Revolution days was yes. That was a tremendous improvement over the traditional pre-Industrial Revolution reality: working 12 to 14 our days in Europe as a serf or peasant for the feudal lord, or in America working as a sharecropper or poor dirt farmer for a lot less money than you can earn in a factory working for Andrew Carnegie or Henry Ford. The Progressives didn't think so however. So they got the union movement, backed by the power of the federal government to create the 8 hour work day we have today. Ok, no real harm done. Most workers in a mature industrialized economy probably prefer 8 hours over 12 hours. But here's where the overreach comes in. Not satisfied with modest improvements, the Progressives kept hammering away by creating more powerful, overpaid unions and endless government red tape regulations which has crippled American industry. So now instead of a rich powerful America based on a manufacturing economy, we have an America with a hollowed out manufacturing base that is getting poorer, largely due to Progressive anti-business polices.
Thomas Sowell is an American icon. He understands that this country is falling. Too many intelligent conservatives seem to not see his point. They write for Hot Air, The Daily Caller, The American Spectator, The National Review, Pajamas Media, the Big sites, and countless others. If you favor Romney, you are guilty. To their credit, all of these sites also publish those who oppose Romney's Republican Progressivism.
I would advocate for a blanket repeal of every act of Congress from 1890 onward. Most were either repressive or unnecessary. We can then evaluate how to proceed forward.
