John Galt on the RINO Response to the Pro Antifa Media

In the course of John Galt's climactic speech in Atlas Shrugged, he spends a paragraph on what today is recognizable as RINO cowardice in response to America's extremist, pro-Antifa, fake-news media, starting with the New York Times. We are witnessing this most recently vis-a-vis the Stephen Moore nomination:

You, who are half-rational, half-coward, have been playing a con game with reality, but the victim you have conned is yourself.  When men reduce their virtues to approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it's picked up by scoundrels--and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously compromising evil.  As you surrendered to the mystics of muscle [leftists] when they told you that ignorance consists of claiming knowledge, so now you surrender to them when they shriek that immorality consists of pronouncing moral judgment. When  they yell that it is selfish to be certain that you are right, you hasten to assure the that you're certain of nothing.  When they shout that it's immoral to stand on your convictions, you assure them that you have no convictions whatever. When the thugs of Europe's People's States snarl that you are guilty of intolerance because you don't treat your desire to live and their desire to kill you as a difference of opinion--you cringe and hasten to assure them that you are not intolerant of any horror.  When some barefoot bum in some pesthole of Asia yells at you:  How dare you be rich--you apologize and beg him to be patient and promise him you'll give it all away.

Ayn Rand on the Fake Media

I have been rereading Atlas Shrugged, and I have reached the chapter, "This is John Galt Speaking,"  in which John Galt makes his grand speech.  I noticed a passage on page 916 of the Signet edition, a few pages before the speech, that describes the media in the Atlas Shrugged world right after Hank Rearden disappears.  The description sounds like the media in today's America.  As a child Rand had lived under Soviet totalitarianism, and the media in today's America likely has much in common with the USSR's media, which is likely the model for this description:

It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials, as if existence had ceased, facts had vanished, and only the frantic negatives uttered by officials and columnists gave any clue to the reality they were denying.  'It is not true that the Miller Steel Foundry of New Jersey has gone out of business.'  'It is not true that the Jansen Motor Company of Michigan has closed its doors. 'It is a vicious, anti-social lie that the manufacturers of steel products are collapsing under the threat of a steel shortage.  There is no reason to expect a steel shortage.' 'It is a slanderous, unfounded rumor that a Steel Unification Plan had been in the making and that it had been favored by Mr. Orren Boyle.  Mr. Boyle's attorney has issued an emphatic denial and has assured the press that Mr. Boyle is now vehemently opposed to any such plan.  Mr. Boyle, at the moment is suffering from a nervous breakdown.'  But some news could be witnessed in the streets of New York...

The Woodstock Mystery in Atlas Shrugged

Frank O'Connor Painting

On page 510 of Atlas Shrugged  (of the paperback Signet edition), Dagney Taggart decides to withdraw to a family lodge in Woodstock, which Rand describes as being in the Berkshires.  I checked Google Maps and could not find a Woodstock, Massachusetts, although there is a Woodstock, Connecticut and a Woodstock, Vermont.  

Rand's husband, Frank O'Connor, was an artist and a member of the Art Students League from 1955 to 1966.  The Art Students League opened the Woodstock, New York School of Art in 1906 and discontinued its Woodstock summer program in 1979. According to the Woodstock School of Art's website, a local not-for-profit corporation, the Woodstock School of Art, had taken over the building complex in 1968.  I recall when the Art Students League was housed in the Woodstock School of Art building back around 1970.   Ironically, the building was built by one of the New Deal's make-work programs, the National Youth Administration.  It is currently listed in the national and New York registers of historic places.

My guess is that Rand knew about Woodstock, New York from her husband's involvement with the Art Students League.  I'm unclear as to why she decided to say that Woodstock was in the Berkshires. Often, New Yorkers bunch together provincial locales. Alternatively, she may not have wanted to give credit to one of the birthplaces of American communism.* 


*From Wikipedia:  

The Communist International, to which the UCPA and the CPA both pledged their allegiance, sought to end duplication, competition and hostility between the two communist parties and insisted on a merger into a single organization. That was eventually effected in May 1921 at a secret gathering held at the Overlook Mountain House hotel, near Woodstock, New York. The resulting unified group was also known as the Communist Party of America, which morphed into the Workers Party of America (December 1921) and changed its name in 1925 to Workers (Communist) Party and to Communist Party USA in 1929.

Atlas Shrugged and the Decline of New York

This past Tuesday I had to take my wife to her dentist in Manhattan, so I spent a little time walking around our old neighborhood, the Upper West Side, while she got her crown.  I learned that apartment buildings now have policies that can ban smoking outside the building; supermarket plastic bags are now illegal; if you want to use paper bags, you must pay a 5-cent penalty.

With so many meddlesome laws, New York is not a place in which I care to live. I first realized that the city had gone past the point of no return in 2000, when I sat on a Manhattan narcotics grand jury.  The grand jury was in the New York Supreme Court Building, 60 Centre Street, where the 1957 movie 12 Angry Men takes place.  In interacting with my fellow Manhattanites, I realized that the people of New York had gone far down the left-wing path, that they no longer believed in the rule of law, and that the ultimate result would be increasing socialism and moral chaos.

I was just rereading Atlas Shrugged, which I assigned to my class as an extra credit assignment. When I was in Manhattan on Tuesday, several things reminded me of it.  It is about the exodus of industrialists, managers, and the competent from a United States increasingly dominated by socialist looters, with an end result of the country's reverting to 18th century standards—a goal advocated today by  environmentalists.   

This passage is an example of Ayn Rand's perception of how backward-trending socialist law works.  A bureaucrat named Dr. Ferris explains the process to capitalist Hank Rearden, inventor of Rearden Metal:

“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris.  We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures.  We’re after power, and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d be better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens?  What’s there in that for anyone?  But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt.  Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.

 I can picture a Democratic Party policy adopted by di Blasio, Warren, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, et al. whereby neighbors are encouraged to inform on each other:  "Hello, police? I just saw my neighbor,  Mrs. Taggart, entering her apartment with a plastic bag of groceries.  Yes, we're at 140 Riverside Drive, Apt. 16-k. Please send a squad car."

Brooklyn College's Role in the Publication of FA Hayek's Road to Serfdom

I teach at Brooklyn College.  I'm always delighted to see historical references to it.  For instance, I recently learned that John Hospers, the first Libertarian Party presidential candidate, had taught philosophy at Brooklyn before moving on to USC and Harvard.  As well, Ayn Rand spoke at Brooklyn in the early 1960s.  I just learned that a former president of Brooklyn College, Harry Gideonse, had worked on behalf of FA Hayek to secure a publisher of what became Hayek's most famous book, The Road to Serfdom. In his introduction to Volume II of the Definitive Works of FA Hayek, Bruce Caldwell writes this:

In a letter dated August 8, 1942, Hayek asked Fritz Machlup, who was by then in Washington at the Office of Alien Property Custodian, for his help in securing an American publisher...Machlup's first stop was Macmillan, but they turned him down...Machlup's next move was, at Hayek's request, to send the (by now completed) typescript to Walter Lippmann, who would promote it to Little, Brown. This was done, but they also declined...Machlup then turned to Henry Gideonse, by now the [p]resident of Brooklyn College, but who previously had served as the editor of public policy pamphlets in which [Hayek's] "Freedom and the Economic System" had appeared.  Gideonse took the manuscript with his strong endorsement to Ordway Tead, the economics editor at Harper and Brothers.  This initiative also failed...Nearly a year went by...It was at this point that Aaron Director came to the rescue.  Director wrote to fellow Chicago economists Frank Knight and Henry Simons to see if the University of Chicago Press might want to consider publishing it...The acceptance letter to Hayek was dated December 28, 1943.

Ayn Rand and Henry David Thoreau

Did Ayn Rand derive the title of her book The Fountainhead from the following quote from Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience?  I am trying to track down the answer and whether one exists.  If she had read Civil Disobedience before writing the Fountainhead, it seems quite possible.

"They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird  up their loins once more and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountainhead."

Atlas Shrugged Video Trailer

I was saddened to learn that the Atlas Shrugged movie that had been scheduled for 2008 was not made. I noticed this video on Youtube and think it is cool.  Unfortunately blogspot is cutting off the end but you can view it here if you want or click on the video.

Senior Seminar Course Syllabus, Fall '10

Brooklyn College Senior Seminar

Syllabus Business 4200W

Fall 2010

Professor Mitchell Langbert

Overview

What do pundits believe that you need to do in order to succeed in light of varying interpretations of the role of the individual in society?  Two basic currents concerning success are the self- and the socially- oriented.  These two currents may be incompatible, although some, like Stephen Covey and Stanley and Danko, argue that the most successful people in American life are able to balance them. Others, like Reinhard Bendix, argue that popular interpretations of how to succeed reflect managerial ideology or power of the capitalist or managerial class and that they are irrelevant to the substantive requirements to succeed, which are class-based.  Others would argue that markets drive the determinants of success, and that the best we can to do to succeed is to anticipate what markets will demand. 

Assignments

This is a writing intensive course and therefore three five-page papers will be required.  Written assignments must be handed in on the due date via SafeAssignment in the “Assignments” section of Blackboard on or before the due date by 12:00 midnight. No papers may be e-mailed. No late papers will be accepted.

For the first five-page paper students must analyze Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom.

            For any of the readings it is critical to develop a thesis concerning the reading that you defend.  In other words, you need to pretend that you are the professor and give yourself an assignment. The broad answer to the assignment is your thesis.  You should start your paper by stating your thesis.  Then, in the rest of the paper you should defend it.  Details concerning how your papers will be graded are in Appendix I.

            For the second of the papers you must compare the characters of Henry David Thoreau, as he depicts himself in Civil Disobedience and James Farmer, Jr., the great debater in the film The Great Debaters starring Denzel Washington as Professor Melvin B. Tolson and Denzel Whitaker as James Farmer, Jr.  Melvin Tolson and James Farmer, Jr. were real life figures.  Farmer co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality and was considered one of the four most prominent civil rights leaders between the late 1940s to the 1960s. Tolson was a professor at Wiley College.  In real life the 1935 Wiley debating team defeated the University of Southern California, not Harvard.  There were additional inaccuracies in the film, but they are unimportant for our subject.

In comparing Thoreau and Farmer you need to focus your thesis on how Thoreau’s and Farmer’s views of success in America differed or were similar.  What did success with respect to American society mean to James Farmer, Jr. and also Professor Tolson, and what did success with respect to American society mean to Henry David Thoreau?  Are the different perspectives entirely due to the socio-economic advantages that Thoreau enjoyed and discrimination that Farmer and Tolson suffered?

            For the third of the papers you must analyze the character of Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead.  Among the questions that your thesis might ask are (your thesis can include a broader range of questions):

-Does Howard Roark offer a realistic role model for graduates who aim to succeed?

-What value system does Howard Roark represent?

-Which interpretation of success would be most consistent with Howard Roark’s approach?

-In the real world, who would be more likely to succeed, Howard Roark or Peter Keating?

Quizzes

In addition, there will be a series of quizzes consisting of three multiple choice questions each.  No make-ups are given for the quizzes.

Attendance and Punctuality Grade

            Attendance is expected and counts ten percent toward your grade.  The attendance grade is computed by taking the ratio of times present to the number of times attendance was recorded.  Punctuality is also expected and also counts ten percent toward your grade. It is computed as an attendance/punctuality grade.  The attendance/punctuality grade is computed by taking the ratio of times present at the time roll is called to the number of times roll call was called.  If you are absent, you receive zero credit for both attendance and punctuality.  

Punctuality and attendance are mandatory and will be monitored.  If a student cannot regularly attend class and arrive to class on time, s/he should not take this course.  Your grade will be reduced for each absence and for each time that you are late.  If you have a personal obligation that will interfere with your punctuality or attendance, such as a health issue, child care or any other serious personal matter, you should consider taking this class at a different time when you can attend every class on time. You will be marked late or absent regardless of any excuse.  In other words, excuses, including medical and child care excuses, are not accepted.  For example, if parking presents a problem because it is difficult to find a space, you need to come early to find parking or take the class during a time when parking does not pose a problem to your arriving on time.

 

 Web-Enhanced Course

This is a web-enhanced course.  All students are expected to log onto blackboard on occasion and to participate in several discussion board discussions. (The discussion board is accessed by going to “communications” under “course tools” and then to “discussion board”.)    Participation in discussion board discussions will count as attendance credits, and you will lose attendance credits if you fail to participate.

Also, you must submit your skill application and goal setting exercises via SafeAssignment in the “Assignments” section of Blackboard.

You must have an active e-mail account entered on the Brooklyn College portal (web central--portal.brooklyn.cuny.edu) and you must have access to your blackboard account by the first day of class.

 Grading

3 5-page papers     40 points

Quizzes                  40 points

Attendance and Punctuality   20 points

Required Sources

Friedrich Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society” at http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

*Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry

*David McClelland, Achieving Society

**Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom 

**Benjamin Franklin, Way to Wealth

*Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

**Elbert Hubbard, Message to Garcia 

**Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

*David Riesman with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, Lonely Crowd

**Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

**Stephen R. Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,

**Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, Millionaire Next Door

**Ayn Rand, Fountainhead

*Course packet

**Available at Shakespeare & Co. on Hillel Place next to McDonald’s, not at the campus bookstore.

Lesson Plan

            You should read 65 pages of Fountainhead each week.  Each quiz will include a question on Fountainhead reading for the week.  We will discuss Fountainhead each week.

1. 8/29. Managerial Ideology and the Success Literature. Reading from Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry and Friedrich Hayek, “Use of Knowledge in Society.” Quiz on “Use of Knowledge in Society”
2. Labor Day, No class 9/5.
3. 9/12. Capitalism and Freedom, chapters 1-4. Quiz on Bendix.
4. 9/19. Capitalism and Freedom continued. Quiz on Friedman.
5. 9/26. Capitalism and Freedom, continued.  Quiz on Friedman.
6. 10/3. Business and ethics.  Read Benjamin Franklin, Way to Wealth. The first paper is due this class. Quiz on Franklin.
7. 10/10. Individualism and Its Discontents.  Read Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. Quiz on Thoreau.
8. 10/17. Psychological success.  Read Napoleon Hill, Elbert Hubbard. Film: The Great Debaters.  No quiz
9. 10/24. Managerial theories of success.  Read Riesmann. Quiz on Hill, Hubbard and Riesmann.
10. 10/31. Skill-based theories of success. Read Covey, chapters 1-3, McClelland. Optional: Rick Boyatzis, The Competent Manager.  Quiz on Covey.
11. 11/7. Skill-based theories of success continued. Read Stanley and Danko, first 75 pages.  Quiz on Stanley and Danko.  Paper on Thoreau and Farmer is due.
12.  11/14. Ethics and Wealth.  Video: Warren Buffet Interview
13.  11/21. Ayn Rand, the Fountainhead.
14.  11/28. No class, Thanksgiving.
15.  12/5.  Paper on Howard Roark is due.

Appendix:  Grading Criteria for Paper

Assessment Category	Characteristics of Assignment
Better than good enough	Student thinks critically about all print sources 1.       Student relies on sources beyond those required 2.       The thesis reflects critical thinking about all sources 3.       The thesis is clearly stated 4.       The thesis integrates theories and concepts discussed in class 5.       The discussion is clear 6.       The discussion is targeted at supporting the thesis 7.       Facts are recounted merely to support the thesis 8.       Discussion reflects understanding of the situation and of theoretical perspectives discussed in class
Good Enough	1. The thesis is clearly stated 2. The thesis integrates theories and concepts discussed in class 3. The discussion is clear 4. The discussion is targeted at supporting the thesis 5. Facts are recounted merely to support the thesis             6. Discussion reflects understanding of the situation            and  of theoretical perspectives discussed in class
Not good enough	Thesis not clearly stated or no thesis 1.       Failure to integrate theory and concepts from the course 2.       Poorly written; unclear discussion 3.       The discussion meanders or does not support the thesis 4.       Facts are recounted without bearing on the thesis and theoretical elaboration 5.       Discussion does not suggest grasp of the theoretical perspectives discussed in class

Todd Seavey to Give Ayn Rand Speech at Brooklyn College, Yale and Columbia

I just received this e-mail from Todd Seavey via the New York Republican Liberty Caucus:

As journalists everywhere should be documenting, I am trekking to three campuses this year to give Ayn Rand's speech "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World" on the fiftieth anniversary of her delivery of it in these places (beginning with Yale and ending with Columbia).  This Sunday (coincidentally Easter), April 4, 2010, at 11am, I will give the speech (followed by Q&A) on the steps of the library of Brooklyn College, facing the main green.  Join me there or travel with me from Manhattan on the F train by rallying at precisely 10am that morning on the western steps of Bryant Park.  Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Ayn Rand on the Future Tyranny of President Barack Hussein Obama

"The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state--was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by the disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results."

---Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. 1943. From Howard Roark's defense, p. 683, Signet edition.

Ayn Rand herself was an atheist. But let us pray for the freedom of the United States.

Gary Cooper as Howard Roark

Patricia Neal plays Dominique Francon. This is the best scene in the movie, but I do not think the movie version of the Fountainhead does justice to the book. A remake would be condign. Howard Roark was supposed to have red hair. I think Kenneth Branagh could handle it although he might be a tad long in the tooth now. Roark's speech is truer today than it was in 1943, when Rand wrote the book.

Howard Roark versus Frank Lloyd Wright

In a senior seminar I have been teaching I introduce the students to some basic economics, namely that of Henry Hazlitt and Friedrich Hayek, and then discuss ideas about success in authors with varied ideological views such as Reinhard Bendix, David McClelland and David Riesman. We then discuss popular success literature including that of Benjamin Franklin, Elbert Hubbard, Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey and Napoleon Hill. Then we analyze the character of Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's Fountainhead in light of economic, sociological and popular ideas about success.

If you haven't read Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead, consider it.  As good is her novel Atlas Shrugged.  One point that students sometimes raise is whether Howard Roark is meant to be Frank Lloyd Wright.  What are the similarities and differences between Howard Roark and the real life Frank Lloyd Wright?

I checked out Great Buildings.com's page on Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wright's architecture, such as that of the Edgar J. Kauffman residence, Falling Water pictured above, is unique. Wright's work lives up to Rand's euphoric descriptions of Howard Roark's. Like Roark, Wright left college without graduating (in the novel Roark is thrown out of architecture school, but Wright dropped out of the University of Wisconsin). From there, Roark goes directly to work for the Louis Sullivan character, Henry Cameron.  Louis Sullivan was the real life architect who said "form follows function," which Rand attributes to Cameron on page 45 of the novel.  The real life Wright went to work for the firm of J.L. Silsbee before going to work for Adler and Sullivan.

In the novel, Roark builds moderate income housing and invents new architectural forms and approaches in the Sullivan mode. According to the website:

"Wright evolved a new concept of interior space in architecture. Rejecting the existing view of rooms as single-function boxes, Wright created overlapping and interpenetrating rooms with shared spaces...Through experimentation, Wright developed the idea of the prairie house...

"...Wright responded to the need for low income housing with the Usonian house, a development from his earlier prairie house."

One quote from Wright on the site sounds something like something we might expect Roark to say:

"Our schools today, busy turning out 'the common man,' seem to be making conformity a law of his nature...and the old adage—'those who can, do, those who can't teach..'—was never more truly descriptive of purveyors of 'the higher education' in architecture. Life-long I have been shocked by the human deficiency capitalized by American education."

I think you will enjoy the photos at Great Buildings.com.  Rand describes Roark's designs in a way that sounds like Wright's. 

Like the fictional Roark, Wright built several temples and chapels, such as the Unity Temple in Oak Park Illinois and the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin. However, unlike Roark, the temples were not destroyed by John Dewey or Lewis Mumford (in the novel Ellsworth Toohey, whose name rhymes with John Dewey but seems to be something like Lewis Mumford--an influential social and architectural critic who lived in the 1920s--has the Stoddard Temple reworked into a nursing home). Also, unlike Roark, Wright didn't build any New York City skyscrapers and did not live in New York City, which was Rand's adopted home. (Rand had emigrated from the USSR.) The only skyscrapers shown on the Great Buildings site are the Johnson Wax headquarters building in Racine, Wisconsin and the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It is unfortunate that Wright did not design any of the major skyscrapers in New York City, although the Guggenheim Museum is ample testimony to Wright's imagination.

Here are some of my favorites:

Martin House, Buffalo, 1904

Guggenheim Museum 1959

Pfieffer Chapel 1938 and here

Walker Residence, Carmel California, 1948

Jacobs House, Madison, Wisconsin, 1936.

Several of these structures seem commonplace; recall that Wright designed them as early as 1904. Other architects have had more than a century to imitate Wright's designs, which look ultra-modern even today.  Wright's work resonates with the triumph of the human spirit, but he was criticized for excessive individuality.

All Republicans Should Go On Welfare and Bring Social Democracy Down

Part of the reason America has pursued the path of redistribution, socialization and monetary inflation over the past century is that hard working people have been willing to allow themselves to be exploited. There is a distinction between achievement and security. Two psychologists, David McClelland and Abraham Maslow talk about these needs. Achievement is targeting a standard of excellence and security means being free from anxiety. Americans have a strong need for achievement and for security, and these often transcend the need for money.

Redistribution from achievement in the interest of security means that the individual who focuses on achievement becomes a fool, a sucker. He is willing to work hard but allow the fruit from his hard work to be stolen from him and redistributed to others who are disinterested in hard work. This is true in the corporate system, which emphasizes teamwork and interpersonal skills, the indulgence of power needs and kowtowing, at the expense of innovation and achievement. It is also true across the economy, where unproductive teachers and academics, quack medical researchers, lawyers who destroy rather than produce wealth and investment bankers who speculate are rewarded and those who till, produce and innovate are taxed in order to subsidize the special interests.

There has likely been a destruction of innovation since the New Deal and Great Society. It is impossible to know how much innovation there would have been had there not been increased taxation, inflation and regulation in the twentieth century. At the same time, security needs were frustrated in a laissez faire economy. The game plan of the social democrats has been to provide two cents to the poor to enhance the psychology of security, and then transfer 98 cents to special interests and the educated elite who produce little and have become the chief beneficiaries of the state.

In the 19th century there were considerable fluctuations in prices and in the late 19th century a long deflation due to productive innovation. This created insecurity. But there was a link between the explosion of innovation and the price deflation. Through inflation, non-innovative investments are subsidized. In turn, there is an incentive to turn from engineering and innovation to investment banking and law. Innovation slows but income inequality increases as inflation erodes wages and capital is diverted into the hands of Wall Street and hedge funds. When the speculators fail, the entire system, Democratic and Republican, lurches up to advocate further direct subsidies to the unproductive interests. Faux cries of deflation energize demands for ever greater money creation placed into the hands of Wall Street. Thus, the Progressive state enhances an illusion of safety at the expense of achievement.

What sustains this exploitation of achievement are the achievers themselves, who are willing to work despite the harrassment that they receive from inflation, taxation and regulation.

In the 1950s in Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand postulated a situtation where the most productive Americans simply drop out. Hard working people should begin to consider giving up hard work. Hard workers are fools under a socialist economy. It is time for those who work to consider putting their dollars into Euros and gold and simply retiring. If millions of Republicans go on welfare, then the system will collapse. Then, achievers can begin building a new America from scratch.

Herbert Croly's Progressive Democracy: A Roadmap for Social Justice Educators

Herbert Croly. Progressive Democracy with a new introduction by Sidney A Pearson, Jr. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ. 1998. Originally published in 1914 by the Macmillan Company.

Herbert Croly's 94-year-old Progressive Democracy is slow going because its English is as thick as Turkish coffee. A contemporary reader needs patience to imbibe its grounds, but the gulping is worth it. Many of Croly's ideas are outdated, but the degree to which current progressive-liberals continue to advocate them is remarkable given their persistent failure.

At times, Croly uses the term progressive-liberal. Those who called themselves liberal, dropping the progressive in the post-war period, have reverted to calling themselves progressive, dropping the liberal part, in the post-Clinton era. Perhaps the term progressive-liberal, which is a term Croly sometimes uses, instead of either progressive or liberal is best. Game playing with nomenclature distracts attention from content. Given the outcomes of the progressive-liberals' ideas, game playing might serve their purposes well.

The progressive-liberals' game-playing with nomenclature follows Croly. Croly's use of the term conservatives versus progressive-liberals is an example. In various places (p. 148) he contrasts individual justice with social justice but he does not refer to advocates of individual justice as say individualist-liberals versus progressive-liberals, which would have been more neutral. Instead, he uses the terms progressive-liberals versus conservatives, which suggests that progress requires adoption of progressive-liberals' ideas. Although Croly's ideas were adopted through the 1980s, their adoption stalled rather than furthered progress.

Croly's emphasis on democracy at the expense of limited government remains a mainstay of progressive-liberal ideology. Many of Croly's ideas about governmental reforms, such as the executive's proposing the budget to the legislature, are taken for granted today. His vision that vaguely defined law will be implemented through regulation is what exists today. Those who advocated government reform in the early twentieth century, such as Theodore Roosevelt, were Croly's friends and admirers.

As I have previously blogged, Croly emphasizes social justice education and the role of education in the inculcation of his social justice ideology. Democracy and education overlap. The book's final chapter (p. 406) on social education is a precursor to post-1960s political correctness:

"The need of imposing more exacting standards of behavior upon the citizens of an industrial democratic state applies to the citizen as citizen no less than the citizen as worker...The being of better men and women will involve, as it always has involved, the subordination, to a very considerable extent, of individual interests and desires to the requirements of social welfare."

Ayn Rand termed Croly's view altruism. It explains why progressive-liberals are eager to advocate policies that common sense rejects. One can subordinate oneself to an infinite set of incompetent or harmful policies. Although progressive-liberalism has consistently advocated these, progressive-liberals remain convinced because they believe in altruism. In their view, self-sacrifice is virtue so their advocacy of harmful policies is moral. There is no end to the ways that progressive-liberals can encourage altruistic virtue, especially when applied to others.

The progressive-liberals base their ideology on the pragmatists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who argued that the best course is found empirically through trial and error. However, at least since the New Deal, progressive-liberalism has been rigidly attached to government solutions and has rejected the possibility of error in government-based solutions. The government solution, once adopted, has been written in stone tablets and cannot be abridged. Even when programs fail, and private sector solutions might work better, progressive-liberals irrationally adhere to them. The progressive-liberals have betrayed William James and Charles Sanders Pierce.

In Progressive Democracy Croly argues that the 19th century American system of government, which combined legal limits that restrained political power with legal review, needed to be revised. The American democracy had been "timid" (p. 26) and needed to be "aroused to take a searching look at its own meaning and responsibilities". In his advocacy of the Americanism of reform Croly was not far from Jefferson, who in a famous letter to William S. Smith wrote:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Croly argues that "the way to rationalize political power" is not to limit it but (p. 38) to "accept the danger of violence" and to develop reasonable thinking from within. Croly was of course no Jeffersonian. Rather, he was more favorable to Hamilton and the Whigs, and admired the pro-business policies of the Republicans, although he considered them to have failed.

Education

In Croly's view, "reasonable thinking" was to be inculcated through education. He discusses the threat to social values and social cohesion of the various suffrage, labor and similar movements of the early twentieth century (p. 407) and argues that (p. 408)"social cohesion cannot be made effective without some measure of social compulsion." Thus, Croly's progressive-liberal ideology is a violent one, an argument more explicitly expressed in Croly's other famous book, Promise of American Life. Croly aims to contain the danger of democratic violence with compulsion through education:

" the creation of an adequate system of educating men and women for disinterested service is a necessary condition both of social amelioration and social conservation."

Thus, progressive-liberalism is in part a program for social control through education. Croly's view of national purpose as necessary to bind the democracy and create human excellence suggests compulsion as well. Croly argues against "moral coercion" or the inculcation of the habit of self-restraint in education (p. 413), which he saw as part of the maintenance of the old social order in favor of (p. 417) "a liberal education" which opposes "traditional culture" (p. 417):

"The social education appropriate to a democracy must be, above all, a liberal education. It must accomplish for the mass of the people a work of intellectual and moral emancipation similar to that which the traditional system of human culture has been supposed to accomplish for a minority. This traditional culture could never become really liberating, because of the narrowness and sterility of its human interests...(Traditional liberal education) was intended to emancipate only a few privileged people..."

Croly disagrees that education ought to encourage "self-control, moderation and circumspection". He argues that the rule of "live and let live" favors the rich, who engage in conspicuous consumption, and ought to be replaced with a philosophy of "live and help live" (p. 426), a philosophy of social justice education. He links social justice education to labor issues, and the restructuring of work.

In this, Croly anticipates modern management theory, specifically the ideas of Elton Mayo's human relations school, and the job redesign theories of Frederick Herzberg and Abraham Maslow. He writes (p. 422):

"The masses need, of course, a larger share of material welfare, but they need most of all an increased opportunity of wholesome and stimulating social labor. Their work must be made interesting to them, not merely because of its compensation, but because its performance calls for the development of more eager and more responsible human beings."

Like Herzberg, Croly advocates redistribution of dull and interesting work, which Herzberg, 45 years later, called vertical downloading. This idea saw its fulfillment in the 1980s downsizing of corporations, where managerial work was assigned to rank-and-file workers along with the rote work. In contrast, Croly advocated the socialization of dull work by distributing it among all citizens. However, this view is naive because it ignores the specialization of labor on which modern economies rest.

Rather than discipline, Croly argues that education should involve active involvement in social behavior, which relates to the issue of social justice dispositions or competencies. He argues that "the only way to prepare for social life is to engage in social life" (p. 423). He emphasizes faith in the belief in the "invincible interdependence between individual and social fulfillment" (p. 425). "Live and help live" suggests, in Croly's view "the ultimate collectivism" (p. 426-7):

"The obligation of mutual assistance is fundamental...Every victorious selfish impulse, every perverse and cowardly thought, every petty action, every irresponsibility and infirmity of the will helps to impoverish the lives of other people as well as our own lives. We cannot liberate ourselves without seeking to liberate them..."

Croly's book leaves little doubt about the ideological foundation of the concept of social justice disposition that the National Council on Teacher Education has permitted in education schools and, according to George Will, has been prevalent in social work schools.

Croly's faith in the perfectibility of humanity is the same faith that has been at the root of the worst crimes of the twentieth century, from the 25 points of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party program and Marx's Communist Manifesto to the mass killings in Germany, the USSR and Cuba. While Croly suggests the importance of moderation and self-restraint (that is, focusing on others rather than ourselves requires self-restraint), it is precisely the inculcation of moderation and self-restraint that Croly attacks in his discussion about education.

The followers of Croly and John Dewey have inevitably focused on developing habits of self-esteem, experiential educational and the unimportance of basic skills and knowledge, coupled with an ideology that assumes a tremendous degree of human self-restraint. Thus, progressive-liberal education sets up students for failure on moral as well as academic grounds.

Summary

Croly bases his argument on the idea that limited government, what he considers the legalistic Constitutionalism of nineteenth century America, was a way for the founding fathers, 18th century republican liberals, to permit the government to escape "popular control" (p. 46). Excessive emphasis or "deification" of the Constitution resulted from lack of respect for the "popular will". The American system perpetuated the English "political and legal tradition" (p. 57) and focused on individual liberty and property. The Jeffersonian Democrats opposed federalism, which amounted to the legalistic system that Croly decries, but Jefferson allied himself with the Constitutional system, to the Democrats' political advantage (p. 59). Croly repeatedly expresses frustration with American democracy's unwillingness to change the underlying Constitutional system. In his view, American government was government by law and the courts while the two political parties reflected direct popular control, and the purpose of the parties was to "humanize and control government by Law" (p. 67).

Croly's frustration with the Constitutionalism of nineteenth century American democracy relates to its limits on the power and scope of government:

"Good administration consists in the adoption of the most efficient available methods for the accomplishment of an accepted policy."

But while the state was hamstrung, the 19th century political parties were effective. But the political parties are self-interested and so did not care about efficient administration.

Croly is relatively fond of the pro-business Whigs. He describes them (p. 75) as

"a national party whose life depended upon its ability to unite on an enterprising positive assertion of the public interest...Its National Bank was abolished. Its protective tariff was reduced to almost a revenue basis. A national plan of internal improvements was never adopted. Thus the Whigs were beaten all along the line."

Despite the Whigs' defeat, the expansion of markets led to a recognition of the need for a national economic policy and (pp. 86-7):

"Stephen Douglas was the first conspicuous political leader who proposed national grants of land in aid of railroad corporations...Public assistance was bestowed upon almost every essential economic interest...The Republican Party...almost immediately became the victim of special economic interests and devoted its power to the establishment of a privileged and undemocratic economic system..."

In turn (p. 93), "both the capitalist and the agricultural had come to depend for the satisfaction of their interests not merely on the vigorous stimulation afforded by the Constitution, but on the vigorous stimulation provided by the government." This government subsidy to industry was being made based on the belief that "every economic class was benefiting equally from the stimulation" but this was not, in Croly's view, true (p.95):

"In point of fact the stimulation of productive economic energy no longer contributed necessarily to the public welfare; and the two partisan organizations were no longer instruments of democratic rule."

Croly (p. 88) approves of the Republicans' emphasis on "accelerating the production of wealth" although he does not believe that their individualist, laissez faire philosophy was successful.

This ultimately becomes an empirical question: do the policies that the nineteenth century Republicans advocated have a better long term effect on increasing wealth than the policies that Croly advocates or not? Given that Croly's policies have been adopted, and the twentieth century has not seen the economic progress of the nineteenth, it seems that Croly was wrong. Indeed, Croly contradicts himself when he is making different points. On p. 92 he writes of the post Civil War period:

"Wealth was created and accumulated more quickly than ever before...The American people were enjoying much prosperity and were mad for more..."

But it does not occur to him that this is impossible without major technological advance because Croly assumes a distributive economic process (p. 97). Again we see the basic Progressive-liberal pattern, where a fallacy that Croly enunciated in 1914 (along with socialists, such as Marx) remains a foundation of progressive-liberal views today. Because, in Croly's view, pioneers used up resources, their individual actions did not necessarily serve social interests. The wealth creation of the late nineteenth century was exploitative in his view. But it was not. In a distributive economic process, one side's gain is the other side's loss. In an integrative process, one side's gain is the other side's gain as well. Market transactions are inevitably integrative because otherwise they would not occur. Even the most exploited third world worker has the right to refuse to work in a factory. The same was true of capitalist industrial expansion in the nineteenth century. It enabled an enormous influx of immigrants, who were poorer than Croly would have liked. But if the wealth creation of the nineteenth century had been distributive, there would have been a downturn because of the immigration. But there was not. Rather, real wages rose throughout the late nineteenth century and until the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Croly's points about government support of business are good, but, and this is in keeping with the progressive-liberal viewpoint of today, the remedy for the failure of government is not necessarily more government. The remedy might be to shrink or eliminate government because its programs are poorly conceived and executed. Yet, Croly does not consider this to be a realistic possibility. Better to address the problem of failed government support for railroads by having government regulate the railroads and support them even more.

Croly argues that as industry expanded more people became employees and so could not benefit from government subsidies to business (p. 98):

"A system which had intended to scatter the benefits of special economic privileges over the whole surface of society had resulted in the piling up of these benefits on certain limited areas...Mere stimulation of the production of wealth, which was being distributed in so unequal a manner, was no longer a nationalizing and socializing economic policy..."

Thus, the capitalist class, in Croly's view, gained the chief advantage from Republican support for business, while the growing working class was ignored. Ironically, policies that Croly advocated, notably various regulations, ended up serving the same ends. It remains a puzzle to me why, given the inability of government to avoid special interest capture, the progressive-liberals have not concluded that government opposes the ends that they seek.

Private Property

Croly (p. 112) also argues for a modification to, but not elimination of, the institution of private property in order to "socialize human nature" and that private property inevitably leads to privilege (p. 113):

"The recognition of a necessary inequality and injustice in the operation of the existing institution of private property, coupled with the recognition that the immediate abolition of private property would be both unjust and impracticable, constitutes the foundation of any really national and progressive economic policy."

Instead, Croly argues for the "socialization" (p. 115) of privilege. People should be permitted to keep the privileges they have, but be gradually taught that they must earn the privileges. Society must require that those who benefit from wealth earn the spoils. The Republicans had failed to require that privileges be passed around. Society should make privileges available to the "disenfranchised" (p. 116) and, in somewhat odd terminology that almost sounds like compulsory labor(p.116):

"create a system of special discipline, coextensive with the system of special privilege, the object of which will be assurance, as the result of its operation, of socially desirable fruits."

In other words, Croly argues that wage earners had been excluded from opportunity, and the American capitalist system could not make property ownership accessible to them because the frontier was used up. A new system of privilege involving social legislation would thus be focused on wage earners. This regulation was subsequently passed in the Progressive era and the New Deal, to include health and safety regulation (passed in the 1970s), labor regulation (passed during the New Deal) and expansion of higher education, a post World War II phenomenon. What is most noteworthy today about these proposals is that although they have been in place for decades, social stratification is today greater than ever. Hence, Croly's policies have failed to eliminate social stratification. Today, we have universities that graduate semi-literates; labor legislation that is irrelevant to workers' interests; health and safety regulation that at most marginally protects workers but significantly raises costs to small firms; and inflationary credit policies that have concentrated wealth among connected hedge fund operators, Wall Street executives and commercial bankers. Croly's vision of democratized privilege has failed. Yet, today's progressive-liberals are not pragmatists who urge experimentation and new approaches, say abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank. Should anyone suggest that the poor cost/benefit ratio that Social Security provides requires an alternative approach, our reactionary progressive-liberals howl.

Croly's belief (p.123) that "responsible" American political organizataion must be coextensive with the new system of "privilege" has also fared poorly. Although open bribery no longer exists, as it did in Croly's day and earlier, the extent of corruption is probably greater in absolute dollars. Hence, Croly's vision of a responsible government coupled with a new system of privilege has merely served to cloak more privilege and more corruption than ever before. This results directly from the failure of the Croly's method, a strong state and an emphasis on popular deliberation, that has become fundamental to today's progressive-liberalism.

Popular Political Education

Croly (p. 144) argues that American Constitutional democracy succeeded and that the American public had been educated as to how to function democratically, so that the safeguards against tyranny that limited government and the Constitution promulgated were no longer needed. Likewise, progressive-liberals must emphasize popular political education (p. 145):

"The great object of progressives must always be to create a vital relation between progressivism and popular political education. If such a relation cannot be brought about, progressive democracy becomes a snare and an illusion..."

Faith and Progressive-liberalism

The difference (p. 148) between the progressive-liberal political education and the 19th century classical liberal education is that:

"The ideal of individual justice is being supplemented by the ideal of social justice...Now the tendency is to conceive the social welfare not as an end which cannot be left to the happy harmonizing of individual interests, but as an end which must be consciously willed by society and efficiently realized. Society has become a moral ideal not independent of the individual but supplementary to him, an ideal which must be pursued less by regulating individual excesses than by active encouragement of socializing tendencies and purposes."

Democracy can be furthered only by popular good will. But laissez faire republicanism limited the popular will. The founders intended to (p. 153):

"create a system which would make for liberty and justice in spite of he want of character of the American people"

while progressive-liberals believe that increasing democracy will enhance the "collective enlightenment of the people". Laissez faire resulted in cynicism and business opportunism. Progressivism is an expression of and form of faith (p. 168):

"A democracy becomes courageous, progressive and ascendant just in so far as it dares to have faith...Faith in things unseen and unknown is as indispensible to a progressive democracy as it is to an individual Christian..."

Croly (p. 168) compares the progressive-liberals' rejection of the Constitution with the early Christians' replacement of the Jewish law with faith. The progressive-liberals' faith is in social justice and in social justice education (p. 211-12):

"The socially righteous expression of the popular will is to be brought about by frank and complete confidence in (popular democracy). This faith is in itself educational in the deepest and most fruitful meaning of that word...The value of the social structure is commensurate with the value of the accompanying educational discipline and enlightenment...The idea of social justice is so exacting and so comprehensive that it cannot be progressively attained by any agency save by the loyal and intelligent devotion of popular will...The people are made whole by virtue of the consecration of their collective efforts to the realization of an ideal of social justice."

Croly also argues for pragmatism in the pursuit of social justice and democracy (p. 217):

"The immediate program is only the temporary instrument which must be continually reformed and readjusted as a result of the experience gained by its experimental application..."

In practice, of course, progressive-liberalism has turned out to be extremely conservative. I doubt that even one in one thousand progressive-liberal programs and ideas has ever been terminated from the federal government once adopted. In contrast, private firms kill ideas all the time, and the ratio is reversed for new product introductions or business start ups.

Restructuring of Government

Several of Croly's ideas about restructuring government were subsequently adopted. Croly favored increased government power but was only lukewarm toward the ideas of "direct democracy" that have been adopted in the west---the referendum, the recall and the initiative. In his view, the importance of strengthening democracy was that it permits pursuit of "a vigorous social program" (p. 270), and in turn the need for a vigorous social program results from changes in society and political organization. Positive social policies require "strong responsible governments" (p. 271) and (p. 274) "a thoroughly representative government is essentially government by men rather than by Law". In order to accomplish unlimited government, the (p. 272) administrative and legislative branches of government needed to be enhanced (p. 270):

"Direct democracy, that is, has little meaning except in a community which is resolutely pursuing a vigorous social program. It must become one of a group of political institutions whose object is fundamentally to invigorate and socialize the action of American public opinion..."

More important, in Croly's view would be a new organization to (p. 283) "promote political education." This is accomplished by increasing both state government and popular control together (p. 286). I got the feeling in reading these recommendations that Croly was anticipating George Orwell's 1984. He says that both government agencies that function beyond the cognitive domain of the public ought to have increased authority and popular control of the same organizations ought to be increased. But you cannot have both. Perhaps Croly believed that you could, but there are cognitive limits on rational decision making even in private enterprises. How on earth could the general public evaluate the actions of specialized regulators, who may well be doing things that would meet with public disapproval if the public understood what they were doing?

Croly (p. 287) speaks glowingly of municipal commissions that combine "a simple, strong and efficient government with a thoroughly popular government." It seems to me that the history of Robert Moses in New York is very much an outgrowth of this kind of self-contradictory mental gymnastics. Moses started out doing things that met with popular approval, but carried his activities to the point of doing things that threw tens of thousands of people out of their homes in order to provide transportation outlets to suburbanites. Ultimately, Moses's work became corrupt in areas like urban renewal and public housing. Moses's corruption and the hatchet job Moses did on the Upper East Side's coastline is the fruition of Croly's ideas.

Croly (p. 292) uses a proposal of the People's Power Leaguge for the government of Oregon as an example of progressive-liberal reform. The governor and legislature would be elected on the same day. The governor would have extensive appointment authority. The governor could be recalled. The governor could recommend legislation and also vote in the legislature. He would have no veto power. He would introduce the budget. The state legislature would counterbalance a stronger executive. Voters could cast their ballots for legislative candidates of other districts. If any one sixtieth of all voters vote for a candidate, the candidate would be elected to the legislature. No bill could pass unless the number of legislators voting for it reflected a majority of the voting citizens. Defeated candidates for governor would be members of the legislature representing voters who voted for unsuccessful candidates. By allowing voters to vote for candidates in other districts, voting might be more along the lines of class and interest groups such as labor unions and farmers.

Thus (p. 303) in Croly's view the governor ought to be responsible for proposing legislation and executing law, which is the basic approach that many states have adopted although not in such extreme ways. In Croly's view (p. 304) executive leadership best reflects majority opinion. Initiatives and referendums are not really democratic because (p. 306) only a minority of people vote. Referendums place power in a knowledgable minority (p. 308):

"A democracy should not be organized so that the alert and vigorous minority can easily make its will prevail over their less vigorous fellow-citizens."

The two-party system (p. 312) leads, in Croly's view, to the suppression of differences of public opinion in the interest of party unity. A focus on executive leadership involves a greater emphasis on the candidate for governor's ability to oranize a legitimate majority. Executive leadership will arouse and concentrate public opinion. Interest groups would form coalitions. "Majority rule would be salutary, precisely because it would be fluid and adjustable" (p. 323).

Conclusion

Croly puts excessive faith on the public's ability to discern errors or governmental decisions that are entirely in opposition to the public's interest. The media are able to mislead and misrepresent. Economic interests with much to gain are likely to pay in various ways to obtain misrepresentation that serves them. Coverage of the Federal Reserve Bank and inflation, for instance, has been a joke for the past 50years. The public hears that Alan Greenspan has done an excellent job, and is asleep to the reality that a dollar in 1979 is worth 38 cents today. The flattening of real wages, they are told is due to the tax system and free trade, and they vote for Mike Huckabee.

Croly's optimism about the power of democracy was tragically naive. We will never know how many lives would have been transformed by technological breakthroughs that did not occur because of the adoption of progressive-liberalism.

Similarly, his views on social justice education have had unfortunate outcomes in recent years. One can appreciate his optimism but find his misguided application of religious fervor to democracy distasteful and foolish.

It is tragic that Croly's ideas have had a dominant influence on twentieth century America. His progressive-liberal ideology is intrusive, destructive and ugly. That it has gained favor among American elites suggests a massive failure of twentieth century education and morality. We live in a dark age, especially when compared to the nineteenth century.