Today's American ideology is Progressivism, the belief that the state knows and does best, and that the average person is capable of assessing only so much as the state allows. People are not able to decide how to save for retirement or how take care of their own health care. Nor are they able to choose what kind of physician to hire or the quality of the butcher from whom they wish to purchase meat. They cannot decide how much school to attend or whether they would like to support a government program to study martians or the regulation of energy. All of these and many, many more decisions must be made by their "betters", by bureaucrats and officials educated in state-run schools and taught the catechism of the state religion--that the STATE IS GOD; that GOVERNMENT KNOWS ALL; and that BARACK OBAMA IS OUR SAVIOR.
But within America's secular faith, the faith in the omnipotent state, there is a serious competition between two schools of Progressives. One school of Progressives descends directly from the Roman dictatorship of Augustus Caesar, and so is the more reactionary of the two. The other descends from the manorial rule of the Barbarian savages who invaded the Roman Empire in the late first millenium.
The Roman Progressives hold that the plebeians must be given their due. They must be provided with bread and circus. They must be told that they are most important. The Roman Progressives know that no matter how much money they transfer to themselves, to Wall Street and to the Ochs Sulzbergers' friends, the plebeians will support them so long as they say it is done in their name and so long as they have their free bread to prove it. The Roman-style Progressives are of course the Democrats.
The Barbarian Progressives agree with their forebears, Clovis and Charlemagne, that the plebes need not be taken into account at all. They believe with Aristotle that some were meant to be masters and others meant to be slaves. They, like the Roman Progressives, understand that the public is simply too simple minded to understand that the policies that they advocate, beginning with the Federal Reserve Bank, are harmful to them. Instead of relying on bread-and-circus, the Barbarian Progressives motivate their simple minded followers with anger about the Roman-style Progressives. The Barbarian-style Progressives are of course the Rockefeller Republicans.
The term Progressivism refers to the progressive looting of those who work on behalf of those who do not; the looting of those who buy milk and bread on behalf of those who run hedge funds and the New York Times.
Progressivism rode to power on the promise that more democracy would "solve problems". Since its ascendancy in 1900 or so, it has caused involvement in at least five foreign wars; it has doused the fiery innovation and productivity growth of the 19th century; it has left Americans with a stagnant real wage; it has caused the Depression of the 1930s; the stagflation of the 1970s and the bailout of 2009; it has caused increasing wealth inequality as the Progressives oversee the massive transfer of America's wealth to the super-rich via the Federal Reserve Bank; and it has seen the crippling of cities as destructive government programs dominate their landscapes.
Showing posts with label progressivsim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label progressivsim. Show all posts
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Evolution of Progressivism as Elitist Paradigm
The debate between individualists and social democrats centers on the effects of centralization and the scope of rationality. Social democrats or "progressives" argue for enhanced centralization and the possibility of broad rationality in policy making. The rationality is accomplished through elite experts who claim to have superior, scientific knowledge obtained through university education. Individualists, in contrast, argue for the necessity to coordinate economic activity through decentralized, autonomous producers who are coordinated via price and motivated by private property. The debate between advocates of price versus hyper-rationalistic human planning through a centralized government agency would seem to have been settled in the 1980s. None of the socialist states was able to successfully implement centrally planned economies. Moreover, the tyranny associated with communism confirmed the worst fears of Milton Friedman and others. Yet, as late as 1972, when it had become evident that the Chinese communists had murdered approximately 25 million people, leading advocates of rational planning, John Kenneth Galbraith and Wassily Leontief, argued for the virtues of the Chinese communist system in the pages of the New York Times Magazine. Within a decade the Chinese themselves admitted that their approach to communism had failed, yet this had escaped the expertise of American universities' most famous economists. Now, 20 years after the final failure of Soviet communism, American academics and the Democratic Party continue to argue for state coordination and elitist-conceived solutions to elitist-conceived problems.
The question of centralization and decentralization has a long history in the United States. Its advocates hearken back to the ideas of Steuart and Shaftesbury and Hume, who was an anti-rationalist in epistemology and ethics but a rationalist in economics. Alexander Hamilton adopted the ideas of Hume and aimed to implement the mercantilist model. The Federalists believed that elite business people had exceptional rationality so that they could transform paper money into enhanced real wealth. This idea came from Hume. In turn, the elitist centralizing and hyper-rationalist idea was adopted by the Whigs, Henry Clay and then Abraham Lincoln, and carried forward by the Republicans in the form of advocacy of high tariffs and national banking. Although the Republicans voiced the ideology of laissez faire in the late nineteenth century, their reform impulses, as reflected in the National Banking Act, the Morrill Act, high tariffs, and the Pendleton Act reflected a centralizing interest in rationality. In turn, the early twentieth century Progressives advocated rationality and centralization, and this theme was reenforced by the New Deal.
If one looks at the social origins of the centralizing rationalists in American history there was a transformation in the late nineteenth century. Hamilton and Clay were a Federalist and a Whig who came from modest origins. Hamilton was an orphan who had won the support of businessmen in Nevis who financed his education and Clay was from a frontier middle class background, although he claimed to be poor. This was William Henry Harrison's response to the Jacksonian common man ideology of which Louis Hartz writes and that Abraham Lincoln carried forward.
A shift occurred in the Gilded Age. The Mugwumps did not identify themselves as having come from poor backgrounds. Their interest in rationalization of civil service and contempt for corruption was a reaction to Jacksonian democracy. They were college educated and saw themselves as differentiated from the mass of Americans and immigrants because of their education. They conceptualized themselves as a self conscious elite, and were other-directed. Their opposition to James Blaine in 1884 was group and media derived. It was fashionable. Among the Mugwumps was Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt rejected the laissez-faire philosophy of the older Mugwumps and carried forward the view of morality as an elitist obligation. Progressives saw reform as a class-linked moral prerogative. However, Roosevelt also advocated support for big business, centralized authority and the use of rationality as he defined it, for the ends that he defined as moral. The Progressives applied moral skepticism with respect to the natural rights philosophy, but moral dogmatism with respect to their social vision. They were other-directed in that the Progressive vision consisted of ad hoc propositions, news and whim of the elite itself. It claimed to be pragmatic, but refused to permit its dogmas to be falsified. Roosevelt initated a century long claim to superior mental ability of those who advocate the Progressive or liberal dogma.
The claim of superior mental capacity of a superior class follow through Hamilton, Clay and the Mugwumps, into Progressivism and the New Deal. Hamilton and Clay believed with Jefferson that there was a natural aristocracy. Hamilton and Clay both believed that government support for the elite would foster social goals because the elite could best use public wealth. The Mugwumps transformed the claim to superior knowledge from business to control of business via the state. This coincided with the increasing complexity and knowledge required to succeed in business. As technology grew more complex, the centralizing elitist philosophy dispensed with the claim that superior knowledge was needed to found and run business, and transformed into the claim that it was needed to regulate and dominate business.
The Mugwumps were the first group to identify altruistic or moralistic elitist aims. This came about because of their horror at the boss system and what they identified as pathologies of immigration and urbanization--slums and corruption. They sought to rationalize government.
Roosevelt was thus the product of the increasing wealth of American society. Unlike the early nineteenth century Federalists and Whigs, the Progressives made no pretense of humble origins but rather claimed an aristocratic elitism. Jane Addams was a social worker who aimed to altruistically help immigrant poor through a superior social position. Labor was viewed as ineluctably trapped in inferior class status. Class and group differences were viewed as inevitable, with the Progressive leadership expressing the altruism of the elite class. Government support for and rationalization of big business, the good trusts and the Federal Reserve Bank, the Workers' Compensation laws that limited employer liability in the name of altruistic concern for workers expressed the new elitism.
The question of centralization and decentralization has a long history in the United States. Its advocates hearken back to the ideas of Steuart and Shaftesbury and Hume, who was an anti-rationalist in epistemology and ethics but a rationalist in economics. Alexander Hamilton adopted the ideas of Hume and aimed to implement the mercantilist model. The Federalists believed that elite business people had exceptional rationality so that they could transform paper money into enhanced real wealth. This idea came from Hume. In turn, the elitist centralizing and hyper-rationalist idea was adopted by the Whigs, Henry Clay and then Abraham Lincoln, and carried forward by the Republicans in the form of advocacy of high tariffs and national banking. Although the Republicans voiced the ideology of laissez faire in the late nineteenth century, their reform impulses, as reflected in the National Banking Act, the Morrill Act, high tariffs, and the Pendleton Act reflected a centralizing interest in rationality. In turn, the early twentieth century Progressives advocated rationality and centralization, and this theme was reenforced by the New Deal.
If one looks at the social origins of the centralizing rationalists in American history there was a transformation in the late nineteenth century. Hamilton and Clay were a Federalist and a Whig who came from modest origins. Hamilton was an orphan who had won the support of businessmen in Nevis who financed his education and Clay was from a frontier middle class background, although he claimed to be poor. This was William Henry Harrison's response to the Jacksonian common man ideology of which Louis Hartz writes and that Abraham Lincoln carried forward.
A shift occurred in the Gilded Age. The Mugwumps did not identify themselves as having come from poor backgrounds. Their interest in rationalization of civil service and contempt for corruption was a reaction to Jacksonian democracy. They were college educated and saw themselves as differentiated from the mass of Americans and immigrants because of their education. They conceptualized themselves as a self conscious elite, and were other-directed. Their opposition to James Blaine in 1884 was group and media derived. It was fashionable. Among the Mugwumps was Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt rejected the laissez-faire philosophy of the older Mugwumps and carried forward the view of morality as an elitist obligation. Progressives saw reform as a class-linked moral prerogative. However, Roosevelt also advocated support for big business, centralized authority and the use of rationality as he defined it, for the ends that he defined as moral. The Progressives applied moral skepticism with respect to the natural rights philosophy, but moral dogmatism with respect to their social vision. They were other-directed in that the Progressive vision consisted of ad hoc propositions, news and whim of the elite itself. It claimed to be pragmatic, but refused to permit its dogmas to be falsified. Roosevelt initated a century long claim to superior mental ability of those who advocate the Progressive or liberal dogma.
The claim of superior mental capacity of a superior class follow through Hamilton, Clay and the Mugwumps, into Progressivism and the New Deal. Hamilton and Clay believed with Jefferson that there was a natural aristocracy. Hamilton and Clay both believed that government support for the elite would foster social goals because the elite could best use public wealth. The Mugwumps transformed the claim to superior knowledge from business to control of business via the state. This coincided with the increasing complexity and knowledge required to succeed in business. As technology grew more complex, the centralizing elitist philosophy dispensed with the claim that superior knowledge was needed to found and run business, and transformed into the claim that it was needed to regulate and dominate business.
The Mugwumps were the first group to identify altruistic or moralistic elitist aims. This came about because of their horror at the boss system and what they identified as pathologies of immigration and urbanization--slums and corruption. They sought to rationalize government.
Roosevelt was thus the product of the increasing wealth of American society. Unlike the early nineteenth century Federalists and Whigs, the Progressives made no pretense of humble origins but rather claimed an aristocratic elitism. Jane Addams was a social worker who aimed to altruistically help immigrant poor through a superior social position. Labor was viewed as ineluctably trapped in inferior class status. Class and group differences were viewed as inevitable, with the Progressive leadership expressing the altruism of the elite class. Government support for and rationalization of big business, the good trusts and the Federal Reserve Bank, the Workers' Compensation laws that limited employer liability in the name of altruistic concern for workers expressed the new elitism.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Why Did the New Deal Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer?
Howard S. Katz has an excellent blog this week concerning what he terms the liberty-benevolence split. Katz poses an interesting question to New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal:
"Explain this to me Mr. Rosenthal. In the great days of America, the gap between rich and poor kept getting narrower. An originally poor man would invent a new product, make a million dollars and raise the standard of living of the American people...Explain, Mr. Rosenthal. Before the New Deal the gap between rich and poor shrank. But today the gap between rich and poor grows. How could this possibly be happening?"
The answer, of course, is the fallacious "liberty-benevolence split" between libertarians of left and right. Freedom of contract and free markets are the greatest protection that the poor have. In contrast, government programs like the Federal Reserve Bank have impoverished the poor. Programs like urban renewal have created slums and excluded minorities from "white" neighborhoods. Regulation has prevented working class entrepreneurs from inventing new products and moving up the ladder. In contrast, the feudalistic "aristocracy" that Progressivism and the New Deal establishes, the corporate elite who accomplish nothing but have fancy credentials and degrees and state-bestowed authority, but are almost inevitably incompetent, have come to dominate our society. In particular, the Times has cheered the allocation of massive amounts of credit to incompetent Wall Street and banking interests who have paid themselves large sums at public expense (because the credit is ultimately private property that the Fed has expropriated) and so impoverished the average productive worker. It is not enough for the Times, Wall Street and its army of quack economists that inflation has exploited the public for decades. They cheer ever more aggressively for direct bailouts so that incompetent bankers can lend ever more money to hedge fund managers. And note that there is little difference between "conservative" Progressives of the "right" and social democratic Progressives of the "left".
Howard's blog is excellent. Read it here.
"Explain this to me Mr. Rosenthal. In the great days of America, the gap between rich and poor kept getting narrower. An originally poor man would invent a new product, make a million dollars and raise the standard of living of the American people...Explain, Mr. Rosenthal. Before the New Deal the gap between rich and poor shrank. But today the gap between rich and poor grows. How could this possibly be happening?"
The answer, of course, is the fallacious "liberty-benevolence split" between libertarians of left and right. Freedom of contract and free markets are the greatest protection that the poor have. In contrast, government programs like the Federal Reserve Bank have impoverished the poor. Programs like urban renewal have created slums and excluded minorities from "white" neighborhoods. Regulation has prevented working class entrepreneurs from inventing new products and moving up the ladder. In contrast, the feudalistic "aristocracy" that Progressivism and the New Deal establishes, the corporate elite who accomplish nothing but have fancy credentials and degrees and state-bestowed authority, but are almost inevitably incompetent, have come to dominate our society. In particular, the Times has cheered the allocation of massive amounts of credit to incompetent Wall Street and banking interests who have paid themselves large sums at public expense (because the credit is ultimately private property that the Fed has expropriated) and so impoverished the average productive worker. It is not enough for the Times, Wall Street and its army of quack economists that inflation has exploited the public for decades. They cheer ever more aggressively for direct bailouts so that incompetent bankers can lend ever more money to hedge fund managers. And note that there is little difference between "conservative" Progressives of the "right" and social democratic Progressives of the "left".
Howard's blog is excellent. Read it here.
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