Progressives: “What’s Going On?” and “Who is John Galt?”

Brian Kahn’s defense of progressives is the feature of this week’s FREE Insights. Brian is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Berkeley’s law school. Like Theodore Roosevelt, Brian was a boxer in college and an enthusiastic outdoorsman. He has hosted his radio show “Home Ground” since 1995. (You hear it on Yellowstone Public Radio Tuesdays at 6:30 PM.) It’s a thoughtful blend of interviews and commentary on community, conservation, and change.

I’ll admit to a favorable bias for I’ve known Brian for nearly two decades, listen to his show on NPR, and consider him one of my favorite open and honest progressives. Here is the context of my selection of his column for an Insight. I think it important for libertarians, classical liberals, and conservatives to appreciate Brian’s position. 

This summer FREE has two seminars for religious leaders from around the nation. The first focused on social and environmental justice and included an excursion to Butte, America. The second examines stewardship parables from Yellowstone and features a trip to the Park. Both venues have strong historical links to goals and reforms of the Progressive Era. They rekindled my interest in this movement and its implications for today’s policy issues.

The creation of Yellowstone Park in 1872 marks the initiation of Progressive Era policies. It is surely one of the most notable and successful efforts of that movement. While Yellowstone would be more securely isolated from political pressures if converted into a national trust, we are indeed blessed by its existence as a largely intact ecosystem available to the public. How fortunate we are to have this example of Progressive Era success in our backyard.

Butte too is a place to study motivations prompting Progressive reforms. Once called the “richest hill on Earth,” today Butte is recognized mainly as America’s largest Superfund site and the birthplace of Evel Knievel. (If you’d like a taste of Butte check out http://www.knieveldays.com/. “Evel Knievel’s hometown of Butte, MT plays host to the worlds greatest celebration for the Worlds Greatest Daredevil in the finest fashion.” Dates for 2013 are July 25-27.)

Butte’s copper wired much of the world and the city peaked in 1917 with a population approaching 100,000. It exemplified the extremes of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Great flamboyant wealth luxuriated beside dismal poverty. Crass disregard for worker safety was the norm, as was political corruption and continuous labor unrest. The Anaconda Company, and its sister corporation, Montana Power, owned or controlled nearly all of Montana’s daily newspapers. They rented the state’s legislature to general disadvantage. Reactions to these problems exemplify Progressives’ efforts to address serious flaws in capitalism.

The political instincts of Progressives remain active today, and with good reason. Problems abound. Some seem amenable to correction via politics. A few actually are. The application of science to public purpose was a key feature of Progressivism. This remains a potentially fruitful arena. 

Alas, for reasons explained by Public Choice and Austrian economists, good intentions are commonly hijacked by political opportunists. Corn-based ethanol is an especially egregious case. Programs, projects, and policies are normally justified as fostering the public interest. The “and then what” question is omitted— or its answer ignored.

As America’s problems grow, aside from exploding government deficits, they increasingly recall those of 1900. The burgeoning underclass so well described by David Brooks and Charles Murray resembles the wave of immigrants that followed 1890. Today’s malnutrition and obesity recall the value of the American Home Economics Association, which dates from 1899. Contemporary crony capitalism echoes the corruption of that period. It’s no wonder there is a resurgence of interest in progressive politics.

When conservatives and libertarians hear “progressive” policy proposals they anticipate mischief and plunder. At best, these people believe that supporters are incapable of separating optimistic hopes from prudent expectations. They may even anticipate fascism’s arrival here.

This prompted economist John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, to write a column, “What is a Progressive?” for NCPA’s website. Early this year FREE posted Goodman’s column as a FREE Insight. Here is its beginning:

“When is the last time you heard a liberal describe himself as a ‘liberal?’ It’s probably been a long time. These days, those on the left are more likely to call themselves ‘progressives.’

“Writing in The New York Times, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs said there have been two progressive eras — one in the early 20^th century and the second under Franklin Roosevelt. He called on modern liberals to usher in a third era….

“At the time of the (Woodrow) Wilson presidency, progressives did not view the exercise of state power and the violation of individual rights as a war-time exception to be set aside in times of peace. To the contrary, Herbert Croly (founding editor of the New Republic), John Dewey (father of progressive education), Walter Lippmann (perhaps the century’s most influential political writer), Richard Ely (founder of the American Economic Association) and many others saw war as an opportunity to rid the country of classical liberalism and the doctrine of laissez faire.”

Brian’s rejoinder to Goodman’s “What is a Progressive?” appears below under the title “What’s Going On?” He takes strong exception to Goodman’s argument and asks why FREE posted it. 

I answer with a question, “Who is John Galt?” If you know the answer to my question you’ll also know that to Brian’s.

Happy reading!

-John Baden

What’s Going On?

By Brian Kahn

I recently read several FREE “Insights” columns that were disappointing, even dismaying. My reaction was not based on philosophical disagreement – I often have a difference perspective than FREE’s contributors - but rather on the tone of the pieces and the quality of analysis. To take one: John Goodman’s column titled, “What is a Progressive?”

Mr. Goodman is apparently an expert on health care policy. His piece is not about his area of expertise, however, but the Progressive movement of the late 19^th and 20^th centuries. The subject is certainly relevant to FREE’s mission: Basic tenets of the Progressivism of that time substantially conflict with the philosophical slant of FREE. But the analytical quality of the piece cannot be considered serious. Extraordinarily selective in its recitation of history, it suffers from glaring omissions.

Example: Progressives are presented as advocates of totalitarian state power. Goodman says they rejected the Founders’ views, and cites Professor Ronald Pestritto’s assertion that President Wilson’s non-Jeffersonian view of liberty was “not found in freedom from state actions but instead in one’s obedience to the laws of the state.”

Omission: Mr. Goodman fails to discuss the complexity of Jefferson’s own views on liberty, which include this, from 1802: “A man has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.” Or Jefferson’s support for government intervention to redistribute wealth through progressive taxation on income and estates. Nor does he mention George Washington’s perspective (1784): “The very idea of the power and right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.” One mayor may not agree with Jefferson’s or Washington’s views on these questions, but they can hardly be argued not to reflect aspects of Founders’ thinking.

Example: Goodman rightly condemns the post-WWI round-up, imprisonment and deportation of “dissenters.” He asserts they were a manifestation of Progressivism.

Omissions: Ordered by U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, the raids were the most dramatic manifestation of the Red Scare that arose after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, with government claims of ever-imminent communist insurrection consistently fanned by the media. The raids were advocated and supervised by tile non-progressive J. Edgar Hoover, who was just launching his 50-year career of abusing constitutional liberties under progressive and non-progressive presidents. (His critics during that extended period came overwhelmingly from the Left, while he enjoyed enthusiastic support from the Right.) The 1919-20 raids targeted suspected socialists, communists and anarchists - the very people Mr. Goodman argues “Progressives” admired. Between three and six thousand “radicals” were arrested, many beaten and abused in custody. 500+ were deported to Bolshevik Russia. The arrests and deportation were widely supported by the liberal and conservative press, leaders in both political parties, and the American Right. The Nation and The New Republic, both progressive publications, strongly criticized the raids.

Additionally, Mr. Goodman claims that the raids and their statutory underpinning - the Alien Act, passed during World War I -- was a unique manifestation of Progressive totalitarianism. Is he really unfamiliar with the Alien and Sedition Acts of l798? Passed by Congress during peacetime, signed into law by President John Adams, and supported by George Washington, the laws authorized the federal government to deport foreign-born residents it deemed a threat; brand as enemy aliens any citizens of a country at war with the United States; and prosecute American citizens who published “false, scandalous, or malicious” writings against the federal government or Congress, with the intent of bringing them “into contempt or disrepute.” The targets of the Sedition Act were Jeffersonian Republicans, seen by the Federalists as subversive allies of France.

The real lesson to be learned? Legislative and executive repression of fundamental constitutional liberties by Congress and presidents of widely varying political philosophies-aimed at perceived subversives, women, racial and ethnic minorities -- has been a long and tragic part of our nation’s history.

Example: Mr. Goodman portrays Progressives as natural allies and avid fans of Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler, and makes the stunning claim that they “were as close to authentic, homegrown fascists as any movement America has ever produced.”

Omissions: He is apparently unfamiliar with the Silver Shirts and German-American Bund of the 1930s, the American Nazi Party, and other American fascist organizations.

As for being enamored of Lenin: President Woodrow Wilson, criticized by Mr. Goodman for his Progressivism, ordered 8,000 U.S. troops to join forces with military contingents from France, Britain, Italy, Japan and other nations in occupying parts of Russia in 1918. The military action, which continued until 1922, was a poorly concealed intervention in Russia’s civil war, supporting the unsuccessful White Russian attempt to overthrow Lenin’s government. (In the words of non-Progressive intervention-supporter Winston Churchill, it was an attempt “to strangle the Bolshevik baby in its crib.”)

In actual fact, support for Hitler and fascism came overwhelming from the Right, not the Left. Why does Mr. Goodman avoid mentioning that “Progressive” Franklin Roosevelt was the linchpin in forging the anti-Hitler WWII coalition of the U.S., Soviet Union, and Great Britain that defeated Nazi Germany? Or that FDR’s anti-fascist efforts were vehemently opposed by isolationists - largely comprised of conservatives, and laissez-faire business interests - who felt we could do business with Hitler - quite a few of them doing just that.

Mr. Goodman feels free to use the word fascism but fails to define it. Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 1998 edition, does: “A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.” (Mussolini famously described democracy as “a putrid corpse.”

To apply the label “fascist” to Theodore Roosevelt’s or Woodrow Wilson’s advocacy for an assertive role of democratically elected government grotesquely misrepresents reality. More important, it trivializes genuine fascism and it appalling consequences: An overtly anti-Enlightenment philosophy whose glorification of war, and nationalist/racist core, led directly to World War II and the deaths of 400,000 Americans and 50 million people world-wide.

Mr. Goodman writes that today, Americans gullibly associate Progressivism with “fond caricatures of Teddy Roosevelt and such reforms as safe food, the elimination of child labor, and the eight-hour work day. Yet real progressivism was far more sinister.”

Let’s explore these two thoughts: First, it is not clear why the reforms mentioned are “caricatures,” rather than facts. Additional important reforms progressives initiated or supported include the constitutional amendment enabling women to vote, the establishment of the minimum wage, Social Security, the right of workers to bargain collectively, federal insurance for savings deposits, major public investment in infrastructure, public works jobs for the unemployed, and an array of other measures aimed to address severe social and economic problems created or aggravated by laissez-faire capitalism. The Right opposed them all. Where does Mr. Goodman stand on any of them? He doesn't say.

Regarding his characterization of Progressivism being sinister and fascist, I’d heard pretty much the same thing before. Glenn Beck’s COMMON SENSE, pages 60-101, and his web-site, plow much of the same ground as Mr. Goodman does. He also labels Progressivism fascist, but instead of calling it sinister, Beck refers to it as “cancer.”

Mr. Goodman makes no attempt to explore what progressivism may or may not mean today to people who, like me, identify with that label. He limits himself to suggesting it is a calculated camouflage: “When was the last time you heard a liberal describe himself as a ‘liberal?’ ... These days those on the left are more likely to call themselves ‘progressives.’”

Beck writes something remarkably similar: “The enemies are at the gate, and have been for some time. Many ‘liberals’ have begun to call themselves ‘progressives’ instead because it sounds new and forward thinking ...”

Mr. Goodman and Mr. Beck are fans of the same “expert” on progressivism, Jonah Goldberg, whom Mr. Goodman repeatedly quotes in his FREE article. Goldberg is author of LIBERAL FASCISM: The Secret History of the American Left.

In 2008, Beck interviewed Goldberg on his show about the book: BECK: I have to tell you I picked your book up Friday, started to read it and honestly, Jonah, this is about the book I was going to write. We were about 18 months away from another book and this is what I was going to write.... They (liberals, progressives) just renamed themselves. These people have been doing this since the Progressive movement in our country in the early 1900s and they’ve just morphed into something we don’t recognize anymore, but it is, as you say in your book, it’s fascism.

GOLDBERG: That’s right. It’s a kind of fascism. It’s not the hard fascism of Nazism. I don’t think Hillary Clinton wants to put anybody in a camp. It’s a soft fascism.

A year later, Goldberg wrote a column titled, “In Defense of Glenn Back”: “ ... I like Beck personally and his support for my book ‘Liberal Fascism’ was a huge boon, helping to push it to No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list. As a Fox News contributor, I have appeared regularly on his show.” He added that while he cannot defend everything Beck says, “ ...much of the anti-Beck backlash (He’s an extremist! He’s paranoid! He’s hate-filled!) from the left is hard to take seriously.”

After some reflection, I ask: Why is FREE, with nuanced minds such as Professor Steven Eagle willing to write substantive and thought-provoking columns, publishing such pieces as “What is a Progressive?” What is going on?