Progressivism in the United States
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In U.S. history, the term progressivism refers to a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century. The initial progressive movement arose as an alternative to the conservative response to the vast changes brought by the industrial revolution. Throughout the 20th century, American progressivism gradually evolved to become a movement with close ties to the political left-wing, and contemporary progressives continue to embrace concepts such as environmentalism and social justice. [1] Social progressivism, which states that societal practices ought to be adjusted as society evolves, form the ideological basis for many American progressives.
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[edit] Tenets of early progressivism
The early progressive reformers sought to remedy the problems created by industrialization and urbanization. To progressives, economic privilege and corrupt politics threatened democracy. Never a cohesive movement, progressivism embraced many types of reform. Progressives strove, variously, to curb corporate power, to end business monopolies, and to wipe out political corruption. They also wanted to democratize electoral procedures, protect working people, and bridge the gap between social classes. Progressives turned to government to achieve their goals. During the Progressive era, progressive efforts affected local, state, and national politics, and left a mark on journalism, academic life, cultural life, and social justice movements. The legacy of early 20th century American progressives evolved over time to encompass a worldwide progressive movement that continues to strive for political and social reform to this day.[2]
Most of the principles that were laid out by early progressives continue to be the hallmarks of contemporary progressive politics.[3]
[edit] Democracy
Many progressives hoped to make government in the U.S. more responsive to the direct voice of the American people by instituting the following reforms:
- Ballot initiative
- A procedure whereby citizens could vote directly on whether to approve proposed laws.
- Initiative
- A procedure whereby ordinary citizens could propose laws for consideration by their state legislatures or by the voters directly.
- Direct primary
- A procedure whereby political party nominations for public office were made directly by a vote of rank-and-file members of the party rather than by party bosses.
- Direct election of U.S. Senators
- A procedure to allow the citizens in each state to directly elect their Senators. Previously, Senators were chosen by the state legislatures. Direct election of Senators was achieved with the addition of the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1913).
- Referendum
- A procedure whereby citizens could vote directly to rescind a law which was passed by the legislature.
- Recall
- A procedure by which a public official could be removed from office by a direct vote of the citizens.
- Secret ballot
- A procedure by which citizens could keep their votes secret. Previously, voting was a public act witnessed by others. The voting records of individual citizens were recorded and made public. Many progressives argued that public voting allowed for voter intimidation. An employer, for instance, might require his employees to vote for certain candidates on pain of losing their jobs.
- Women's suffrage
- Granting to women the right to vote. Women's suffrage was achieved with the addition of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1920).
The progressives achieved their greatest and most enduring successes in the effort to make governments more democratic.
[edit] Efficiency
Many progressives hoped to make American governments better able to serve the people's needs by making governmental operations and services more efficient and rational. Reforms included:
- Professional administrators
- Many progressives argued that governments would function better if they were placed under the direction of trained, professional administrators. One example of progressive reform was the rise of the city manager system, in which paid, professional administrators ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines established by elected city councils. Out of this ideology came the institutionalization of professional urban planners. Progressives looked to experts such as Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted, Patrick Geddes, Ebenezer Howard, and others to alleviate newly created urban problems.
- Centralization of decision-making process
- Many progressives sought to make government more rational through centralized decision-making. Governments were reorganized to reduce the number of officials and to eliminate overlapping areas of authority between departments. City governments were reorganized to reduce the power of local wards within the city and to increase the powers of the city council. Governments at every level began developing budgets to help them plan their expenditures (rather than spending money haphazardly as needs arose and revenue became available). The drive for centralization was often associated with the rise of professional administrators.
- Movements to eliminate governmental corruption
- Corruption represented a source of waste and inefficiency in government. Many progressives worked to clean up local governments by eliminating the power of machine politicians and urban political bosses. Often this was associated with the effort to restructure the ward system. Power was transferred from urban bosses to professional administrators.
The progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with the progressives' quest for democracy. Taking power out of the hands of elected officials and placing that power in the hands of professional administrators reduced the voice of the people in government. Centralized decision-making and reduced power for local wards made government more distant and isolated from the people it served. Progressives who emphasized the need for efficiency sometimes argued that an elite class of administrators knew better what the people needed than did the people themselves.
[edit] Regulation of large corporations and monopolies
Many progressives hoped that by regulating large corporations they could liberate human energies from the restrictions imposed by industrial capitalism. Yet the progressive movement was split over which of the following four solutions should be used to regulate corporations:
- Trust-busting
- Some progressives argued that industrial monopolies were unnatural economic institutions which suppressed the competition which was necessary for progress and improvement. The federal government should intervene by breaking up monopolies into smaller companies, thereby restoring competition. The government should then withdraw and allow marketplace forces once again to regulate the economy. President Woodrow Wilson supported this idea.
- Regulation
- Some progressives argued that in a modern economy, large corporations and even monopolies were both inevitable and desirable. With their massive resources and economies of scale, large corporations offered the U.S. advantages which smaller companies could not offer. Yet, these large corporations might abuse their great power. The federal government should allow these companies to exist but regulate them for the public interest. President Theodore Roosevelt generally supported this idea.
- Socialism
- Some progressives believed that privately owned companies could never be made to serve the public interest. Therefore, the federal government should acquire ownership of large corporations and operate them for the public interest.
- Laissez-Faire
- Some progressives argued that marketplace forces were the best regulators. A company which paid low wages or maintained an unsafe work environment would be forced to change its policies by the loss of workers. A company which made an unsafe product would eventually lose customers and go bankrupt. In the long run, a free market would best protect the public interest.
The laissez-faire and socialist approaches were less popular among American progressives than the trust-busting and regulatory approaches.
[edit] Conservationism
During the term of the progressive President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), the largest government-funded conservation projects in U.S. history were undertaken:
- National parks and wildlife refuges
- On March 14, 1903, President Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system), on Pelican Island, Florida. In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (17,000 km²) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon.
In addition, Roosevelt passed the Newland Act of 1902, which gave subsidies for irrigation in sixteen western states. Another conservation-oriented bill was the Antiquities Act of 1906 that protected large areas of land. The Inland Waterways Commission was established in 1907 to control the United States' rivers and streams.[4]
[edit] Social justice
Many progressives supported both private and governmental action to help people in need (such action is called social justice). Social justice reforms included:
- Development of professional social workers
- The idea that welfare and charity work should be undertaken by professionals who are trained to do the job.
- The building of Settlement Houses
- These were residential, community centers operated by social workers and volunteers and located in inner city slums. The purpose of the settlement houses was to raise the standard of living of urbanites by providing schools, day care centers, and cultural enrichment programs.
- The enactment of child labor laws
- Child labor laws were designed to prevent the overworking of children in the newly emerging industries. The goal of these laws was to give working-class children the opportunity to go to school and to mature more naturally, thereby liberating the potential of humanity and encouraging the advancement of humanity.
- Support for the goals of organized labor
- Progressives often supported such goals as the eight-hour work day, improved safety and health conditions in factories, workers compensation laws, minimum wage laws, and unionization.
- Prohibition laws
- Some of the progressives adopted the cause of prohibition. They claimed the consumption of alcohol limited mankind's potential for advancement. Progressives achieved success in this area with the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919.
[edit] Political progressivism and cultural progressivism
In the early 20th century, politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties (see Theodore Roosevelt, Bull-Moose Republicans, and the United States Progressive Party) began to pursue social, environmental, political, and economic reforms. Chief among these aims was the pursuit of trustbusting (breaking up very large monopolies), support for labor unions, public health programs, decreased corruption in politics, and environmental conservation.
Progressivism at the turn of the twentieth century was largely a bipartisan effort led by William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette and William Howard Taft. One leader, Bryan, had been linked to the Populist movement of the 1890s, while the other major leaders were opposed to Populism. When Roosevelt left the Republican party in 1912 he took with him many of the intellectual leaders of progressivism, but very few political leaders. The Republican party then became notably more committed to business-oriented and efficiency oriented progressivism, typified by Taft and Herbert Hoover. Political progressivism was also represented in the candidacies of economic philosopher Henry George and the Single Tax movement, President Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull-Moose Party, the Cleveland mayoral administration of Tom L. Johnson, Louisiana Governor Huey Long and the Share Our Wealth movement.
The foundation of the progressive tendency is rooted in the uniquely American philosophy of pragmatism. In modern terminology this movement is generally called populism, which can range from the political left to the political right. Populism has often manifested itself as a distrust of concentrations of power in the hands of politicians, corporations, families, and special interest groups, generating calls for reform.
Equally significant to progressive-era reform were the crusading journalists, known as muckrakers. These journalists revealed to middle class readers the evils of economic privilege, political corruption, and social injustice. Their articles appeared in McClure’s Magazine and other reform periodicals. Some muckrakers focused on corporate abuses. Ida Tarbell, for instance, exposed the activities of the Standard Oil Company. In The Shame of the Cities (1904), Lincoln Steffens dissected corruption in city government. In Following the Color Line (1908), Ray Stannard Baker criticized race relations. Other muckrakers assailed the Senate, railroad practices, insurance companies, and fraud in patent medicine.
Novelists, too, revealed corporate injustices. Theodore Dreiser drew harsh portraits of a type of ruthless businessman in The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914). In The Jungle (1906) Socialist Upton Sinclair repelled readers with descriptions of Chicago’s meatpacking plants, and his work led to support for remedial legislation. Leading intellectuals also shaped the progressive mentality. In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Thorstein Veblen attacked the “conspicuous consumption” of the wealthy. Educator John Dewey emphasized a child-centered philosophy of pedagogy, known as progressive education, which affected schoolrooms for three generations.[5]
[edit] The evolution of progressivism
Following the first progressive movement of the early 20th century, there would be three more distinct swells in the popularity of progressive thought.
The second progressive movement got underway in 1924. This time the key leadership role was fulfilled by Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette. La Follette campaigned for such things as direct elections in primaries, fairer taxation, conservation of natural resources, control of lobbyists, and banking reform. He vigorously opposed both oligarchy -- government by a tiny elite -- and plutocracy (government of, by, and for the wealthy).
The third Progressive movement was initiated in 1947 by former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who ran for president in 1948, attracting support from voters who were disillusioned by the Cold War policies of Democrat Harry S. Truman. Many progressives were uncomfortable with Wallace's religiosity, but were nonetheless admirers of his call for a sort of global "New Deal" and his advocacy of better relations with the Soviet Union.
[edit] Contemporary progressivism
The fourth and current Progressive movement grew out of social activism movements, Naderite and populist left political movements in conjunction with the civil rights, LBGT, women's, and environmental movements of the 1960s-1980s.[6] This exists as a cluster of political, activist, and media organizations ranging in outlook from centrism (eg. Reform Party of the United States of America) to left-liberalism to social democracy (like the Green Party) and sometimes even democratic socialism (like the Socialist Party USA).
Modern progressivism includes political figures such as Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Rush D. Holt, Jr., Cynthia McKinney, John Edwards, Sherrod Brown, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius, David McReynolds, Ralph Nader, Howard Dean, Peter Camejo, and the late Paul Wellstone. Also in this category are many leaders in the women's movement, cosmopolitanism, labor movement, American civil rights movement, environmental movement, immigrant rights movement, and gay and lesbian rights movement. Other well-known progressives include Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, George Lakoff, Michael Lerner, and Urvashi Vaid.
Significant publications include The Progressive magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, In These Times, Counterpunch, and AlterNet.org. Broadcasting outlets include Air America Radio, the Pacifica Radio network, Democracy Now!, and certain community radio stations. Notable media voices include Alexander Cockburn, Barbara Ehrenreich, Al Franken, Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, Jim Hightower, the late Molly Ivins, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Mike Malloy, Greg Palast, Randi Rhodes, Betsy Rosenberg, Ed Schultz and David Sirota.
Modern issues for "progressives" can include: electoral reform (including proportional representation and fusion candidates), environmental conservation, pollution control and environmentalism, universal health care, abolition of the death penalty, affordable housing, a viable Social Security System, renewable energy, gun control, "smart growth" urban development, a living wage and pro-union policies, among many others.
Examples of the broad range of progressive texts include: New Age Politics by Mark Satin; Why Americans Hate Politics by E.J. Dionne, Jr.; Community Building: Renewing Spirit & Learning in Business edited by Kazimierz Gozdz; Ecopolitics: Building a Green Society by Daniel Coleman; and Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
The main current national progressive parties are the Democratic Party and the Green Party of the United States. The Democratic Party has major-party status in all fifty states, while there are state Green Parties or affiliates with the national Green Party in most states. The most successful non-major state-level progressive party is the Vermont Progressive Party. However, progressives often shy away from parties and align within more community-oriented activist groups, coalitions and networks, such as the Maine People's Alliance and Northeast Action.
[edit] See also
- The Center for American Progress
- Congressional Progressive Caucus
- List of progressive organizations
- Progressive Christianity
- Progressive Era
- Progressive States Network
- United States Progressive Party
[edit] References
- ^ Progressivism. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
- ^ Progressivism. Encarta Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.
- ^ Progressivism 1900 - 1920. Georgetown College. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.
- ^ "Conservationist - Life of Theodore Roosevelt". Theodore Roosevelt Association. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
- ^ United States History - MSN Encarta
- ^ A Brief history of American Progressivism
[edit] External links
- The Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank
- "What Is Progressive?", AlterNet opinion piece, July 25th 2005
- Common Dreams list of progressive websites by popularity
- The Empathic Science Institute-The starting point for a progressive methodology for political science
- The Roosevelt Institution, a progressive student think tank
- ProgressiveSpace an art, culture and green-living webzine.
- Progressive U, a student political weblog