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September 19, 2003 |
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| America’s
progressive visions sparked persisting conservative backlash
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Photo by Chris Meyer
McGerr
“Progressivism was rejected
not only because people became concerned about
the extent to which the economy might suffer if
it were regulated, but because they rejected the
progressive desire to control personal pleasure
and consumerism in general. Prohibition is the
best example.”
—Michael McGerr
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Political malaise in the United States is rooted deep
in the past, suggests Michael McGerr, IU Bloomington professor
of history, in his new book, A Fierce Discontent: The
Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America,
1870-1920. The book examines the social, cultural
and political aspects of a movement that, through its
early successes and ultimate failure, has defined today’s
political climate.
McGerr’s book was published by Free Press and has
received the unusual distinction of boxed and starred
reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and Library
Journal, and is a selection of the History Book Club.
“Our attitude toward politics and our likelihood
of participating in politics were very much shaped by
events of 125 years ago,” said McGerr. “Progressivism
is really the beginning of modern liberalism, of the dream
that the power of government could be harnessed to transform
people’s lives across the whole range of their existence.
It’s the spectacular failure of the progressive
movement during and after World War I that I think permanently
made politicians less likely to try sweeping kinds of
reform.
“For example, in most ways, the New Deal of Franklin
Roosevelt was more cautious than, say, the progressive
administration of Woodrow Wilson, in which Roosevelt had
served. It’s because Americans began to develop
a greater cynicism about politics at that time, and it’s
persisted,” McGerr said.
From the late 19th century until the Great Depression,
American progressives undertook a vast array of reforms
that shook the nation to its core, from class and labor
issues to vice, immigration, women’s rights and
race. McGerr maintains that this progressive vision of
remaking America in its own middle-class image eventually
sparked a conservative backlash that persists to this
day.
He illuminates the origins of progressive thought, the
movement’s meteoric ascent in American life and
its descent into “the Red scare, race riots, strikes
and inflation,” culminating in the social and economic
chaos of the 1960s and 1970s, and the rebirth of conservatism.
His conclusion: “The basic lesson of the progressive
era is that reformers should not try too much.”
He argues that progressivism, and therefore, liberalism,
was born out of a reaction against conservatism’s
emphasis on individual freedom.
“Many middle-class Americans came to believe that
individual freedom in the hands of big businessmen had
become a perverted thing and would destroy the country,”
he said. “Progressivism grew out of a belief that
market forces—a society of free individuals doing
whatever they wanted to do—was hopelessly inadequate
and destructive. The most difficult thing for liberals
and conservatives to square is the liberal insistence
that a better society has to come at the cost of rejecting
certain kinds of individual freedom, and also requires
saying that some people ought to mold and shape others.
“I try to show in this book that progressivism was
rejected not only because people became concerned about
the extent to which the economy might suffer if it were
regulated, but because they rejected the progressive desire
to control personal pleasure and consumerism in general.
Prohibition is the best example. One of the first things
Franklin Roosevelt did as president was to support the
repeal of Prohibition. New Deal liberalism said that government
ought to make sure you’re prosperous, but it shouldn’t
tell you how to spend your money. Progressives really
believed that you ought to be told how to spend your money.
They dared to do that because they believed they could
produce a more utopian society,” he said.
American politics oscillates back and forth between liberalism
and conservatism because neither seems able to address
the fundamental desires Americans have for a prosperous,
ordered society in which people are as free as they want
to be, he explains.
“At times, Americans conclude that the price of
freedom is too great, and there needs to be more regulation,
and at other times, they say things are fine, and they
shouldn’t be constrained. A point I try to make
in this book is that even though there is that kind of
oscillation over the long term, the swinging back and
forth has gotten less and less, partly because neither
side is prepared to promise utopia as they used to,”
he said.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why more
and more commentators are saying the differences between
liberals and conservatives have become insignificant.
Analyzing the politics of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,
it’s harder to say what’s liberal and what’s
conservative.”
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IU Home Pages + 400 E. 7th Street. Bloomington, IN 47405 + Phone: (812) 855-6494
Publication Date: August 15, 2003 + Comments: homepgs@indiana.edu
Copyright ©2003, The Trustees of Indiana University
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