What distinguishes a progressive from a liberal?
https://newrepublic.com/article/147825/progressive-vital-term-us-political-life-lost-significance
What distinguishes a progressive from a liberal? This is one of the more pervasive ambiguities in contemporary American political discourse.
In a recent issue of the journal Democracy, the historian Sean Wilentz addressed it head-on: Liberals, he argues, recognize the flaws of capitalism, are dedicated to remedying them, and have great achievements to their credit in that regard, notably those of the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. Progressives are meanwhile "emphatically anti-liberal"—because they are hostile to capitalism and, "deep down, harbor the hope that one day, perhaps through some catastrophic event, American capitalism will indeed be replaced by socialism."
But here's the problem: The progressives Wilentz describes aren't really advocates for socialism in its authentic sense of total "public ownership of finance, industry, and agriculture." Rather, he writes, they claim for socialism ("democratic socialism," of course) the social-welfare achievements of American liberalism and Scandinavian social democracy, while rejecting the full architecture of those ideologies.
In practice, however, Wilentz's theory doesn't really apply: Progressive and liberal are precisely synonyms in American political life—and have been since the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan succeeded in making liberals feel ashamed of the word and fearful of associating with it, and they started calling themselves progressives instead. This wasn't the introduction of a new politics; it was the rebranding of an existing one.
The only way to find a meaningful usage of progressive is to go back to when it first came into political currency. In his marvelously succinct book Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction, the historian Walter Nugent offers a clear view of what the word denoted then: "The consistent conviction of virtually all Progressives was that a 'public interest' or 'common good' really existed.... Progressives agreed ... that a common good affected everyone and should be sought in every available way. In this, their outlook contrasted with the rampant individualism and self-seeking that preceded them in the Gilded Age and that returned in the 1920s (and in the 1990s and 2000s, which has been called 'the second Gilded Age')."
Now, the "public interest" and the "common good" were of course not themselves new concepts in U.S. political thought; indeed, they were key aspects of the civic republican political thought that animated the American Founders. The basic concept of freedom in republican theory differs substantially from the liberal concept: Liberal theory, more familiar to us today, emphasizes the ability of the individual to make his or her own choices about how to live, without undue interference from either the government or fellow citizens. Civic republican theory, by contrast, defines freedom in terms of self-government, which involves full citizen participation in the affairs of the community and the ongoing process of determining the community's collective destiny.
One of the tenets of early American civic republicanism was that acting publicly on behalf of the community required individual economic independence. But as the country underwent rapid industrialization after the Civil War, Americans were wrenched all around the country from smaller communities, where the practice of town-hall self-government had been practicable, and thrust into the "wage-slavery" of the factory system, forced to live in large, crowded, anonymous, poverty-stricken cities. The Progressives of the early twentieth century made efforts to reintroduce civic republican liberty by ameliorating the growing income inequality of the era (e.g., the progressive income tax), creating new forms of direct democracy (e.g., the ballot initiative and the referendum), and making life in urban areas more communal (e.g., public parks and playgrounds). Industrial capitalism, meanwhile, posed a challenge not only to republican principles but to liberal principles too. The Progressive agenda rose to that challenge as well, including an effort to update liberalism by attempting to support the traditional "negative rights" represented in the first ten amendments to the Constitution with a set of "positive rights": Progressives argued that without a living wage, adequate housing, effective health care, and basic education, the traditional negative rights had no real substance.
As the political scientist Michael Sandel has pointed out, however, such positive rights are inherently on fragile ground unless they have the support of a strong community consensus, which in a modern liberal society can be achieved only through a civic republican politics. The defining theorists of the Progressive era understood this. Perhaps the most philosophically ambitious among them was John Dewey, who synthesized the liberal and civic republican traditions by way of a new concept of democracy itself: Democracy is not, Dewey argued, merely a mechanism for majority rule; it's an ongoing deliberative process through which bearers of individual rights address issues facing their political community as a whole and chart its future together. He redefined, in other words, the "negative rights" of liberalism and the "positive rights" of civic republicanism as mutual necessities.
Liberals who describe themselves as progressives are accordingly half right. But for progressive to be truly meaningful again, it has to be more than a synonym for liberal; it has to recapture the civic republican heart of the original Progressive movement—etymologically and in practice.
Tags
Who is online
77 visitors
Individualism and creative intelligence has created everything of value that benefits the most people. Collectivism and liberalism have created nothing but laws and restrictions that only benefit a select elite few. Seeking the best for oneself, family, and the larger community is a positive value.
Yes, it created the idea of social security and Medicare which helped prevent a repeat of one of the worst chapters in American history, the Great Depression. We are the envy of the world because our mix of capitalism and socialism has created the largest super rich, rich, wealthy and middle income consumer population on the planet. It helped create the transportation infrastructure that has allowed us to transact business all across the country and get our goods from one coast to the other. It created the publicly funded police departments, fire departments and utility infrastructure that help protect our citizens regardless of income while delivering clean water and power to even the poorest neighborhoods, something pure capitalism would have never accomplished. It took creative intelligence to understand that relying too much on the free hand of the market isn't always a good thing and needed to be tempered with some socialist programs to prevent our elderly, widows and children from falling through the cracks of society being forced to live in trash heaps begging for sustenance like they are in most third world countries.
But the issue is RAMPANT individualism as in the case of the idiotic "sovereign citizen" bullshit of the extreme rightwing or rightwing libertoonianism. There is a place for both individualism and collective responsibility in a republic like ours. In fact, it's essential that both exist in equilibrium. The very existence and content of our Constitution is a testimonial to creating and perpetuating that balance.
A fair statement, one that defines old fashioned liberalism and most of it's achievements. Why not now address modern progressives and their conditional care for civil liberties, the 1st & 2nd Amendments and their lack of civil discourse? Isn't that the premise of the article? The article which did a pathetic job of exposing the differences.
It did? You do realize that railroads still transport more goods than any other mode of transportation. And as far as I know it was them evil capitalist that built the railroads.
I guess I'm a lowly non-intellectual.
Uh....you won't find anyone that will disagree with such a self assessment!
John, this article reads "neo-liberal" rather than liberal as one would expect from The New Republic, which has "distinguished" itself over the past couple of decades for abandoning the principles of the economic liberalism of Roosevelt and the social liberalism of Johnson. And we haven't forgotten that it was these neo-liberals (e.g., Joe Lieberman) who aided and abetted the Bush Catastrophe in Iraq as just another example of their apostasy. These people have put themselves on the outside of that very liberalism this article tries to lay claim to and now seem to be looking for sympathy. It's that old story of a man who killed his parents pleading for clemency on being an orphan.
Political terms are so confusing. Even the wonks can't agree on what they mean. What some would call "Classic Liberalism" is now considered "conservative."
old school liberal here.
in today's world?
rightwingnut conservative / anti-federalist / till the day I die
what is old will become new again
it is fun being in "the new counterculture
I used to be a liberal light.
Can't even reason with progressives anymore....Deleted, sweeping generalization {SP}
Deleted, Skirting {SP}
when they decided a grown man can simply "feel" like a trophy wife and walk into the ladies room?
that is when all doubt was removed for a lot of people =
7million obama voters flipped and voted trump because hillary would have continued the progressive BS
todays liberal/progressives have no future in this country... I suggest they try venezuela
the only way for the left to get back in power now is head back to the middle and support our country first.
what is old will become new again and then we will be liberals again
What does the liberal/progressive/Democrat represent these days? Except anti-Trump language that is.
It is all anti-Trump in print, on-line media content also. I wouldn't agree that it is only cable.
Take a look Yahoo's front page for a few days.
How about that Occupy Wallstreet jamboree? Lot of good came from that
The left really went into the Twilight Zone of Nutsville during the Obama years.
I'll give you my take on a few items, as I would limit the discussion to somethng manageable and don't presume to speak for all progressives:
1. Taxation based on the principles laid out by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #26 (known commonly today as a "graduated" income tax and since corporations have been determined by the SCOTUS as "persons" they would fall under that system or repeal "Citizens United").
2. Reduce military spending to no more than the top three other largest countries' on the planet instead of the current top 8.
3. Eliminate the income cap on FICA so that Social Security is solvent for a least 100 years.
4. Establish a national living wage requirement (this might be CoL adjusted by locality, i.e., rural v. urban)
5. Make Medicare-for-All at least an option
6. Eliminate all corporate political contributions (i.e. repeal Citizens United).
7. Require a science-based approach to all environmental problems
LIE.
The difference between 2012 Obama votes and 2016 Clinton votes is 62,781.
Valerie Jarrett says Obama voters who flipped for Trump ‘too painful’ to think about
Your deflection doesn't refute that your comment was a LIE.
I was not talking about hillary voters,
I said 7 million obama voters, voted for trump.
they did. get over it.
Prove it. Post a link that ACTUALLY supports your statement as fact.
in order to be right? your going to have to post a link proving the vallery jarret article is wrong.
I will be waiting
Actually, as the one making the assertion, it is incumbent on YOU to prove your position. Since the article you cited DOESN'T quote Jarret as saying ANYTHING about the number of voters that 'flipped to Trump', you are hanging your hat on a STATEMENT by the author, who links NO data and provides NO support for his claim.
I will be waiting for your cogent support of Dave Boyer's proclamation.
reading comprehension is your friend.
vallery jarrett's reply?
have a great day
I wonder how trump flipped the great blue EC wall without flipping obama voters?? LOL just kidding
You hung you hat on the statement by the AUTHOR and stepped in it. Go watch the ACTUAL Morning Joe interview with Jarrett. Unlike YOU, I don't swill the Kool aid served up by patrician opinion writers. I watched it for myself, NO mention of how 'many' Obama voters voted for Trump, much less the fallacious 7 million claim of your author.
Reply to WHOM? Your own link and quote state that the comment was made on Morning Joe, NOT in answer to a question put to her by the AUTHOR.
So you can't support your author's LIE, because it is a LIE.
You too, but DO try to back away from the Kool aid, it's having a deleterious effect on you.
Symptoms?
Do you believe in free speech?
Do you believe that people should be judged by their character, not their skin color?
Do you believe in freedom of religion?
If you believe these things, you’re probably not a progressive. You might think you’re a progressive. I used to think I was…
Progressives used to say, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” Not anymore.
Banning speakers whose opinions you don’t agree with from college campuses – that’s not progressive. Prohibiting any words not approved of as “politically correct” – that’s not progressive. Putting “Trigger Warnings” on books, movies, music, anything that might offend people – that’s not progressive either....
All of this has led me to be believe that much of the left is no longer progressive, but regressive. This is one of the reasons I’ve spent so much time on my show talking about The Regressive Left.
This regressive ideology doesn’t judge people as individuals, but as a collective.
If you’re black, or female, or Muslim, or Hispanic, or a member of any other minority group, you’re judged differently than the most evil of all things: a white, Christian male. The Regressive Left ranks minority groups in a pecking order to compete in a kind of “Oppression Olympics”. Gold medal goes to the most offended.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that his children would be judged by their character and not their skin color was a liberal idea, but these days, it’s not a progressive ideal.
And what about religious freedom - the idea that no one else can tell you what you have to believe? Surely progressives still support that basic right.
Well, not so much.
I’m a married gay man, so you might think that I appreciate the government forcing a Christian baker or photographer or florist to act against their religion in order to cater, photograph or decorate my wedding. But you’d be wrong. A government that can force Christians to violate their conscience can force me to violate mine. If a baker won’t bake you a cake, find another baker; don’t demand that the state tell him what to do with his private business.
Every 'Christian' college campus bans speakers whose opinions they don't agree with. In fact, in most cases, they censor the speech of their student body too.
Prohibiting any words not approved of as “politically correct” – that’s not progressive.
Examples?
Putting “Trigger Warnings” on books, movies, music, anything that might offend people – that’s not progressive either....
"Trigger Warnings" are not about 'anything that might offend people'. They are akin to fireworks going off around a military veteran's home.
This while your comment is all about judging all those who identify a 'progressives' as a collective rather than as individuals.
Females are NOT a minority and the FACT that you identify them as such infers just how you judge them.
What brought you to those conclusions?
Please provide an example of progressives telling you what you have to believe.
The government isn't forcing Christians to do anything other than to treat everyone equally if they own a 'public accommodation'. If you open a business that serves the PUBLIC, you cannot pick and choose who to serve. If you want to restrict your clientele, form a private, members only business.
There are MANY 'Christians' that would refute your claim, as a married gay man, of HAVING a conscience to violate. In FACT, they'd refute that you are actually married.
It isn't a 'private business' if it is open to the PUBLIC.
Assuming you are correct, you agree that Progressives and repressive Christians share the same tactics.
You've just made the author's point more strongly than he did. I didn't realize progressives prided themselves on sharing the tactics of the minister in the Footloose movie.
is while your comment is all about judging all those who identify a 'progressives' as a collective rather than as individuals
Um... Progressivism is a movement of people with similar worldviews who ascribe to it's tenants voluntarily. Race or gender is not.
Females are NOT a minority
Who cares? What difference does it make if women are a minority or majority for purposes of this argument? Is it okay to treat them as a collective lacking individual agency because they are a majority of the population?
What brought you to those conclusions?
anyone who pays attention to what progressives argue couldn't help but come to the same conclusion.
If you open a business that serves the PUBLIC, you cannot pick and choose who to serve.
Sure you can. You can refuse to serve patrons who believe Trump is the best President ever, but you can't refuse to make a cake that violates your conscious.
We need not 'assume', one needs only to review the news about Liberty Universities censorship to prove that posit. There are many examples in the news about Christian colleges censoring speakers and students.
How did my comment bring you to connect Progressives and regressive Christians? Please be specific.
Oh and didn't you just insist that 'Progressives' ARE regressive? Why the distinction now?
Really? How so?
So is your posit OK to judge people as a collective rather than as individuals if they 'voluntarily' part of a group? Oh and since you admit that their views are 'similar', you acknowledge they are not the SAME and therefore shouldn't treat them as a collective.
BTFW, can you point me to a comment you've made that decries how so many here treat ALL 'GAYS' as a collective, rather than as individuals? Perhaps I missed it.
Everyone who prefers to deal in facts.
Facts matter.
Why don't you tell me. I'm not the one that designated them as a 'minority group', thereby treating them collectively, as YOU do to all those you cited.
Only if they follow your example and treat progressives as a collective rather than as individuals.
Wait! Wouldn't refusing service to 'patrons who believe Trump is the best President ever' be based on the conscience of the business owner?
Great, progressives and the censors from Liberty are cut from the same cloth. Be happy with your company!
How did my comment bring you to connect Progressives and regressive Christians? Please be specific.
Do you really need this explained? Your defense of progressives banning debate at public colleges is to say "bbutt butt private christian colleges do the same!" You've done my work for me. Thanks.
dge people as a collective rather than as individuals if they 'voluntarily' part of a group?\ h and since you admit that their views are 'similar', you acknowledge they are not the SAME and therefore shouldn't treat them as a collective.
I have to laugh at your sophistry. More whataboutsim. Your defense of liberals assigning political viewpoints and believes based on race and gender is to claim it's inappropriate to use the collective to describe those who join a group who actually agree on those political viewpoints. The dishonesty in your argument is palpable.
Let's see how honest you are. Yes or no, do progressives treat black and women collectively and is it appropriate that they do so?
Facts matter.
But you can't explain why the author's laziness has any substantive meaning. Since you can't actually refute any of the substantive points the author made, you are reduced to whataboutism and arguing about sentence construction.
ouldn't refusing service to 'patrons who believe Trump is the best President ever' be based on the conscience of the business owne
Sure and the government won't force the business owner to violate his consciousness on that issue. Thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy!
I'm not defending anyone. I'm merely calling out the hypocrisy of pointing fingers while ignoring the SAME actions by 'conservatives'. You're welcome.
Exactly HOW is my argument false or deceptive? PLEASE be specific.
Bullshit.
NOTHING in my comments have been a 'defense of liberals assigning political viewpoints'. In fact, that hasn't been a topic of discussion in this thread.
Secondly, you seem to be diverging from the topic since you are now lumping 'liberals' and 'progressives'.
BTW, I've been participating in a thread in which a conservative member here insists that because members of the NBPP are black, they voted for Clinton. Perhaps you should step in and call him on 'assigning political viewpoints and believes based on race'. Would you like the link?
Your assessment is bias and inaccurate.
Unlike you, I don't pretend to know what all progressives do.
NONE of my comments are directed @ the author, they are ALL replies to YOUR comments. As you've noticed, I've had no issue with refuting the points YOU have attempted to make.
You know this HOW? Do you have a link to a case that was litigated or are you just ASSUMNING?
Actually I was pointing out the false comparison in your statement.
BTW, political affiliation is not a protected class. ALL of the recent cases of business owners refusing service [discrimination] are based on the customer being a member of a protected class as defined by the state and or federal government.
Do you support businesses being allowed to refuse service based on race or religion?
Nope
Another 'required attendance' speech. I'll bet that many of those required to attend were surprised that they agreed with many parts of Sanders' speech. I think I even heard some applause...
Liberty University FINES students if they do not attend. They also censor the student newspaper. They labeled the 'College Democrats' club as 'unrecognized' and do not allow the club to hold public events on campus. Fox 'News' called it a ban and were delighted. David Horowitz and his Students for Academic Freedom didn't make a peep.
Yes, Liberty U requires students to attend convocations as part of the curriculum........a curriculum that includes several viewpoints, such as those expressed by Bernie Sanders.
far from the “Ban” BS you were spouting earlier.
Bullshit. It isn't 'part of the curriculum'.
What specific 'viewpoint' do you think that Sanders expressed during his speech that they disagreed with?
I note that you don't address the fact that they BAN their students from expressing 'several viewpoints'.
You were wrong Dulay, get over it already.
You didn't answer my question. You cite Sanders as someone who's opinions they disagree with. What specific 'viewpoint' do you think that Sanders expressed during his speech that they disagreed with?
You need to figure that out.
I'm not the one that made the assertion.
That wasn’t you? Well then, I owe you an apology.
That was you.
I posted a video of a “not-banned” SPEAKER that Liberty disagrees with on a number of issues. Bernies speech focused on the common ground that does exist between most decent folks.....but I think it’s safe to say that Bernie and Liberty disagree on several “important” issues, don’t you?
Maybe I have you figured wrong. Could it be that we agree, abortion and gay marriage are not really important enough to overshadow any common ground we may share on other issues?
If THAT is the standard, you could have posted Trump's speech. There were protest on campus about it. I've also read that some grads have returned their diplomas because of it.
Boy howdy!
Actually, abortion [a woman's right to autonomy] and marriage equality ARE important enough to overshadow what little common ground we may share on other issues.
I’m still trying to figure what you meant by “bans speakers whose opinions they don’t agree with”. It seems to be a moving target.
Very few of these comments addressed the major point of the article.
The Progressive Movement was founded on a belief and advocacy for a COMMON GOOD.
Conservatism and Libertarianism forsakes the common good for individual concerns, which always leads to exploitation. When individual "rights" have precedence over the common good we have pollluted air and water, low wages, no organized labor, curtailed civil rights, etc.
Individual rights must be incorporated into a "common good".
I wouldn't go that far, at least not without making a distinction between the common good and the whims of the majority. In a certain sense the Progressive era was about a balance between the latter two and they didn't always get it right, or at least the implementation sometimes resulted in adverse results like California's Prop 13 or Prop 187.
What strikes me is that with Trump and the modern GOP (as opposed to the Republican Progressives) we've returned to the robber baron era. I wonder if that means a new Progressive movement will result or will the consequence be just another great depression?