Progressive American Thought: Despite All the Evidence that it Doesn't Work, Trickle Down has Survived for a Long Time

Monday, December 22, 2014

Despite All the Evidence that it Doesn't Work, Trickle Down has Survived for a Long Time

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.”

- William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago

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Robert LaFollette

Click on his photo to see a film, with sound, of a campaign speech of Robert LaFollette in 1924, when he ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket, urging the people to be “aggressive” in resisting corporate power and influence. He received 17% of the vote and carried only Wisconsin. He died the next year. The father of Progressivism, Robert LaFollette was the first to use the word “Progressive” to describe the movement he started in Wisconsin. He first was Governor of Wisconsin and then was a Senator. From Wikipedia: “In 1957, a Senate Committee selected La Follette as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert Taft. A 1982 survey asking historians to rank the "ten greatest Senators in the nation's history" based on "accomplishments in office" and "long range impact on American history," placed La Follette first, tied with Henry Clay.”

Definition of Progressivism

In using the term “progressive” I mean what it meant in its early years, a philosophy of government, or governance, of the proper role of government in a democracy, and how public officials carry out their responsibilities to the people. Progressive government can be a force for good when it limits its activities to doing those things that need to be done but cannot be done by the people for themselves. The duty of public officials is to all the people, not to special interests.

Progressivism is not a synonym for liberalism, as it often is used today. Today's progressives probably are liberal in many, if not most, of their beliefs, but not all liberals are progressives. Although a descendant of classic liberalism, true progressivism is not ideological. It is pragmatic. It is neither liberal nor conservative, nor Democrat nor Republican. It is not capitalistic, nor socialistic. It seeks to make the existing system work, and that sometimes means protecting capitalism from itself by taming its most aggressive features through legislation and regulation.

Most of the early Progressives were Republicans; the later ones, Democrats. Progressives are problem-solvers and they will borrow ideas from both political parties, as well as from any other source, if the ideas present a practical solution to an important problem.

Basic pragmatic progressivism is more consistent with the American character than any other governmental philosophy, and its historic leaders have been - sometimes, for other reasons, only briefly - among the most popular leaders the nation ever has had. We can solve our major problems with another progressive period of government. I believe this can be made to happen with the right kind of leadership, programs and strategies, which I describe in this book.

- Introduction, Let's Do What Works and Call it Capitalism, by Dan Riker. Excerpts of this as-year unpublished book are posted on this blog, on http://www.danriker.blogspot.com and on http://www.dailykos.com.