The Problem of Progressivism

Despite Glenn Beck's apocalyptic proclivities, his analysis and exposition of the 20th c. progressive movement is a valuable bit of useful education. Taking a step beyond his introductory material we can do a bit more analysis of President Wilson's progressive tone and explore some of the more troubling issues of Wilson's philosophy of government. This material is gleaned from Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism.

Wilson subscribed to a philosophy known as historicism. It was his view that the past was relevant only to that time and is not relevant to today. He says that "the best government is the one that best reflects the spirit of a nation at a particular time and place." (p. 38-39)

Nation differs from nation, in habits, aptitudes, ambitions, needs, desires, and a system of politics which will suit one nation may be eminently unsuitable for another, its neighbor. There is, accordingly, no one best system of government, but for each nation there is some sort of government which is best adapted to its wants and capacities, most appropriate and helpful in its present stage of development. When once this idea is fully accepted, as it must be by every student qualified to judge, it is impossible to be doctrinaire, to travel any longer the "high priori" road of political speculation.

In this Wilson does not only reject history, he also rejects the first principles of natural right and natural law that underlie western democratic tradition. Instead he follows Hegel's error of dialectical socialism. (p. 68)

As Wilson explained in "The Modern Democratic State," the state's development culminates in modern democracy -- there is no more advanced form of government. "Democracy is the fullest form of state life: it is the completest possible realization of corporate, cooperate state life for a whole people."

This leaves us with statism at its worst. While all the while employing the secular post-millennial language of the 19th century, Wilson views the democratic state as the end-all of human government.

But it seems to me that we might be mistaken in a little of our understanding of this leftist turn. It has more foundation in Hegel than in Marx; it does not leave behind it the same carnage. Yet it represents the strong state that the Left so desires. So, while resembling both national and international socialism, it is not exactly either one. The national socialists (Nazis) largely rejected Marx. The old international socialists (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro) employed Marx for the purpose of revolution. But the new international socialists do not require Marx' bloody revolution (Alinsky) yet build the same strong, centralized state as did the national socialists. We might think of this as a third turn in the leftward movement of modern liberalism.