I think in all fairness that the mixture of people with differing ideologies among the Progressives (or New Liberals as they were called in Britain) shifted substantially over the period from 1890 to 1940 from primarily libertarianish to primarily statist, and that the shift followed a fairly steady trend (or at least trended always from libertarianish toward statist). You can, incidentally, see the transition from classical liberal to Brandeisian to New Nationalistic in the person of Theodore Roosevelt who, when campaigning for mayor of New York City in the 1890s rejected municipal regulation of street-car rates saying that "you can no more regulate the law of supply and demand than the law of gravity."
David In a message dated 6/19/03 6:28:45 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >>Post-modern liberalism didn't spring full-blown into being like Athena >from >>the forehead of Zeus. It evolved rather over time from classical >>liberalism >>through several fairly-distinct phases. > >You're right on this. But it might be more accurate to say that at any > >given time "progressivism" was a mix of relatively libertarian, "modified" > >laissez-faire liberal types (the "Brandeisians" and J.A. Hobson across >the >pond) and more authoritarian types like the Fabians and their American > >counterparts. The libertarian end of the spectrum, certainly, there were > >things like the recall and public initiative. But this same "good >government" movement, from the very beginning, also favored city-wide school > >boards, larger wards or at-large aldermen, etc., as a way of placing >government policy safely under the control of "professionals" and keeping > >the great unwashed from meddling in the business of their betters. It >was >the same kind of petty lust for control that Hilaire Belloc and William > >English Walling described in their critiques of Fabianism. And it tied >in >pretty closely with the authoritarianism of the public education >bureaucracy, the "deskilling" of blue collar labor under Taylor's >"scientific management," in a much broader phenomenon of the rise to control > >of the white collar "professional" class in the late 19th century. Even > >when "progressives" were more sympathetic to the relatively libertarian >part >of the mix, the increasing centralization of the corporate economy and >the >state made it likely that their movement would succeed only in those areas > >where centralized bureaucracies benefitted.
