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.
In the earliest stages of "progressivism" people still by and large believed in free markets and private property, but believed that left entirely to themselves, free markets produced monopolies which had to be broken by antitrust action. These early antitrust progressive are sometimes known as Brandeisians, and we see their imprint heavily upon Wilson's New Freedom platform. The next stage of progressivism invovled allowing the big businesses to remain unbroken, but regulating them with the federal government, a few we find heavily influencing TR's New Nationalism platform of 1912. New Nationalism contained no explicit calls for cartelization, but it evolved into Hoover's New Individualism (a rather contradicatory name for what it described) in which government would, mostly informally, support the cartelization agreements of Big Business. Hoover's voluntary cartelization finally, by the New Deal, evolved into outright calls for goverment-forced cartelization that heavily animated the NIRA of 1933. It's worth note that the Brandeisians fought the NIRA bitterly, and their influence on the Supreme Court got it declared unConstitutional. Cartelization remained anathema to old Progressives right through the New Deal. David Levenstam In a message dated 6/18/03 12:24:15 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >Actually, they support state capitalism under the name of "progressivism" >or >"putting people first" or some equally inane goo-goo slogan. Just about > >every part of the Progressive/New Deal agenda reflected the interests of >big >business in cartelizing and stabilizing the corporate economy; it was >just >sold to the public as a "progressive" restraint on big business. > >Please bear in mind that what was called "socialism" by democratic >socialists in the 1920s would not have been recognized as such by most >of >the classical socialists of the nineteenth century. The difference reflects > >the New Class takeover of the working class movement, by Leninists and > >Fabians, at the turn of the century. > >Revisionist historians like Gabriel Kolko and James Weinstein called the > >phenomenon "political capitalism" or "corporate liberalism." Murray >Rothbard agreed with their analysis. Whatever you call it, it is organized > >capital acting through the state. The court intellectuals of corporate > >liberalism (Art Schlesinger) like to depict the movement as an idealistic > >attempt to set "countervailing power" against the giant corporations. >And a >lot of big business propagandists like to howl about how "anti-business" > >forces have won consistently. But in fact, it is a case of Brer Rabbit > >hollering "Please don't fling me in that briar patch!"
