There's a very
interesting diary right now regarding the usage of the term "Libertarianism" as a counterpoint to Authoritarianism. a gilas girl proposes that the counterpoint to Authoritarianism is NOT libertarianism, but is rather Progressivism, and she uses this argument to make her claim:
Progressivism is a force and a social movement that came together to counter and offer alternatives to the Social Darwinism that came to dominate traditionalist's politics in the early 20th Century. That Social Darwinism most often manifests itself today in both the Libertarian and Conservative policies that eschew collective action and/or government intervention.
(emphasis added)
I started responding to that but it turned into a diary entry, so read on below!
I think that before we run around glorifying the Progressive movement, we need to remember that the reformers of that era were not always champions of the things we support today. Before we begin waving our flags over men like Woodrow Wilson, Jane Addams, and other heroes of that period, we should take a step back and consider what we're supporting.
Remember that turn of the 20th-century Progressivism was NOT the kind of integrationist, open-minded movement we associate with liberalism today. Yes, it strongly believed in government intervention, but that intervention was meant to go as much to private lives as individuals. Government was seen not as a tool of class uplift (or not just a tool of class uplift), but of moral uplift. Like a lot of older political movements, there are things we can promote and things we are duty-bound to oppose. For example, while the old Progressives did incredible work in expanding the voting franchise for women, they were also instrumental in ending a period of protection for African-American voting rights (which had been associated with corrupt big city machines -- if you were a big city mayor after about 1890 and you were actually responding to the will of your voters, you were not protecting black people). Progressive ties with labor also influenced them to take blatantly racist positions towards black migrants in the Great Migration and Asian immigrants. Historians of race relations look at the "Progressive Era" as one of the darkest periods of American history, as it marked the end of the Reconstruction commitment to black equality (for various reasons I can go into if anyone's interested).
Sure, regulations on the meat industry or better sanitation came out of that moralistic impulse, and that was laudable, but those were not the ultimate goals. The point was to institute a prescriptive set of standards, often heavily influenced by traditional Protestant religious beliefs. The true historical antecedant of that Progressive movement were the Puritans. This is why the Progressive Era's second-highest achievement (after the 19th Amendment, finally giving votes to women) was Prohibition. Not public health, not uplift for the poor, not income equality -- Prohibition. The reason was simple: the Progressives associated drinking with all sorts of boogeymen like gambling, prostitution, sexual freedom, and other socially non-conformist behavior. You have to wonder how they would handle liberal Democratic values on free speech or sexual orientation. Whether it was new European immigrants at Jane Addams' Hull House or Mexican rebels being hunted down by Woodrow Wilson's troops, the attitude was that only a powerful centralized organization could FORCE people into behaving the "right way".
Because of the Progressive attitude, the Democratic party had the reputation of a scolding old lady for the early part of the twentieth century. The Republicans were seen as the party of individual choice and freedom -- not necessarily in the Reaganite "tax freedom" way, but just in letting people live their lives the way they wanted. That really only changed when Roosevelt became President and accelerated the parties' long, weird flip on issues of race and individual liberty. The Dems were able to dominate the middle of the 20th century on the strength of this blend of individual liberty and powerful government intervention.
However, starting with Nixon the Republicans began to pick up some of those old, discarded Progressive-era flags dropped by the Democrats. The Christian Coalition were not a new group in American politics, but the liberal elements of the Democratic party had largely rejected them. The Republicans picked them up. In many cases they are STILL talking about the same things they were in the Prohibition era -- substance abuse, traditional/hetero-normative sexuality, and other "family values" issues rooted in a strongly Protestant Christian mode of thought.
All of this brings us to Ronald Reagan who, ironically, behaved a lot like an old school Progressive in office. Sure, he campaigned as a libertarian, and has fooled a lot of self-identified libertarians into voting for his legacy, but his record was pure Progressive-era moralizing (mostly because far too many self-identified libertarians are selfish idiots who care about tax cuts more than anything else). While he always talked about big government, he favored deficit spending and grew the programs he liked (eg: the military). He had an interventionist, fanatically anti-Communist, morality-framed foreign policy that is reminiscent of Wilson's. While his campaigns have been recast as anti "big government", they focused strongly on city corruption, linked to poverty, which could only be cured by a moralistic strong hand, and he was never afraid to use race-baiting rhetoric in service of that. I know many people will disagree with me here, but when I look at Reagan I really see someone who took the worst parts of Progressive politics, linked them to some vaguely "libertarian" rhetoric, and became incredibly popular because of it. In many ways, the modern GOP is a better analogue to the Progressive Movement than the modern Democratic party is.
This is why I kind of cringe when I hear Dems adopting the old Progressive classification. Yes, it's a throwback to our historical legacy as liberals in this country, but it's also a very complicated era that encompassed a lot of very complicated attitudes. Some of the legacies of that era -- muscular, interventionist government; a focus on public health; a focus on women's empowerment; -- are worthwile. A lot isn't. I have always thought that "Liberal" is a better term for me. Still, I have to concede that a strong government is more vulnerable to tyranny than a weak one. All it takes is one bad leader, and the country can tip precariously from a free, "Progressive" state to a chained one, as we've seen with Bush. Libertarianism, imho, IS the opposite of authoritarianism, but neither pole is particularly liveable.