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Progressive Era

5 min read

Part of History and the Founders.

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Every episode (2)

Who argued it

Randall Holcombe · Todd Zywicki

Federalism · 17th Amendment · Public Choice Theory · Democracy · State Sovereignty · Constitutional Law

Background

Immigration restriction as a Progressive Era project

In the episode on immigration, Bob Zadek describes the period from the founding through the 1880s as one of essentially no rules on immigration other than arriving, and argues that what changed the policy was cowardice and economic protectionism rather than anything to do with the fabric of America. He rejects the phrase “our job,” saying no one owns a job and that people are entitled to a job only if they do the best job for the lowest money. He characterizes the turn to government protection as a form of crony capitalism Let Them All In (2013).

Alex Nowrasteh places the immigration restrictions within the Progressive Era as a whole, saying they were put in place and increased over its entire length, from the 1880s to the 1920s, until the border was closed to almost all immigrants in the late 1920s. He groups that restriction with the creation of the Federal Reserve system and a nationalizing of the currency, the creation of the income tax, and the prohibition of alcohol, describing them all as efforts to force economic and social decision-making into Washington that had previously taken place at the individual level. He calls immigration restrictions one of the most important parts of the Progressive Era’s increasing centralized control, and notes that many conservatives and Republicans who understand the income tax, the Federal Reserve and prohibition to have been bad policies still cling to the Progressive Era policy of immigration restrictions Let Them All In (2013).

Defining progressivism: rights versus economic well-being

Randall Holcombe, an economist, traces the federal government’s heavy involvement in the economy to the Progressive Era that started in the late 1800s. He notes that the Constitution says virtually nothing about the economy because it designed a government of limited and enumerated powers, with the 10th Amendment reserving powers not explicitly given to the federal government to the states or to the people; those powers, he says, do not include regulating the economy. He defines progressivism in a nutshell as the idea that the role of government is not only to protect our rights but to look out for our economic well-being Randall G. Holcombe on Liberty in Peril (2019).

Holcombe ties the progressive ideology to industrialization in the late 1800s, when someone could start from nothing and become one of the richest people in the world, naming Rockefeller, Carnegie, Fisk and Vanderbilt. He describes the ideology as a reaction against people who had amassed tremendous economic power in a short period, and says that from the beginning it was redistributive: costs would be imposed on the new industrialists and financiers to provide economic benefits to others. He calls this the origin of the welfare state, and says the idea that it is okay to impose costs on some people for the benefit of others develops over the 20th century and into the 21st Randall G. Holcombe on Liberty in Peril (2019).

The living constitution

In the episode on Amy Coney Barrett, Randy Barnett says progressives invented the concept of a living constitution at the turn of the 20th century, between the 19th and 20th centuries. He identifies Woodrow Wilson as a living constitutionalist who was candid about his motivations: Wilson did not like the Constitution, said we should be living under a parliamentary system, and called it a “horse and buggy” constitution for a modern age. Barnett explains that progressives viewed themselves as social Darwinists, thinking societies were like organisms that evolve to a higher state, and that a constitution was needed to allow societies to evolve. He says that is the deep underlying root of the original idea of the living constitution Amy Coney Barrett on Trial (2020).

Bob Zadek responds that progressives reject much of America’s founding principles, and that because tearing up the Constitution outright would not fly, the way to reject it without rejecting it is to minimize it and reinterpret what it meant. He calls this a subtle, stealthy way to change the government while appearing to work under the existing form. Barnett agrees, offering the analogy that telling a spouse you love them and want to fundamentally transform them suggests you want a different spouse Amy Coney Barrett on Trial (2020).

Judicial eras and the administrative state

In the judicial review episode, Bob Zadek asks Keith Whittington about his breakdown of the study of the Supreme Court into eras—from the founding through the Civil War, from the Civil War through the Progressive Era, from the Progressive Era to the New Deal, and from the New Deal to the present—and whether the Court’s activity in striking down laws differed dramatically across them Reviewing Judicial Review (2020). The excerpt ends with the question; Whittington’s answer is not included.

Across episodes

The Progressive Era is treated in the immigration episode by Alex Nowrasteh, in the Holcombe episodes by Randall Holcombe, in the Barrett episode by Randy Barnett, and is named as a periodization in the judicial review episode; the episodes show the same characterization of the era as a turn toward centralization and expanded government, with no development or change in the treatment between the earlier and later episodes.

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