Progressivism in the United States
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Progressivism in the United States
Overview
Progressivism refers to two political phenomena:
Populist Political Progressivism
Historically, this represents distrust of concentrations of power in the hands of politicians and corporations, as represented by the candidacies of Henry George and the Single Tax movement, Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull-Moose Republicans, the Cleveland mayoral administration of Tom L. Johnson, Huey Long and the Share Our Wealth movement, and in the early nineties by Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, and the Reform Party. In modern terminology this is generally called Populism, which can range from the political left to the political right.
Media voices for the Progressive Movement in the United States include Amy Goodman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Thom Hartmann, and Ed Schultz.
Ideological or Modern Left Progressivism
This is a cluster of political, activist, and media organizations ranging from left-liberal to democratic socialism. Significant media include The Progressive magazine, and the American Prospect. Modern Left Progressivism includes several political figures including Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich. Also in this category are many leaders in the women's movement, labor movement, anti-globalization movement, civil rights movement, environmental movement, immigrant rights movement, and gay and lesbian rights movement. Other well-known progressives include Cornell West, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Greg Palast, Howard Zinn, George Lakoff, Michael Lerner, Suzanne Pharr, and Urvashi Vaid.
Modern day issues for "progressives" are: ecology, pollution control, unicameral legislature, publicly-funded healthcare, cessation of the death penalty, affordable housing, proportional representation, instant runoff voting, fusion candidates, a vital Social Security System, alternative (sustainable) energy sources, and smart growth of urban development.
(Read "New Age Politics" by Mark Satin; "Why Americans Hate Politics" by E.J. Dione, Jr; "Community Building: Renewing Spirit & Learning in Business" edited by Kazimierz Gozdz; "Ecopolitics: Building a Green Society" by Daniel Coleman; "Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender" by Ralph Nader; and Progressive magazine.)
History
In the United States, the term progressive can be traced back to the Progressive Era of the early 20th Century, when certain politicians (see Theodore Roosevelt, Bull-Moose Republicans, and the United States Progressive Party) and civilians pushed for better working conditions for the average worker, better living conditions for the poor, the cleaning up of corruption in politics, environmental conservation and other issues.
The "progressives" of Teddy Roosevelt's day were munch more liberal than most Democrats are today. The "socialism" (note the lower case "s") of Teddy's cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Conservation Corps, Tennessee Valley Authority, Rural Electric, etal), would be more indicative of the intended use of the word "progressive", today. Those flaunting the use of the word "progressive" at the start of the 21st century, are members of the Green Party and the more socialistic Democrats. Today, "socialist" and "progressive" are used interchangeably. The "socialism" implied here is the democratic socialism of the Scandinavian countries (as found in the dictionary definition of the word "socialism", not the distorted definition used by the Conservatives of Britain or the Republicans of the U.S.) - not that of totalitarian regimes. Both the original "socialists" and the current-day "progressives" want bottom-up government above all things. Not top-down.
The Four Original Goals of Progressivism: 1. Protecting social welfare - YMCA 2. Promoting moral improvement - prohibition of alochol 3. creating economic reform - change of individual behavior 4. fostering efficiency - "Taylorism"
See also
External Links
- The Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank
- "What Is Progressive?", AlterNet opinion piece, July 25th 2005
Resources for Studying Progressivism
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