Backward-Looking Progressives

We, in the United States, are obsessed with the future.  We like to look ahead to imagine the wonders that we can create.  Standing still is not in our nature.  It strikes us as foolish—and perhaps immoral.

Left-leaning politicians know this.  As a result, they have emphasized their reputed monopoly on upcoming events.  For more than a century, they have styled themselves “progressives.”  Once ordinary Americans came to believe in the benefits of “progress,” leftists appropriated this mantle for themselves.

In reality, most progressives are backward looking.  What is more, they always have been.  Although they make a point of not saying so, their mentor was Karl Marx.  He, like they, claimed that science proved the inevitable triumph of socialism and communism.

This then is the liberal conception of progress.  Since they believe that a collectivist society is preordained, movement toward it must be a movement forward.  Those who are dedicated to bring it to fruition are therefore, by definition, forward-looking.

Except that the prophet who hatched this canard did so over a century and a half ago.  Marx was a man of his times.  The industrial revolution had barely gained traction in his native Germany when he concocted his plan for overcoming its evils.

Marx assumed that workers would eventually become paupers.  He likewise had no idea that the middle class would burgeon.  Nor was he aware of the impending horrors of socialist revolutions.  He could not have imagined the brutality of the Stalinist and Maoist regimes.

Nonetheless, contemporary progressives treat his discredited propositions as gospel.  Despite the failure of most of their master’s predictions, they are apologists for a lost cause.  Instead of seeking new ideas, they merely recycle his shop-worn fantasies.

Consider where the progressives who run the Democratic Party want to take us.  Obviously they never have a good word to say about Donald Trump or Republicans.   But have they come up with innovative alternatives?  Do they propose plans that deviate from their historic agenda?

Ponder their suggestions about medical care.  They want to make this universal.  ObamaCare ran into unexpected roadblocks, but they hope to revive—or extend it.  In this, they are digging in the graveyards of earlier progressives.

To wit, Franklin D. Roosevelt hoped to give us government-sponsored medicine.  So did Harry Truman.  Then again, Hillary Clinton did as well.  This is clearly not a new idea.  When Bernie Sanders argues that we need Medicare for all, he too is merely echoing the proposals of deceased predecessors.

In fact, a government controlled medical system can be traced back to Otto von Bismarck.  The Iron Chancellor sought to tighten the Kaiser’s grip on Germany by providing every citizen with medical care.  His program thus became the model progressives follow—it was not invented yesterday.

Neither was the idea that the state should exercise total political control.  Plato believed that a brilliant and well-intentioned Philosopher King should rule his perfect Republic.   Louis XIV of France was similarly convinced that his desires and the state were synonymous.

The progressives have modified this attitude to mean that they should be in charge.  On the assumption that only they have the intelligence and compassion to serve as bureaucratic experts, they routinely allocate totalitarian prerogatives to themselves.  Although they call this social justice, it looks more like demagoguery.

Once upon a time despots dominated the political arena.  Emperors and dictators sought absolute command.  They did not want competitors.  Neither do progressives.  Just like their forerunners, they intend to call all of the shots.

If this is the case, how can progressives be regarded as forward-looking?  If they are more concerned with accumulating power than devising novel ways to deal with emergent problems, aren’t they pretending to be something they are not?

During the Eisenhower administration, it was fashionable to speak of “knee-jerk” liberals.  This alluded to the tendency of leftists to propose new government regulations and programs for every grievance they dug up.  Have times really changed?  Aren’t progressives still trapped in an autocratic past?

As for conservatives, why can’t they be forward-looking?  When they innovate, as they often to, don’t they deserve this appellation?  Progress implies making things better.  If conservatives achieve this, shouldn’t they be regarded as the real progressives?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University