Progressive

[August1991]

What does the word "progressive" mean?

In modern America, the perception is that "progressive people" oppose religion. Am I wrong?

[Bonam]

Progressive means someone who seeks/welcomes "progress", however said progress is defined. In the modern political context, the progress here usually means progress towards the left on the political spectrum. Progressive people, in my experience, don't oppose religion, rather they tend to champion religious rights (often even where such rights trample on the rights of individuals), as is often the case with "progressives" and placing the importance of group/collective rights over individual rights. Of course, that's certainly not true of everyone that might call themselves progressive, but that's been my experience.

[Wayward Son]

Today progressive, for most people, seems to mean simply far to the left on the political spectrum.

I don't care for that definition, as it paints with too broad a brush (as in the traditional sense there are significant differences between progressivism, socialism and liberalism), and generally stick to the traditional definition from the progressive era in the US, in which case it was a political movement that sprang, in part from the philosophy of pragmatism. In that case Teddy Roosevelt is the example of a progressive President, and is the example of what a traditional progressive politician was, going back to his time as the New York city police commissioner.

I generally consider progressive, in the political sense, to mean:

1) anti-corruption

2) increased efficiency and reduction of waste.

3) anti-monopoly, pro-trust busting, and pro-regulation of large businesses.

4) pro-conservation

5) social engineering through things like prohibition, and educational reforms.

6) The trust that science, properly applied, would lead to a better standard of living (although this last one was more related to the philosophy of pragmatism then the politics of progressivism).

These are the things that Teddy Roosevelt built his career around, and are in part a reaction to the times which he lived in, so therefore it can't be expected that progressivism would support the exact same things today.

And no, it was not anti-religion, in fact there was a strong evangelicalism that joined up with the philosophy of pragmatism that led to things like the promotion of prohibition.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Wayward Son

[Moonlight Graham]

The opposite of being conservative. Which is why the moniker "Progessive Conservatives" makes no sense.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Moonlight Graham

[Michael Hardner]

Actually, the term "progressive" is likely as dated as that other term you use: "Modern". The early modern period started around 1450 according to Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern . And Modernism as an art movement started 100 years ago and hit the mainstream in the 30s and 40s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism .

So when you say "modern" I start thinking about the stylings of Paris metro stations from the 1940s, which I don't think is what you mean. I also doubt that when you refer to modern times, you're talking about the 1400s.

So, you're using one outdated adjective to describe another and neither are really relevant. Why not try 'current' 'recent' 'present day' or refer to the digital age, the post-post modern age or so on ?

Progress, as you're thinking of it, is a 1960s concept. The political tides have ebbed and flowed so many times still then.

[cybercoma]

Progress, as you're thinking of it, is a 1960s concept. The political tides have ebbed and flowed so many times still then.

Progressivism as a political concept, although may have began much earlier, was dominant in North America in the mid-1800s through the early 1900s. It's tied tightly with the Social Gospel and the idea of creating God's kingdom on earth or making society "better". Sadly, eugenics was a key part of this movement. People believed that we could cure all social ills through good genes and "best baby contests". Poverty would be gone, alcoholism would be gone, crime would be gone. Good genes would be the solution. The whole genetic aspect of bringing about Heaven on Earth became a horrifying nightmare during the Third Reich. When eugenics was taken to the n^th degree it stopped being about good breeding and became about exterminating "undesirables." Moving on from that point in history, the breeding aspect was dropped from the idea of progressivism, but the general idea of actively eliminating social ills still continued. Only beginning in the mid-1900s we began seeing legislative approaches to solving these problems through health insurance, old age pension, and unemployment insurances. That's what progressivism is and where it comes from. The paradox with the modern Christian Right is that they are against these programs and policies, support an every person for his/herself approach to politics, despite the fact that progressivism was borne of religious doctrine: The Social Gospel.

Edited February 23, 2013 by cybercoma

[Michael Hardner]

Progressivism as a political concept, although may have began much earlier, was dominant in North America in the mid-1800s through the early 1900s. It's tied tightly with the Social Gospel and the idea of creating God's kingdom on earth or making society "better". Sadly, eugenics was a key part of this movement. People believed that we could cure all social ills through good genes and "best baby contests".

Right - I forgot about that aspect.

One of the keys to all of this is that the future has a habit of arriving unannounced, as they say. People at the precipice of a huge change aren't aware of the fact. To my mind, we are synchronizing the economies of most of the world's residents just as the old forms of capitalism and socialism are groaning under the weight of their obsolescence.

Central planning of resources, open to all and monitored via the web might replace money some day - and that would be neither communist or capitalist. Our arguments would just look irrelevant from that vantage point.

[Michael Hardner]

To add:

When people talk about communism, the thing I have noticed that they say about it is that it didn't work.

("Communism is wrong" - 222K Google hits, "Communism doesn't work" - 500K Google hits)

They didn't have the technology to make central planning work - to monitor the financial issues, economic output, or civic feedback. We're evolving methodologies of design now that could make it worthwhile to try internet communism someday in our lifetimes.

[cybercoma]

Right - I forgot about that aspect.

Yeah. I was just adding to what you were saying, as opposed to arguing against it.

Central planning of resources, open to all and monitored via the web might replace money some day - and that would be neither communist or capitalist. Our arguments would just look irrelevant from that vantage point.

Some would argue that it would still be a capitalist economy, as long as people are working for wages and someone else owns the fruits of their labour and the tools for them to harvest those fruits. This is the exploitative relationship that Marx discusses. Everyone, at a fundamental level, needs to secure the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter. So long as the commons and farms are closed in and people have to sell their labour for a wage in order to buy those things, the capitalists will continue to dole out the minimum people need to survive or the lowest wage that they will accept with a reserve labour force in the wings waiting to take their jobs. The capitalists then accumulate all of the surplus. Moreover, their goal is to eliminate their competition and make production more efficient, meaning the workers get even less (or there's just less workers needed) and the capitalist concentrates wealth even further. This is why there are economic crises: the overaccumulation of wealth. Even in the arrangement where there's "central planning of resources, open to all and monitored via the web," if the relationship is predicated on buying people's labour and owning what they produce, it's still fundamentally a capitalist relationship.

[Michael Hardner]

Yeah. I was just adding to what you were saying, as opposed to arguing against it.

I get that - but beware, if we start finishing each others' sentences then we have to buy his n' hers matching MLW towels.

Some would argue that it would still be a capitalist economy, as long as people are working for wages and someone else owns the fruits of their labour and the tools for them to harvest those fruits.

Ownership is an abstraction, though. What 'ownership' really allows for is a set of behaviors.

If I "own" land, an object, or a person there are certain things I can do with it. And there are always things that the community will NOT allow me to do with it. So it's not absolute power. "Ownership" as a human concept, though, seems to be understood by all. You are assumed to have that absolute power over your slave object, even though it's not true.

Future communism could allow that capitalists and big men (and big women I suppose (I like big women far better)) to "own" assets such as factories while giving them reduced power over how they operate. Of course, some things would be intractable, such as the title of 'owner' and some economic advantage of "owning" an asset - namely the promise of some superior profit over those who merely work there.

This is the exploitative relationship that Marx discusses. Everyone, at a fundamental level, needs to secure the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter. So long as the commons and farms are closed in and people have to sell their labour for a wage in order to buy those things, the capitalists will continue to dole out the minimum people need to survive or the lowest wage that they will accept with a reserve labour force in the wings waiting to take their jobs. The capitalists then accumulate all of the surplus. Moreover, their goal is to eliminate their competition and make production more efficient, meaning the workers get even less (or there's just less workers needed) and the capitalist concentrates wealth even further. This is why there are economic crises: the overaccumulation of wealth. Even in the arrangement where there's "central planning of resources, open to all and monitored via the web," if the relationship is predicated on buying people's labour and owning what they produce, it's still fundamentally a capitalist relationship.

But Marx is tied to his time, and to eras within which his time is a sub-episode. He speaks of factories and money but economies were around before those things, and will be around after those things too. Economies have been around longer than ownership too, and obviously longer than his oversimplified social model of owner/proletariat.

I argue for the long view here, and the long-long view. Capitalism and communism are done - they're in the past. The new hybrids that replaced them (modified capitalism, socialism, and communism) are now crashing together and - with new technology - may morph into a new "programmed" pseudo-capitalism with lots of collusion between the ownership class and the worker class to mitigate the risk of crises.

And in the long-long view, we will have to contend with increasing costs of materials, declining population, and absolute scarcity of work.

[MightyAC]

Agreed, we need a kinder gentler capitalism or communism with incentive. Bring on cooperatalism!

[Canuckistani]

Dream on guyss. With globalization what we're seeing is a harsher, rougher capitalism, not the reverse. We're seeing the creation of a global elite, supported by the tech people, 20% of the pop tops, with the rest more and more reduced to a form of serfdom. We're importing the organization of the 3rd world, instead of exporting what we had, while we export our middle class jobs to the 3rd world. I used to believe in globalization, because I thought it would lift everybody up - instead, as I say, we're getting an entrenched elite that will owe allegiance only to each other, ie the money, not their countries. And they'll have the technology to keep it that way. We have way too many people on the planet, most are redundant with technology. As I just read, most people will wind up specializing in whether they clean the deep or shallow end of the rich people's pools. Presumably the deep end guys will get a few cents more.

[TimG]

We're seeing the creation of a global elite, supported by the tech people, 20% of the pop tops, with the rest more and more reduced to a form of serfdom.

Please explain how anything has changed in the 70 years other than the developed world no longer has an exclusive claim on the top 20%?

Let put it another way: global GDP is is 70 trillion which puts the per capita GDP of 10K; This is about the standard of living for the Dominican Republic.

IOW - if we really had an equal society then everyone in Canada would have to live like people in the Dominican Republic. Are you sure this is what you want?

Edited February 24, 2013 by TimG

[Canuckistani]

We'll never have totally equal societies, whether by country or individually, nor should be try. But we also don't have to give way to rampant greed. No country can operate that way, every country has some sort of wealth redistribution scheme. But on a global scale there are no controls like that - just people trying to grab everything for themselves. Ultimately I think this is doomed to collapse, but it sure won't be pretty when it does. And it may be that technology allows those who get to the top to basically stay there. If people really believe in meritiocracies, then each generation should start out exactly equal as to resources. Ie rich kids and poor kids get exactly the same upbringing, and nobody inherits a dime. Don't see that happening either.

[TimG]

If people really believe in meritiocracies, then each generation should start out exactly equal as to resources. Ie rich kids and poor kids get exactly the same upbringing, and nobody inherits a dime. Don't see that happening either.

That is not how a meritocracy in capitalist system works. People get to keep most of the money they earn and they will spend it on their families. There is no way to change that while preserving the essence of a capitalist economy. What you can do is ensure the poor have access to educational opportunities but they will never be equal to those of the rich.

That said, the prospect for a young person growing up in a poor country has never been better and there is no reason to believe the system is going to collapse simply because developing countries are claiming their share of the 20%.

[cybercoma]

I get that - but beware, if we start finishing each others' sentences then we have to buy his n' hers matching MLW towels.Ownership is an abstraction, though. What 'ownership' really allows for is a set of behaviors.

If I "own" land, an object, or a person there are certain things I can do with it. And there are always things that the community will NOT allow me to do with it. So it's not absolute power. "Ownership" as a human concept, though, seems to be understood by all. You are assumed to have that absolute power over your slave object, even though it's not true.

Future communism could allow that capitalists and big men (and big women I suppose (I like big women far better)) to "own" assets such as factories while giving them reduced power over how they operate. Of course, some things would be intractable, such as the title of 'owner' and some economic advantage of "owning" an asset - namely the promise of some superior profit over those who merely work there.But Marx is tied to his time, and to eras within which his time is a sub-episode. He speaks of factories and money but economies were around before those things, and will be around after those things too. Economies have been around longer than ownership too, and obviously longer than his oversimplified social model of owner/proletariat.

I argue for the long view here, and the long-long view. Capitalism and communism are done - they're in the past. The new hybrids that replaced them (modified capitalism, socialism, and communism) are now crashing together and - with new technology - may morph into a new "programmed" pseudo-capitalism with lots of collusion between the ownership class and the worker class to mitigate the risk of crises.

And in the long-long view, we will have to contend with increasing costs of materials, declining population, and absolute scarcity of work.

What you're describing is not a different system from capitalism. It's just a more regulated form of capitalism. That's all I'm saying. It's still predicated on people selling their labour to the owners of the means of production, rather than individuals owning the fruits of their labour and the means to produce those fruits. All of society is organized around these social relationships because the fundamental goal of all of animals is survival. To survive, humanity produces. So long as there are men and women who own our capacity to produce, they own our ability to survive. These are Marx's arguments anyway. There are some obvious limitations here and it's only useful in understanding social relations (particularly power and conflict) on at structural level. It says little to nothing about individual agency under these conditions. Edited February 24, 2013 by cybercoma

[Michael Hardner]

What you're describing is not a different system from capitalism. It's just a more regulated form of capitalism. That's all I'm saying. It's still predicated on people selling their labour to the owners of the means of production, rather than individuals owning the fruits of their labour and the means to produce those fruits. All of society is organized around these social relationships because the fundamental goal of all of animals is survival. To survive, humanity produces. So long as there are men and women who own our capacity to produce, they own our ability to survive. These are Marx's arguments anyway. There are some obvious limitations here and it's only useful in understanding social relations (particularly power and conflict) on at structural level. It says little to nothing about individual agency under these conditions.

If owners have less power over their own assets, though, is it still capitalism ? Or is it nominal capitalism ? The ideas of ownership, fruits of labour, relationships are only human abstractions that approximate real behaviors. My feeling is that people argue about terms like 'money' as though the definition is as universal as 'gravity'. That's not the case.

My musings may seem academic and frivolous, but we are indeed at a time of great change and cataclysm or reform may be imminent.

[TimG]

My feeling is that people argue about terms like 'money' as though the definition is as universal as 'gravity'. That's not the case.

It all comes down to incentives and the fundamentally selfish nature of humans. Communism and socialism fail because they presume that humans are altruistic are will work for the greater good. Capitalism works because it only expects people to work for themselves.

The trick for capitalism how to maintaining a social structure that makes everyone feel that they have a fair chance at success without simply turning into a variant of communism where no one benefits from the 'fruits of their labours'. It is not an easy line to walk.

Edited February 24, 2013 by TimG

[Canuckistani]

It all comes down to incentives and the fundamentally selfish nature of humans. Communism and socialism fail because they presume that humans are altruistic are will work for the greater good. Capitalism works because it only expects people to work for themselves.

The trick for capitalism how to maintaining a social structure that makes everyone feel that they have a fair chance at success without simply turning into a variant of communism where no one benefits from the 'fruits of their labours'. It is not an easy line to walk.

Agreed about communism. Just as the Randians fail because they presume we can have a society where everybody just works for themselves. Just as economics fail because they assume people act as if they are all Randians.

[TimG]

Agreed about communism. Just as the Randians fail because they presume we can have a society where everybody just works for themselves. Just as economics fail because they assume people act as if they are all Randians.

The system must presume humans are basically selfish with periodic bouts of altruism. The amount of altruism will increase if people perceive society to be fair. i.e. rich people will be happy to pay more taxes if they see the taxes being spent efficiently, poor people will accept the rules that allow others to be rich if they feel they or their child have a fair shot at becoming rich and benefiting from those rules. Edited February 24, 2013 by TimG

[Canuckistani]

The system must presume humans are basically selfish with periodic bouts of altruism. The amount of altruism will increase if people perceive society to be fair. i.e. rich people will be happy to pay more taxes if they see the taxes being spent efficiently, poor people will accept the rules that allow others to be rich if they feel they or their child have a fair shot at becoming rich and benefiting from those rules.

No argument. You're leaving out co-operation tho, which is neither total self-interest nor altruism. People want to feel a part of something and work together. They do this not only for selfish reasons. This is the reason societies need to find that middle way you talk about, where everybody feels they have a reasonably fair deal.

The rich don't seem to care much about their taxes being spent efficiently, since they seem to like subsidies for themselves just fine. Efficient use of taxes would be to reduce poverty, because poverty is expensive in terms of lost productivity and health and justice system costs.

[Michael Hardner]

It all comes down to incentives and the fundamentally selfish nature of humans. Communism and socialism fail because they presume that humans are altruistic are will work for the greater good. Capitalism works because it only expects people to work for themselves.

The trick for capitalism how to maintaining a social structure that makes everyone feel that they have a fair chance at success without simply turning into a variant of communism where no one benefits from the 'fruits of their labours'. It is not an easy line to walk.

Absolute altruism isn't possible, but neither will humans permit absolute greed. Power and wealth will be limited by some means, which is to say by force if necessary.

The word 'structure' is interesting, as new structures are emerging that will, I suspect, demand complete monitoring and compliance. The value of privacy will eventually lose out to the value of 'order'.

[TimG]

The rich don't seem to care much about their taxes being spent efficiently, since they seem to like subsidies for themselves just fine.

If the government offers free money few people are going to turn it down - whether it is welfare or business subsidies. Also the people receiving the free money will always convince themselves that they are entitled to it.

The perception of the efficiency of the government always comes from whether others think the spending produces fair outcomes. i.e. the movie industry receives a lot of subsidies which pad the bottom line of many businesses but those same subsidies mean skilled people have work in Canada. So a free market purest will object to them but most people support them.

Green subsidies line the pockets of big corporate interests and increase the cost of electricity so they are seen as unfair by anyone who does not benefit directly or is not a fanatic on the CO2 question. This kind of spending is seen as wasteful.

Welfare that serves as a bridge for people in need is widely supported. Welfare that encourages people to stay on welfare is seen as bad.

Edited February 24, 2013 by TimG

[Canuckistani]

If the government offers free money few people are going to turn it down - whether it is welfare or business subsidies. Also the people receiving the free money will always convince themselves that they are entitled to it.

In the case of the rich, the govt isn't offering, the rich are demanding - they own governmen to a very large exetent. Now maybe they feel since they pay the most taxes they deserve it, but it's not helpful. Efficient spending would be investing it in people so they need less govt help, or minimize costs to govt. Like it's cheaper to pay for supportive housing for the homeless than have the health and criminal systems deal with them.

[TimG]

In the case of the rich, the govt isn't offering, the rich are demanding - they own governmen to a very large exetent.

You are making gross generalization. I don't argue that industries will often argue for subsidies because it is seen as a way to promote a business but that does not mean the business people arguing for such subsidies think they are good thing for society - all it means is they are looking after the best interests of their corporations.

Efficient spending would be investing it in people so they need less govt help, or minimize costs to govt. Like it's cheaper to pay for supportive housing for the homeless than have the health and criminal systems deal with them.

A good example because it plays right into the perception of fairness. Why should homeless people be given 500K homes (the price for social housing in downtown Vancouver) when poor and middle class people cannot hope to afford them? In fact, a government that routinely made 500K homes available to homeless would find that the homeless population increased as more people sought access to the free homes.

When it comes to government spending the effect of unintended incentives cannot be left out of the cost benefit equation and when you consider that effect it is much more efficient to only supply a bare minimum of housing.

Edited February 24, 2013 by TimG