[This blog is in the midst of a series of
postings that aims to share with the reader a history – albeit highly summary
in nature – of the nation from the perspective of a dialectic struggle. That would be the struggle between a cultural
perspective that emphasizes a more communal and cooperative view of federalism
and the individualistic perspective of the natural rights construct.
The general argument this blog has made is that
federalism enjoyed the dominant cultural position in the US until World War II,
and after a short transition, the natural rights view has been dominant. Whether one perspective is dominant or the
other, whichever it is, that fact has a profound impact on the teaching of
civics in American classrooms.]
The story of the struggle between federalism (a
communal, collaborative view) and natural rights (a transactional, individualistic
view) was affected by a strong push toward individualism with the advent and
development of industrialization. That
first occurred in the late 1800s as the nation came under the influence of
rugged individualism in the economic sector.
This initial versions of laissez faire economics or free market
mentality took a strong hold among the entrepreneurial class as the emergence
of large national corporations became central in the nation’s economy.
It did not take long for an opposing political movement to challenge
the position of power those entities occupied.
But before identifying that movement, a word about what it saw as the main
objections it identified as being egregious to the ideal values and beliefs it
claimed American political culture represented.
Under the federalist view, people are entitled
to their basic integrity. This was
mocked by the realities of industrialization, especially among the nation’s
working class, farmers, and small business class. To describe one of these conditions under which
factory and other blue-collar workers were working, one finds the following:
The
working conditions in factories were often harsh. Hours were long, typically ten to twelve
hours a day. Working conditions were frequently
unsafe and led to deadly accidents.
Tasks tended to be divided for efficiency’s sake which led to repetitive
and monotonous work for employees.[1]
To a comparable degree, the other sectors –
farmers and the small business class – were facing equally challenging economic
environments where the interests of large corporations took center stage in the
political arenas of the nation. To that stage,
the Progressive movement aimed to improve the conditions of average Americans.
As the last posting left off, the Progressives
were divided. On one side were those who
argued that the corporations should be regulated to protect the interests of
local communities, small businesses, workers, and small farmers (workers, in
the form of burgeoning labor unions, and small farmers, in the form of grangers
and farmers’ alliances). This
“regulating” side – that is, they favored national and especially state level
regulations enacted by the respective jurisdictions – was led by Justice Louise
Brandies, and to some extent Woodrow Wilson.
Their argument was:
Even
if it could be shown that they were more efficient than small units, monopolies
[which large corporations sought and accomplished to establish] posed a threat
to democracy that outweighed any economic benefits they might bring. Brandeis rejected the notion that bigness
itself is no offense, for he believed “that our society, which rests upon
democracy, cannot endure under such conditions … You cannot have true American
citizenship, you cannot preserve political liberty, you cannot secure American
standards of living unless some degree of industrial liberty accompanies
it. And the United States Steel
Corporation and these other trusts have stabbed industrial liberty in the
back.” Some defended monopoly by
pointing to the wastefulness of competition.
“Undoubtedly competition involves some waste, but we have compensations
in democracy which far outweigh that waste and make it more efficient than absolutism. So[,] it is with competition.”[2]
On
the other side of the debate was the advocacy for a “New Nationalism” led by
Theodore Roosevelt. According to
Roosevelt, it was too late to go back to the days before national corporations. The corporations provided too many material
things at efficient costs to be thwarted in their basic operations. Along with Herbert Croly, the President
argued that what was needed was a national cultural union that promoted
national citizenship.
That
citizenship would seek civic virtue by persuading citizens “to rise above the
material preoccupations that threatened to distract them from nobler ends.”[3] Roosevelt and Croly wanted Americans to be
inspired, as they seemed to be during the Civil War, to be honest and
courageous and have common sense duty to national commitment.
Roosevelt said, “Material development means
nothing to a nation as an end in itself.
If America is to stand simply for the accumulation of what tells for
comfort and luxury, then it will stand for little indeed when looked at through
the vistas of ages.”[4] Therefore, what was needed was more
centralization, not less. The
centralized power in the hands of the national government would not only check
the abuses of the large corporations but also inspire a true feeling of
nationhood.
And this distinction, a centralized system as
opposed to a non-centralized system, reflects what Daniel Elazar[5]
distinguishes when he addresses the different forms of republican governance
that have evolved. It turns out that
those distinctions have not only historical relevance to the late 1800s but also
the current debates in Congress. That is
especially the case as the practice of filibustering is being considered in
terms of the Senate debating voting rights legislation.
The next posting will begin by reviewing
Elazar’s delineation of three forms of republican governance: federalism, consociation-ism, and Jacobinism. As a teaser, one can say Roosevelt was
arguing for Jacobinism and Brandeis was partial to federalism. This debate reflects how the nation, at that
time, was dealing with the dialectic struggle against a dominant federalist
view by the growing natural rights view that promoted a transactional approach
to political issues.
While natural rights favored market approaches to economic issues, it, among left-of-center advocates, favored (and still does today) bolstering the power distribution to upgrade the status of those who have subservient and degrading positions in the competition for financial and political assets.[6] That advocacy demands such policies on natural liberty claims. An example would be the legitimization of labor unions[7] or, better still, easier access to the polls.
[1] “America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894 to 1915,” Library
of Congress (n.d.), accessed January 17, 2022, https://www.loc.gov/collections/america-at-work-and-leisure-1894-to-1915/articles-and-essays/america-at-work/#:~:text=The%20working%20conditions%20in%20factories,and%20monotonous%20work%20for%20employees.
[2]
Michael
J. Sandel, Democracy's
Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), 236-237.
[3] Ibid., 218-219.
[4] Ibid., 219.
[5]
Daniel J.
Elazar, Exploring Federalism
(Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of
Alabama Press, 1987).
[6] This concern reflects an area of mutual political
advocacy among liberal, natural right partisans and federalist partisans.
[7]
While labor unions take on federalist structures of organization, they opt to
negotiate from a purely transactional posture.
Whether this is an optimal strategy or not, it is the subject for
another analysis.
No comments:
Post a Comment