[This blog is amid a series of postings that
aims to share with the reader a history of the nation – albeit highly summary
in nature – from the perspective of a dialectic struggle. That is the struggle between a cultural
perspective that emphasizes more communal and cooperative ideals 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 last four postings took a side road from
the narrative this blog is sharing. That
overall narrative is a telling of the nation’s experience from a dialectic lens. The narrative reached the debate that the
Progressives started between the followers of a more federalist view – that of
Louis Brandeis – and that of the New Nationalism posed by Theodore Roosevelt.
The federalist view argued for a revitalization
of local communities and jurisdictions to meet the challenges posed by the
newly developed corporations. The
Roosevelt side argued that it was too late for such localism, that these
corporations were too strong and provided too many efficiencies to reenergize
those local entities to again become viable, political forces.
This debate initially motivated this blogger to
address the democratic quality of the US – which is being questioned today –
and, in turn, a further departure was entertained in which the demands of a minority
of supremacists were described and explained to a degree. Of course, this last issue also has current
relevancy.
But to continue the initial narrative, which
side won the debate between the federalists and the nationalists? What resulted was neither a Progressive
movement that restored, to previous levels, a local, communal agenda nor a new
nationalism as defined by Roosevelt and his advisor, political philosopher,
Herbert Croly. What emerged, according
to Michael Sandel,[1] was an
agenda that defined the problem of America as one of bigness but from the
perspective of the consumer.
American consumers demanded professional government,
which was honest and efficient, and as product consumers, they demanded
products that were safe and met those products’ advertised benefits. They, the consumers, demanded recreational
areas, clean environments, and preserved natural beauty. And as laborers, they demanded safety in the workplace
(this last demand was less aggressively pursued). In short, problems were couched in terms of
consumer demands.
Within this agenda, the government could
develop policy without a moral commitment.
After all, the demands were by consumers which called for a utilitarian
approach. If those who demanded the
changes had the votes, the government could provide relief in a detached,
professional mode. This last point
indicates the transactional character of the natural rights view.
The
republican tradition had attributed to economics a broader moral and political
purpose, and the early advocates of antitrust, true to this tradition, had
assessed economic arrangements for their tendency to form citizens capable of
self-government. Arnold [an advocate of
the consumerist view] dismissed this “old religion” as a sentimental notion out
of place in an age of mass production.
He was the first major antitrust advocate to reject altogether the civic
argument for antitrust and to insist exclusively on the consumerist one: “there is only one sensible test which we can
apply to the privilege of [a large] corporation, and that is this: Does it increase the efficiency of production
or distribution and pass the savings on to consumers?”[2]
So, from a psychological point of view, the
Progressive era did significantly encourage Americans to look to the central
government as a more active entity to protect their “consumer” interests in
relation to the economy and the government.
And
the consumerist mode of thinking defined that pronounced role in a neutral form
much like a retail business provides its goods and services to consumers. This neutral approach to the problems
associated with corporate political and economic power and the resulting loss
of civic concern set the stage for the next big blow to localism and community
in American nation. That was the New
Deal.
Like
the Progressive Movement, the New Deal had within itself a debate over the role
of local communities for civic matters.
Spurred by the crisis of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt was
confronted with the decision about whether industrial associations, communities
of interests within each industry as called for under the National Recovery
Act, or whether governmental, central planners should set national economic
policy.
Robert Higgs[3]
provides a useful summary of expenditures that both the federal government and
local/state governments paid during the 1930s, the years that the New Deal was administered. He directly addresses this issue of whether
the New Deal actively set out to diminish or eradicate the role of local
jurisdictions. That image, according to
Higgs, is inaccurate.
For example, states during these years engaged
in “mini–New Deals” to meet the emergencies that the Great Depression presented
all over the nation. Here is what Higgs
writes,
The
foregoing figures might tempt us to conclude that the federal government simply
overwhelmed the other levels of government during the New Deal era, but the
image of the feds riding into Dodge City like James gang and taking over the
town (and Kansas, too) is not true to the facts. Recall first that the state and local
politicians were literally begging for federal bailouts in the early 1930s; the
money was scarcely forced down their throats.
Second, in some states, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and
New York, state politicians embraced the same ideology and political objectives
as the dominant faction in Congress, and they proceeded to enact so-called
Little Deals that implemented state-level reforms, especially union-friendly
labor laws and anti-business tax laws, similar to those the New Dealers enacted
nationally. Twenty-four states adopted
general sales taxes in the 1930s, 20 of them during the period 1933-35.
Third, many of the programs the federal government was
establishing for relief and other purposes were not only financed with matching
grants (in varying proportions), but also administered “cooperatively,” that
is, in large part by state or local employees, especially at the lower
levels. Owing to this style of
administration, state, and local politicians gained considerable control over
the newly created patronage jobs, and in some cases they could also shape the
local rules or select the particular projects to be undertaken. In short, the lower-level politicos were
definitely cut in on the deals.[4]
So, while the New Deal changed the compounded,
federalist majoritarian rule of the US – making it significantly more centralized
– its effort and somewhat success maintained the federal character of the
American system, albeit defined differently.
And with that extended quote by Higgs, this posting will stop, and this blog will next pick up the implications that the New Deal posed for the federalist elements of the American polity as the nation approached World War II.
[Reminder: The reader is reminded that he/she can have
access to the first 100 postings of this blog, under the title, Gravitas: The Blog Book, Volume I. To gain access, he/she can click the
following URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zh3nrZVGAhQDu1hB_q5Uvp8J_7rdN57-FQ6ki2zALpE/edit or click onto the “gateway” posting that allows the reader
access to a set of supplemental postings by this blogger by merely clicking the
URL: http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/
and then look up the posting for October 23, 2021, entitled “A Digression.”]
[1]
Michael
J. Sandel, Democracy's
Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).
[2] Ibid., 241.
[3] Robert Higgs, “The New Deal and
the State and Local Governments: Today’s
Larger and More Centralized Government with the Great Depression,” FEE/Foundation
for Economic Educators (March 1, 2008), accessed February 3, 2022, http://fee.org/articles/the-new-deal-and-the-state-and-local-governments/ .
[4] Ibid.
