It is no secret that over the last thirty years the Democratic party gradually alienated and eventually lost a big segment of working-class Americans, especially those without a college degree. How this happened is quite well known. In a nutshell, Democratic politicians adopted the Republican mantra “the market works for all” and let global free trade, labor-replacing technology, and unchecked corporate concentration rule without much thought about their consequences on the industrial and social fabric of the country.
By doing so, Democrats walked away from the most essential and progressive ideas of their own party which ninety years ago had successfully faced the two most existential threats of the nation: the Great Depression and the assault on freedom by Nazism and Fascism. These ideas were: people matter more than economic principles and people will defend their democratic liberties when they know that democracy works for them. In the words of Harvey Kaye (The Fight for The Four Freedoms) these ideas, promulgated by no one else but Franklin Delano Roosevelt, turned the “Greatest Generation” into the most progressive generation in America’s history. Not only that generation embraced FDR’s social and economic message and policies, it also moved ahead of FDR in a quest for a more inclusive and fair social and economic order. Through civic associations, marches, and unionization New Dealers promoted and defended FDR’s agenda in the face of strong and outright resistance from the conservatives, reactionaries, and corporate interests of the day.
From the standpoint of policy conception and execution, FDR’s great insight was that when a nation faces a dire crisis which private institutions and enterprise cannot fix, it is the duty of the government to pull the levers of the state and provide solutions. It was that realization that led to the creation of numerous programs, agencies, and regulations that boosted incomes, provided security to retired people, and harnessed the anti-competitive and abusive impulses of the market. Americans of all walks of life understood the importance of these initiatives and elected FDR president four consecutive times. More remarkably, Kaye writes, FDR’s accomplishments were so much top of mind among the American troops that in letters to their families, soldiers would write they fought to defeat totalitarianism and defend the benefits and security the New Deal had given them.
What expressed the progressivism of the New Deal were two proclamations. The first was the articulation of the Four Essential Freedoms FDR declared on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his/her own way. The third is freedom from want for the necessities of a healthy peacetime life. The fourth is freedom from fear of war. Remarkably, FDR declared these freedoms in the name of all peoples of the world, not just the American people.
The second FDR declaration was his Second Bill of Rights. This came toward the end of his presidency and was supposed to be an encapsulation of his vision and a guiding manifesto for future initiatives. This social bill of rights aimed at securing for all Americans the right to a useful and remunerative job; the right of workers and farmers to earn a living wage; the right of doing business in competitive markets without undue domination by few firms; the right to decent housing; the right to medical care and good health; the right of a decent and secured retirement and protection from sickness, accident, and unemployment; and, finally, the right to a good education. Unfortunately, a less cooperative Congress refused to act on this bill of rights and to this day it remains the unfinished project of the progressive movement.
Roosevelt was able to inspire Americans because he put the common man and woman at the front and center of his politics and policies. He resisted and fought the strenuous objections of rival interests and took their hostile language and actions as a badge of honor. That’s why he earned the respect and admiration of the American people.
There are lessons to be learned from this extraordinary period of reform in American history. First, the efficacy and popularity of the New Deal proved so enduring that even Republican presidents like Eisenhower and Nixon didn’t dare to dismantle it. Instead, they even built on it with infrastructure projects, like Eisenhower’s interstate highway system, and new regulatory initiatives, like Nixon’s Environmental Protection Act. This shows the broad political appeal of the progressive agenda. Second, the promotion of the state as a facilitator, mediator, and regulator in the interest of the common good not only did not lead to economic atrophy but instead laid the foundations for the extraordinary growth and the thirty years of shared prosperity after the World War II.
The most important lesson we can take from FDR’s progressivism is how well he grasped the invidious link between the lack of economic inclusivity, populism, and the demise of democracy. This is particularly relevant to us today. First came the erosion of the balance of power between labor and corporations that was part of the post-War social contract. Then came the philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism that subordinated labor to capital. Then came the unprecedented inequality of incomes and wealth along with the financial and social decline of the ordinary American worker. And finally came the populist backlash that found in Donald Trump its, no matter how questionable, standard bearer. And now we cry out about the threats to Democracy. FDR would tell us “You ignored me at your own peril.”
Unfortunately, in today’s culture of individual comfort and aggrandizement, the classes on the left and the right that benefit the most from the present status quo decry progressivism as radical and impractical. However, ninety years ago large majorities of the American people found in progressivism not only a powerful promise to uphold the dignity of every citizen through social and economic inclusivity, but also the inspiration to stick with democracy and defend it when their world around them was succumbing to the forces of authoritarianism.
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