Classic Liberalism V.S. Progressivism.

[Bfgrn]

Which Bible did you pull that out of?



Why do people think that, because they never read something, no one else ever has either?

Your scriptures have no bearing on my statement.

Matthew 25:34-40
The Final Judgment

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

You cannot Legislate Salvation. You can live by example.

If our government is 'of the people, by the people and for the people' and our country is founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs; shouldn't our government reflect those beliefs?

"Our sense of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply religious faith, and I don't care what it is. With us of course it is the Judeo-Christian concept, but it must be a religion that all men are created equal."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the Freedoms Foundation in New York

 

[Intense]

Your scriptures have no bearing on my statement.

Matthew 25:34-40
The Final Judgment

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

You cannot Legislate Salvation. You can live by example.

If our government is 'of the people, by the people and for the people' and our country is founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs; shouldn't our government reflect those beliefs?

"Our sense of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply religious faith, and I don't care what it is. With us of course it is the Judeo-Christian concept, but it must be a religion that all men are created equal."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the Freedoms Foundation in New York

A Letter Concerning Toleration
by John Locke
1689
Translated by William Popple

John Locke: A Letter Concerning Toleration

It's a Great Read when you get used to the style. You will recognize some amazing things there.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Locke viewed Separation Of Church and State as a Christian concept. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and God , what is God's. Salvation is God's. Value, Principle, and Ideal, that we perceive come from God, we share and apply, within Society and Government, Dogma, we leave to Church.

Within the Jurisdiction of Law, We are in Theory Equal. I believe Personally that We are Each Unique. Each with different Measures, different crosses to bear, different missions in live. I don't believe that we are Equal in the sense that We are interchangeable. We Each have Value. We are Each Precious and of value to God, it isn't for us to determine in what order.

 

[bripat9643]

"Adam Smith's position on the role of the state in a capitalist society was close to that of a modern twentieth century US liberal democrat." Spence J. Pack

ROFL! I've never seen anything posted in this forum that is farther from the truth. Adam Smith was a believer in free enterprise. Liberal Democrats are socialists. In fact, they are Marxists.

No one is fooled by this kind of demagoguery.

You know what the drill instructor used to say about opinions, still holds.

Yeah, and makes yours any better than anyone else's?

I have been reading several books on the evolution of ideas and personalities, and the only evident or obvious conclusion one can come regarding this sort of interpretation is that it is incomplete, and often wrong or biased. Too often when reading history we find what we were looking for or find the sources that agree with what we are looking for.

Your post certainly proved it.

I was reading Isaiah Berlin and Peter Watson recently and was struck by the complexity and the time frames change requires. But Adam Smith and Thomas Paine, for instance, were modern day liberals when you read deep into their works. If we understand, and I think we can, that liberalism is a changing dynamic, then modern liberalism is simply modern liberalism with its roots in 18Th century enlightenment. See historian below.

Tom Paine and Adam Smith were 180 degrees apart in their position on economic issues. Lumping together into the same basket only demonstrates your complete ignorance of what they believed in. Either that, or your utter dishonesty.

"This important shift in Wood’s thinking helped him and the rest of us understand more clearly the emergence of liberalism in 19th-century America, since mere feelings of benevolence proved too weak at that time to restrain the overriding commercial values of individualism and self-interest. Whether the modern virtues of fellow feeling and decency (efficacious in social life) can by themselves constitute a significant force in the political realm is the question Wood’s analysis raises. In other words, one is led to wonder whether politeness alone — without a commitment to shared sacrifice — is sufficient to merit the title of civic virtue, and hence to serve as the foundation of a politics that takes seriously the idea of the common good." Tim Casey http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/evolving-ideas-of-america.html?ref=todayspaper

So Adam Smith and the Founding Fathers didn't endorse socialism because they didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings?

That has to be on the Top Ten List of most idiotic claims ever posted.

Man, you kill me.

"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship , the rich and powerful, and to despise, or, at least neglect persons of poor and mean conditions...is...the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments." Adam Smith

You searched through an entire book and found one quote that appears to support your prejudices? Can you show us where Smith came out in favor of a progressive income tax? How about expropriation of property? How about massive social programs?

I didn't think so.

Now slither back into your hole.

 

[bripat9643]

Wow...all I can say is wow.. A Lawyer who believes in the constitution does not limit the power of the federal government, this is unbelievable to me. So the founders spent all this blood and treasure to break away from a tyrannical government only to create another?..Wow.

Yeah, that just floored me. Why have a Constitution at all if you do not want to limit the power of the federal government? Stalin would be perfectly happy with Jillian's understanding of the document. Of course, that's exactly what Jillian is, a Stalinist. She's a Stalinist dingbat.

 

[Intense]

5. Limits on Government and the Integrity of the Private Sphere

For the Founders, the purpose of government is to protect the private sphere, which they regarded as the proper home of both the high and the low, of the important and the merely urgent, of God, religion, and science, as well as providing for the needs of the body. The experience of religious persecution had convinced the Founders that government was incompetent at directing man in his highest endeavors. The requirements of liberty, they thought, meant that self-interested private associations had to be permitted, not because they are good in themselves, but because depriving individuals of freedom of association would deny the liberty that is necessary for the health of society and the flourishing of the individual.

For the Founders, although government was grounded in divine law (i.e., the laws of nature and of nature's God), government was seen as a merely human thing, bound up with all the strengths and weaknesses of human nature. Government had to be limited both because it was dangerous if it got too powerful and because it was not supposed to provide for the highest things in life.

Because of the Progressives' tendency to view the state as divine and the natural as low, they no longer looked upon the private sphere as that which was to be protected by government. Instead, the realm of the private was seen as the realm of selfishness and oppression. Private property was especially singled out for criticism. Some Progressives openly or covertly spoke of themselves as socialists.

Woodrow Wilson did so in an unpublished writing. A society like the Founders' that limits itself to protecting life, liberty, and property was one in which, as Wilson wrote with only slight exaggeration, "all that government had to do was to put on a policeman's uniform and say, 'Now don't anybody hurt anybody else.'" Wilson thought that such a society was unable to deal with the conditions of modern times.

Wilson rejected the earlier view that "the ideal of government was for every man to be left alone and not interfered with, except when he interfered with somebody else; and that the best government was the government that did as little governing as possible." A government of this kind is unjust because it leaves men at the mercy of predatory corporations. Without government management of those corporations, Wilson thought, the poor would be destined to indefinite victimization by the wealthy. Previous limits on government power must be abolished. Accordingly, Progressive political scientist Theodore Woolsey wrote, "The sphere of the state may reach as far as the nature and needs of man and of men reach, including intellectual and aesthetic wants of the individual, and the religious and moral nature of its citizens."

However, this transformation is still in the future, for Progress takes place through historical development. A sign of the Progressives' unlimited trust in unlimited political authority is Dewey's remark in his "Ethics of Democracy" that Plato's Republic presents us with the "perfect man in the perfect state." What Plato's Socrates had presented as a thought experiment to expose the nature and limits of political life is taken by Dewey to be a laudable obliteration of the private sphere by government mandate. In a remark that the Founders would have found repugnant, Progressive political scientist John Burgess wrote that "the most fundamental and indispensable mark of statehood" was "the original, absolute, unlimited, universal power over the individual subject, and all associations of subjects."

The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics

 

[Londoner]

What's interesting is the Orwellian way Reagan centralized power in precisely the way he claims the progressivism did.

Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Act. In fact, movement conservatism has been waging a war on it for over 30 years.

The Sherman Act was one of the things which protected competition by preventing mega-mergers, which mergers allowed one group of people to consolidate control over markets and thereby control the life and choices of free society. (this market control allowed them to make unprecedented profits, which profits were poured into movement conservatism for the purpose of maintaining a system which gave a small cluster of corporations control over American life)

Rather than having healthy competition in energy and health care, for example, we now have a tiny cadre of mega-corporations controlling everything. It is unsurprising that big oil funded the Reagan ascendancy. This gave them the centralized power of Washington to crush Carter and alternative energy, thereby tying us to a future of crippling oil shocks.

Sector after sector has been destroyed by Reagan's mega-merger revolution in the 80's. Now every corner of the market is tightly controlled by Big Money, and its Washington puppets.

Movement Conservatism is correct to warn us against centralized power. Tragically, it is this very movement which has allowed a small group of people to gain total control over the economy, politics, and media.

I feel sorry for the well meaning Tea Party patriots. They are fed snappy little narratives about freedom from the very people who have destroyed it.

God Help Us.

 

[Intense]

What's interesting is the Orwellian way Reagan centralized power in precisely the way he claims the progressivism did.

Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Act. In fact, movement conservatism has been waging a war on it for over 30 years.

The Sherman Act was one of the things which protected competition by preventing mega-mergers, which mergers allowed one group of people to consolidate control over politics and the economy and thereby control the life and choices of free society.

Rather than having healthy competition in energy and health care, for example, we now have a tiny cadre of mega-corporations controlling everything. It is unsurprising that big oil funded the Reagan ascendancy. This gave them the centralized power of Washington to crush Carter and alternative energy, thereby tying us to a future of crippling oil shocks.

Sector after sector has been destroyed by Reagan's mega-merger revolution in the 80's. Now every corner of the market is tightly controlled by Big Money, and its Washington puppets.

Movement Conservatism is correct to warn us against centralized power. Tragically, it is this very movement which has allowed a small group of people to gain total control over the economy, politics, and media.

I feel sorry for the well meaning Tea Party patriots. They are fed snappy little narratives about freedom from the very people who have destroyed it.

God Help Us.

I'm Tea Party, and I cannot remember a time in my life where I was not Anti-Monopoly. I don't like the mergers either, nor the loop holes.

 

[Dragon]

ROFL! I've never seen anything posted in this forum that is farther from the truth. Adam Smith was a believer in free enterprise. Liberal Democrats are socialists. In fact, they are Marxists.

That is further from the truth than what he said. As a former Marxist, I can say with complete confidence that liberal democrats are not Marxists.

As for Adam Smith, one must understand the context. He favored a free market because, for him, in his world and his society, the alternative was an economy in which the government granted monopolies to titled nobility and favored companies. Since all liberalism -- classical or modern -- is about protecting the liberty of the common man from the elite, the rich, and the powerful, given that choice, obviously a free market is to be preferred.

Another way to put this is that Smith believed in a free market because he had never in fact seen one, but thought it would be a big improvement over what he did see. His values, and those of classical liberals generally, were the same as those of modern liberals. Those who think that the core values of classical liberalism included "small government" are confusing means with ends.

 

[Intense]

Those who think that the core values of classical liberalism included "small government" are confusing means with ends.

Funny how the Totalitarian never sees Himself the way others do. No One is beyond Corruption. It's why we have Limited Government, Due Process, and "Checks and Balances". The Progressive, by Placing Government on a Pedestal, gives priority of the Means over the Purpose. Everything must be sacrificed i saving face. Wrong. Government is a Construct, meant to bend to the will and need of the People. Not the other way around. We conform to What we as a whole consent to. The Society educates, with or without, or in spite of Government. Government is not the Center. Government is not the Catch All. Government is not God. It's power is derived from consent and good will, not arbitrary Mandate, which is not Justified. You got something new? Consider gaining the Approval of the People before shoving it down our throats.

 

[Dragon]

Funny how the Totalitarian never sees Himself the way others do.

False dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Totalitarianism is not under discussion nor on the table. Neither classical liberals nor modern liberals/progressives are totalitarians.

Due process, checks and balances, public accountability, and limitations on government infringement of human rights, are now as they have always been core features of liberalism. No liberal "puts the government on a pedestal." All liberals view it with caution and suspicion. Willingness to use government power in order to restrain private power to oppress does not change this. You are not talking about liberalism at all, in any form, at any time in history. In fact, offhand I'd say you don't know what liberalism is. But then, that would follow from this entire thread, which is based on a completely false premise.

 

[Toro]

"Classic Liberalism" is a made up term by conservatives. "Liberalism" is not "classic". Its a philosophy of growth geared to the betterment of Humanity. It does not adhere to tradition. That's the realm of Conservatism.

lib·er·al   /ˈlɪbərəl, ˈlɪbrəl/ Show Spelled[lib-er-uhl, lib-ruhl] Show IPA
adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. ( often initial capital letter ) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
EXPAND6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, especially free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: a liberal donor.
10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.
12. of, pertaining to, or based on the liberal arts.
13. of, pertaining to, or befitting a freeman.
COLLAPSEnoun
14. a person of liberal principles or views, especially in politics or religion.

That is the typical progressive argument. Unfortunately for you, philosophy actually disagrees.

2.1 Classical Liberalism

Liberal political theory, then, fractures over the conception of liberty. But a more important division concerns the place of private property and the market order. For classical liberals — sometimes called the ‘old’ liberalism — liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century right up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live her life —including employing her labor and her capital — as she sees fit. Indeed, classical liberals and libertarians have often asserted that in some way liberty and property are really the same thing; it has been argued, for example, that all rights, including liberty rights, are forms of property; others have maintained that property is itself a form of freedom (Gaus, 1994; Steiner, 1994). A market order based on private property is thus seen as an embodiment of freedom (Robbins, 1961: 104). Unless people are free to make contracts and to sell their labour, or unless they are free to save their incomes and then invest them as they see fit, or unless they are free to run enterprises when they have obtained the capital, they are not really free.


-----


2.2 The ‘New Liberalism’

What has come to be known as ‘new’, ‘revisionist’, ‘welfare state’, or perhaps best, ‘social justice’, liberalism challenges this intimate connection between personal liberty and a private property based market order (Freeden, 1978; Gaus, 1983b; Paul, Miller and Paul, 2007). Three factors help explain the rise of this revisionist theory. First, the new liberalism arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period in which the ability of a free market to sustain what Lord Beveridge (1944: 96) called a ‘prosperous equilibrium’ was being questioned. Believing that a private property based market tended to be unstable, or could, as Keynes argued (1973 [1936]), get stuck in an equilibrium with high unemployment, new liberals came to doubt that it was an adequate foundation for a stable, free society. Here the second factor comes into play: just as the new liberals were losing faith in the market, their faith in government as a means of supervising economic life was increasing. This was partly due to the experiences of the First World War, in which government attempts at economic planning seemed to succeed (Dewey, 1929: 551-60); more importantly, this reevaluation of the state was spurred by the democratization of western states, and the conviction that, for the first time, elected officials could truly be, in J.A. Hobson's phrase ‘representatives of the community’ (1922: 49). As D.G. Ritchie proclaimed:

be it observed that arguments used against ‘government’ action, where the government is entirely or mainly in the hands of a ruling class or caste, exercising wisely or unwisely a paternal or grandmotherly authority — such arguments lose their force just in proportion as the government becomes more and more genuinely the government of the people by the people themselves (1896: 64).​

Liberalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In other words, the major difference between a classical liberal and a modern liberal/progressive is the belief that government can be taken out of the hands of the ruling class and actually represent the people, and that property rights are actually a barrier to liberty. The problem is that once progreesives started working toward this ideal they actually became part of the ruling class, and exacerbated the problem they were trying to fix.

Classical liberals are often called "libertarians" today.

 

[Intense]

Funny how the Totalitarian never sees Himself the way others do.

False dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Totalitarianism is not under discussion nor on the table. Neither classical liberals nor modern liberals/progressives are totalitarians.

Due process, checks and balances, public accountability, and limitations on government infringement of human rights, are now as they have always been core features of liberalism. No liberal "puts the government on a pedestal." All liberals view it with caution and suspicion. Willingness to use government power in order to restrain private power to oppress does not change this. You are not talking about liberalism at all, in any form, at any time in history. In fact, offhand I'd say you don't know what liberalism is. But then, that would follow from this entire thread, which is based on a completely false premise.

Totalitarianism is not under discussion nor on the table. Neither classical liberals nor modern liberals/progressives are totalitarians.

That is not for you to determine. Not your Call.

Statist = Totalitarian.

 

[Toro]

"Classic Liberalism" is a made up term by conservatives. "Liberalism" is not "classic". Its a philosophy of growth geared to the betterment of Humanity. It does not adhere to tradition. That's the realm of Conservatism.

exactly.

but glen beck says there's such a thing as "classic liberalism", so it must be true, right?

It's actually "classical liberalism". and you're equating Toro with Glen Beck.

He has more money than I do...

 

[Intense]

2. The Debate Between the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’
2.1 Classical Liberalism

Liberal political theory, then, fractures over the conception of liberty. But a more important division concerns the place of private property and the market order. For classical liberals — sometimes called the ‘old’ liberalism — liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century right up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live her life —including employing her labor and her capital — as she sees fit. Indeed, classical liberals and libertarians have often asserted that in some way liberty and property are really the same thing; it has been argued, for example, that all rights, including liberty rights, are forms of property; others have maintained that property is itself a form of freedom (Gaus, 1994; Steiner, 1994). A market order based on private property is thus seen as an embodiment of freedom (Robbins, 1961: 104). Unless people are free to make contracts and to sell their labour, or unless they are free to save their incomes and then invest them as they see fit, or unless they are free to run enterprises when they have obtained the capital, they are not really free.

Classical liberals employ a second argument connecting liberty and private property. Rather than insisting that the freedom to obtain and employ private property is simply one aspect of people's liberty, this second argument insists that private property is the only effective means for the protection of liberty. Here the idea is that the dispersion of power that results from a free market economy based on private property protects the liberty of subjects against encroachments by the state. As F.A. Hayek argues, ‘There can be no freedom of press if the instruments of printing are under government control, no freedom of assembly if the needed rooms are so controlled, no freedom of movement if the means of transport are a government monopoly’ (1978: 149).

Although classical liberals agree on the fundamental importance of private property to a free society, the classical liberal tradition itself refracts into a spectrum of views, from near-anarchist to those that attribute a significant role to the state in economic and social policy (on this spectrum, see Mack and Gaus, 2004). Towards the most extreme ‘libertarian’ end of the classical liberal spectrum are views of justified states as legitimate monopolies that may with justice charge for their necessary rights-protection services: taxation is legitimate so long as it is necessary to protect liberty and property rights. As we go further ‘leftward’ we encounter classical liberal views that allow taxation for (other) public goods and social infrastructure and, moving yet further ‘left’, some classical liberal views allow for a modest social minimum.(e.g., Hayek, 1976: 87). Most nineteenth century classical liberal economists endorsed a variety of state policies, encompassing not only the criminal law and enforcement of contracts, but the licensing of professionals, health, safety and fire regulations, banking regulations, commercial infrastructure (roads, harbors and canals) and often encouraged unionization (Gaus, 1983b). Although today classical liberalism is often associated with extreme forms of libertarianism, the classical liberal tradition was centrally concerned with bettering the lot of the working class. The aim, as Bentham put it, was to make the poor richer, not the rich poorer (Bentham, 1952 [1795]: vol. 1, 226n). Consequently, classical liberals reject the redistribution of wealth as a legitimate aim of government.
2.2 The ‘New Liberalism’

What has come to be known as ‘new’, ‘revisionist’, ‘welfare state’, or perhaps best, ‘social justice’, liberalism challenges this intimate connection between personal liberty and a private property based market order (Freeden, 1978; Gaus, 1983b; Paul, Miller and Paul, 2007). Three factors help explain the rise of this revisionist theory. First, the new liberalism arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period in which the ability of a free market to sustain what Lord Beveridge (1944: 96) called a ‘prosperous equilibrium’ was being questioned. Believing that a private property based market tended to be unstable, or could, as Keynes argued (1973 [1936]), get stuck in an equilibrium with high unemployment, new liberals came to doubt that it was an adequate foundation for a stable, free society. Here the second factor comes into play: just as the new liberals were losing faith in the market, their faith in government as a means of supervising economic life was increasing. This was partly due to the experiences of the First World War, in which government attempts at economic planning seemed to succeed (Dewey, 1929: 551-60); more importantly, this reevaluation of the state was spurred by the democratization of western states, and the conviction that, for the first time, elected officials could truly be, in J.A. Hobson's phrase ‘representatives of the community’ (1922: 49). As D.G. Ritchie proclaimed:

be it observed that arguments used against ‘government’ action, where the government is entirely or mainly in the hands of a ruling class or caste, exercising wisely or unwisely a paternal or grandmotherly authority — such arguments lose their force just in proportion as the government becomes more and more genuinely the government of the people by the people themselves (1896: 64).

The third factor underlying the development of the new liberalism was probably the most fundamental: a growing conviction that, so far from being ‘the guardian of every other right’ (Ely, 1992: 26), property rights generated an unjust inequality of power that led to a less-than-equal liberty (typically, ‘positive liberty&#8217 for the working class. This theme is central to what is usually called ‘liberalism’ in American politics, combining a strong endorsement of civil and personal liberties with, at best, an indifference, and often enough an antipathy, to private ownership. The seeds of this newer liberalism can be found in Mill's On Liberty. Although Mill insisted that the ‘so-called doctrine of Free Trade’ rested on ‘equally solid’ grounds as did the ‘principle of individual liberty’ (1963, vol. 18: 293), he nevertheless insisted that the justifications of personal and economic liberty were distinct. And in his Principles of Political Economy Mill consistently emphasized that it is an open question whether personal liberty can flourish without private property (1963, vol. 2; 203-210), a view that Rawls was to reassert over a century later (2001: Part IV).

Liberalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Bfgrn]

Debate and argument over the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist papers has been going on for over 200 years by and between citizens, scholars, theologians and polemics. It is nothing new, and our founder's true intent on many issues has not become any closer to being resolved.

So when we have an example of how those same men applied all those principles, beliefs and ideas to actual governing, it serves as the best example of how they put all those principles, beliefs and ideas to use. Their actions carry the most weight.

Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.

Early laws regulating corporations in America

*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.

*Corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).

*The state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter if it misbehaved.

*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn’t break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were “just doing their job” when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.

*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.

*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice).

*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.

*Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).

*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.

*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.

*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

The Early Role of Corporations in America

The Legacy of the Founding Parents
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What caused the Progressive movement

We tried unregulated corporations in America. The closest experiment to total deregulation in this country occurred between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 19th century...it was called the Gilded Age; an era where America was as far from our founder's intent of a democratic society and closest to an aristocracy that our founder's were willing to lay down their lives to defeat.

It was opposition to that same Gilded Age that was the genesis of the Progressive movement in this country. When you study history, almost always just cause is behind it.

The only enemies of the Constitution are those who try to wield it as a weapon against the living, by using the words of the dead.
Me

 

[Intense]

Debate and argument over the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist papers has been going on for over 200 years by and between citizens, scholars, theologians and polemics. It is nothing new, and our founder's true intent on many issues has not become any closer to being resolved.

So when we have an example of how those same men applied all those principles, beliefs and ideas to actual governing, it serves as the best example of how they put all those principles, beliefs and ideas to use. Their actions carry the most weight.

Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.

Early laws regulating corporations in America

*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.

*Corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).

*The state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter if it misbehaved.

*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn’t break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were “just doing their job” when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.

*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.

*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice).

*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.

*Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).

*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.

*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.

*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

The Early Role of Corporations in America

The Legacy of the Founding Parents
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What caused the Progressive movement

We tried unregulated corporations in America. The closest experiment to total deregulation in this country occurred between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 19th century...it was called the Gilded Age; an era where America was as far from our founder's intent of a democratic society and closest to an aristocracy that our founder's were willing to lay down their lives to defeat.

It was opposition to that same Gilded Age that was the genesis of the Progressive movement in this country. When you study history, almost always just cause is behind it.

The only enemies of the Constitution are those who try to wield it as a weapon against the living, by using the words of the dead.
Me

Some good Reason there, with good cause.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"Classic Liberalism" is a made up term by conservatives. "Liberalism" is not "classic". Its a philosophy of growth geared to the betterment of Humanity. It does not adhere to tradition. That's the realm of Conservatism.

That is the typical progressive argument. Unfortunately for you, philosophy actually disagrees.

2.1 Classical Liberalism

Liberal political theory, then, fractures over the conception of liberty. But a more important division concerns the place of private property and the market order. For classical liberals — sometimes called the ‘old’ liberalism — liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century right up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live her life —including employing her labor and her capital — as she sees fit. Indeed, classical liberals and libertarians have often asserted that in some way liberty and property are really the same thing; it has been argued, for example, that all rights, including liberty rights, are forms of property; others have maintained that property is itself a form of freedom (Gaus, 1994; Steiner, 1994). A market order based on private property is thus seen as an embodiment of freedom (Robbins, 1961: 104). Unless people are free to make contracts and to sell their labour, or unless they are free to save their incomes and then invest them as they see fit, or unless they are free to run enterprises when they have obtained the capital, they are not really free.


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2.2 The ‘New Liberalism’

What has come to be known as ‘new’, ‘revisionist’, ‘welfare state’, or perhaps best, ‘social justice’, liberalism challenges this intimate connection between personal liberty and a private property based market order (Freeden, 1978; Gaus, 1983b; Paul, Miller and Paul, 2007). Three factors help explain the rise of this revisionist theory. First, the new liberalism arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period in which the ability of a free market to sustain what Lord Beveridge (1944: 96) called a ‘prosperous equilibrium’ was being questioned. Believing that a private property based market tended to be unstable, or could, as Keynes argued (1973 [1936]), get stuck in an equilibrium with high unemployment, new liberals came to doubt that it was an adequate foundation for a stable, free society. Here the second factor comes into play: just as the new liberals were losing faith in the market, their faith in government as a means of supervising economic life was increasing. This was partly due to the experiences of the First World War, in which government attempts at economic planning seemed to succeed (Dewey, 1929: 551-60); more importantly, this reevaluation of the state was spurred by the democratization of western states, and the conviction that, for the first time, elected officials could truly be, in J.A. Hobson's phrase ‘representatives of the community’ (1922: 49). As D.G. Ritchie proclaimed:

be it observed that arguments used against ‘government’ action, where the government is entirely or mainly in the hands of a ruling class or caste, exercising wisely or unwisely a paternal or grandmotherly authority — such arguments lose their force just in proportion as the government becomes more and more genuinely the government of the people by the people themselves (1896: 64).​

Liberalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In other words, the major difference between a classical liberal and a modern liberal/progressive is the belief that government can be taken out of the hands of the ruling class and actually represent the people, and that property rights are actually a barrier to liberty. The problem is that once progreesives started working toward this ideal they actually became part of the ruling class, and exacerbated the problem they were trying to fix.

Classical liberals are often called "libertarians" today.

True.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Funny how the Totalitarian never sees Himself the way others do.

False dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Totalitarianism is not under discussion nor on the table. Neither classical liberals nor modern liberals/progressives are totalitarians.

Due process, checks and balances, public accountability, and limitations on government infringement of human rights, are now as they have always been core features of liberalism. No liberal "puts the government on a pedestal." All liberals view it with caution and suspicion. Willingness to use government power in order to restrain private power to oppress does not change this. You are not talking about liberalism at all, in any form, at any time in history. In fact, offhand I'd say you don't know what liberalism is. But then, that would follow from this entire thread, which is based on a completely false premise.

Progressives are totalitarians because they want to increase the power of the government in order to accomplish their goals, they just see that as being good because they oppose power in other people's hands.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Understandably, as with most conservatives, Pestritto fails to understand that progressivism is fundamentally anti-dogmatic; that there is a static component of pragmatism which allows progressives the ability to adapt and change as society changes.

Progressives are opposed to reactionaryism and advocate embracing change rather than futilely resisting it, as is common with most conservatives.

This is the basic reason why conservatives hate progressives: it has nothing to do with the positions progressives take on the issues per se, but the fact that progressives, unlike conservatives, don’t adhere blindly to sanctioned dogma.

The intrinsic pragmatic nature of progressivism, therefore, renders false the accusation that progressives advocate a ‘one size fits all’ government approach to addressing national issues. In fact, this hasn’t been a staple of progressive thought for over 50 years.

By the end of the 20th Century, progressivism had evolved into a synthesis of pragmatic doctrine representing ‘beliefs’ from across the political spectrum. Progressives are advocates of free markets, for example, but also realize that some government regulation is necessary.

In essence, progressives believe that no idea or solution should be rejected out of hand simply because that idea or solution comes from the ‘wrong’ political camp, as practiced by conservatives. Solutions should be based on the facts and evidence, indicating what will work, regardless its political origin.

Jonesy, do you send your shirts out to be stuffed, or do you do it yourself?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Debate and argument over the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist papers has been going on for over 200 years by and between citizens, scholars, theologians and polemics. It is nothing new, and our founder's true intent on many issues has not become any closer to being resolved.

So when we have an example of how those same men applied all those principles, beliefs and ideas to actual governing, it serves as the best example of how they put all those principles, beliefs and ideas to use. Their actions carry the most weight.

Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.

Early laws regulating corporations in America

*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.

*Corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).

*The state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter if it misbehaved.

*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn’t break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were “just doing their job” when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.

*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.

*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice).

*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.

*Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).

*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.

*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.

*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

The Early Role of Corporations in America

The Legacy of the Founding Parents
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What caused the Progressive movement

We tried unregulated corporations in America. The closest experiment to total deregulation in this country occurred between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 19th century...it was called the Gilded Age; an era where America was as far from our founder's intent of a democratic society and closest to an aristocracy that our founder's were willing to lay down their lives to defeat.

It was opposition to that same Gilded Age that was the genesis of the Progressive movement in this country. When you study history, almost always just cause is behind it.

The only enemies of the Constitution are those who try to wield it as a weapon against the living, by using the words of the dead.
Me

I love it when someone argues I do not understand history, and then proceeds to prove they do not by making invalid comparisons to history in an attempt to make their point.

Early corporations were restricted because they were not part of the market, not because the Founders did not believe in self regulation of the market. The corporations you view as being highly regulated were actually legal monopolies, and the charters were actually government writs that prevented other companies from competing with those corporations.

Why anyone would think that is a good idea is beyond me.