You might find a book I discovered last December to be interesting reading. It’s a copiously annotated look at the roots, both historically and philosophically, of what we call “Progressivism”. Written by a scholar and published by an Ivy League university, it avoids much of the stridency that comes with political subjects, but because of what it reveals far from stuffy and dull.
Those who call themselves “progressives” seem to take great pride in being on the front lines against bigotry and especially racism, but this book reveals, through numerous quotations by famous American leaders, its foundational principle to be exactly the opposite. A good example is the minimum wage, which is today a pet cause progressives champion for reaching “social justice”. It turns out that the minimum wage was first conceived of as a way to price the “inferior races” (which at that time included pretty much everyone except Anglo-Saxon males) out of the labor market so the “deserving” ones would no longer have their jobs threatened. Unlike now, when progressives claim that the minimum wage doesn’t cause unemployment, no one questioned it at the time because THAT WAS EXACTLY THE POINT OF IT!
The term “progressive” referred to “progress” in the same sense that the new technologies such as railroads and telegraph seemed to be on a linear march toward a glorious future for everyone. It was meant to denote the principle that an elite class of people (Anglo-Saxon academics, who, probably not coincidentally, thought all this up) should rule the country because only they, uniquely equipped with the tools of science, knew what was best for the hopelessly stupid masses … especially the Negroes, the Jews and the Catholic immigrants from southern Europe. The Constitution, they felt, especially the Bill of Rights, was an anachronistic throwback to a long-gone agrarian age and should be ignored, if not be formally discarded.
There is much, much more, including how the progressives championed eugenics (now completely exposed as pseudo-science) as a means to curtail the propagation of the “inferior races”, but I won’t try to rewrite the book here. Have a look yourself, I think you’ll be fascinated.
And, no, I don’t get any remuneration for hyping this book! I’m just referring you to it because it has been a huge eye-opener for me and I think it might be something you’ll find interesting too.
