Masaccio: The Sorry State of Progressives on Economic Issues

[jtuck004]

Article is interesting, but inside was a recap of history to help the reader understand the context, some things we don't read bout anymore, perhaps, but what we have now was built on top of this.

...
It wasn’t always like this. Here’s a short refresher on economic issues and politics. Beginning in the late 1800s, there was a powerful wave of economic liberalism, fiercely and sometimes violently opposed to the rampant capitalism of the times. Outbreaks of violence include the Ludlow Massacre, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead Strike, where states and the federal government and armed thugs attacked striking working people and their families. Sometimes there were electoral fights such as the campaigns of William Jennings Bryan as a Democrat demanding Free Silver and trust-busting (along with his support for prohibition and against Darwinism). Journalism in the form of the muckrakers like Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair was a vital and vibrant part of the US political scene. I read The Pit and The Octopus by Frank Norris in high school, and they showed in melodrama both the extent of the crimes of the rich of that era, and the damage they did to hard-working people.

The progressives and their labor class supporters had some successes, but many of them were stolen by the Supreme Court in cases like the 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York, which struck down New York’s 60-hour work week for bakers over a vigorous dissent by Oliver Wendell Holmes. That process of victories in the legislature destroyed by the Supreme Court was a constant in the early 1900s. As legislative victories turned to dust, economic progressives became more aggressive. Leftist intellectuals and labor leaders turned to Socialism and Marxism as alternatives to bloody capitalism. Workers continued to strike and there was violence in the streets. The economic elites continued to use their control of state and national government to put down those strikes with more intense violence. The few public figures who espoused Socialism were subject to bad-faith prosecutions and jailed, among them Eugene Debs, jailed on specious charges on the watch of the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and his horrid Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. This was an early example of Democrats running from the shadows of non-capitalist economic theory.

When the Depression came and deepened, the nation seemed to teeter between bitter acceptance and bitter anger. Roosevelt was elected, and progressives played a major role in the economic reforms he adopted. Eventually the Supreme Court was cowed into submission and the absurd idea that they were capable of dealing with economic issues was shelved for a while. The leftist intellectuals of the day were able to install the New Deal and the economy began to recover. With the advent of the Second World War, the economy thrived.

The economic elites suffered short term defeat in the 30s and 40s, but unfortunately, their views were not eradicated. The Republicans took over Congress in the wake of the war, and launched an assault on the Democratic party and its labor allies as infiltrated with communists and socialists. The attack on labor resulted in the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, weakening the ability of unions to organize and setting the stage for further weakening of the union movement and the ability of the working class to protect itself. Majorities of both parties joined approving the bill and in overriding President Truman’s veto.
...

Here.