Thoughts on a limited understanding of "the progressive"

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The idea of progress and progressive politics has always confused me – I’ve never seen anything especially progressive in the anti-innovation of trades unions, the anti-science of greens or the illiberalism of socialist elites. Yet these groups cluster around an idea of being “progressive” – an idea that, as is often the case with concepts, is merely stated never defined or explained. Or if defined it is done so in terms of support for given institutions or specific policies. By way of example the welcome page of Labour Students describes the organisation as:

“…a campaigning organisation, fighting for progressive values.”

The examples that follow are anti-racism, sexual health and the minimum wage – worthy but not a guide to understanding. So what might these progressive values be and do they derive from concepts of community and mutuality or from the anti-business, anti-liberal ideas of progressivism that developed in the USA? From the idea that the individual must be made subservient to the collective. As Herbert Croly put it:

"The Promise of American Life is to be fulfilled ... by a large measure of individual subordination and self-denial."

The problem comes when – as Croly made clear – we arrive at the view that the existence of democratic institutions is not sufficient alone for there to be a government of the people. To achieve this mankind must progress – in Darwinian terms, evolve – from the state of brute individualism that prevails under the capitalist order. So progressive politics isn’t about progress as the ordinary person would understand but represents an attempt to drive an evolutionary development in man – it is a use of Darwin in a political context.

But then we get to those pesky values our Labour Students glibly refer to – how can we define those? First stop is Bernie Horn writing in The Nation – freedom, opportunity, security, responsibility. Not much help there – these are all pretty slippery words that could be used as successfully by the extreme right and by the ultra left (they are also rather scarily reminiscent of the world state’s motto in that great anti-progressive novel, Brave New World - COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY).

I made a little more progress with this piece by George Lakoff written just after the 2004 Bush election victory:

“If you empathize with your children, you will want them to have strong protection, fair and equal treatment and fulfillment in life. Fulfillment requires freedom, freedom requires opportunity and opportunity requires prosperity. Since your family lives in, and requires, a community, community building and community service are required. Community requires cooperation, which requires trust, which requires honesty and open communication. Those are the progressive values--in politics as well as family life.”

Indeed it’s hard not to see in these words the echo of liberty, the words of Locke, Hume, Bentham & Paine – the champions of enlightenment, liberty and the intellectual fathers of the USA. If we build a polity on these values we build it from the bottom up – from parish, town and county – not from the level of grand and important central government be it in London, Brussels or Washington. Today these great institutions of Government – now largely captured by greens, socialists and self-defined “progressives” – are barriers to that very progress, to the vision painted by Lakoff above.

As I’ve said before, a truly radical approach to government would see it returned to the human level – to real local government – and away from the endless journey towards some world government over which an elite few can reign. The choice for progressives must be either to continue the pretence that the institutions of government must grow ever larger to meet the needs of the people or to embrace the pulling down of those institutions. A true progressive would want small government that encourages participation rather than the elitist, oligarchic, pseudo-democracy we enjoy today. Sadly progressives are too often the great champions of big government.

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