A classic libertarian work is The Decline of American Liberalism by Arthur Ekirch Jr. It’s really a brief history of the United States, chronicling the different trends within liberal thought, and in particular, the change in liberalism from a philosophy of individual liberty into a philosophy of collectivism.
The decline of liberalism, Ekirch argues, began very early. Classical liberalism was never as strong as one might have imagined, and very shortly after the Constitution was written, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, curtailing individual freedom. Even the Jefferson Administration, which removed these things, instituted questionable restrictions on liberty in reaction to European conflicts—in particular, the embargo. Around the same time, American politicians began using government in the service of various economic interests, under the name “internal improvements.” The rise of the Jacksonian Democrats brought a restriction of this tendency, but not as part of a pro-liberty program. Indeed, describing Jackson as a classical liberal is extremely questionable. Even his hostility to the National Bank and economic privilege was based more on a proto-Marxist hostility to capitalism than out of a serious dedication to limited government.
It is very much to Ekirch’s credit that he never makes that transition himself. Ekirch was a liberal in the old-fashioned sense, and unlike so many liberals, he almost never let his hostility to economic power distract him from the dangers of political power.
The strongest part of The Decline is the section on the Progressive era—the real source of today’s anti-individualist politics. During this era, the term “liberal” came to take on a different notion, as the Progressives tried to use government to institute liberal policies. This was doomed from the outset, if for no other reason, than because of the public choice problem: the bureaucracies created to control economic power were quickly taken over by political interests that then exploited that power for their own ends. “In other words,” Ekirch says, in talking of 19th century anti-monopoly laws, “government legislation was the greatest single factor in the decline of the very liberal economy that it sought to preserve and protect.” Trying to attack the Progressive program became increasingly difficult—as it is today—because “economic determinism” became a “weapon[] of social criticism. The contention that all ideas represented economic interests offered a medium through which abstract ideas, hitherto conceived as absolutes, could be tied to the motives of a single class, group, or individual.”
As a result, many former liberals rushed to join the Progressive program, instituting various bureaucracies to manipulate people and the economy for supposedly beneficent ends—only to discover that they had become the very monster they had gone out to combat.
The collapse of idealism in [World War I] and postwar hysteria embittered [reformer Frederic C.] Howe, and he wrote in his Confessions of A Reformer:My attitude toward the state changed as a result of these experiences. I have never been able to bring it back. I became distrustful of the sate. It seemed to want to hurt people; it showed no concern for innocence; it aggrandized itself and protected its power by unscrupulous means. It was not my America; it was something else…. This was the administrative state—the state that often shapes political action, that conspires with congressmen. In a generation’s time, largely through the Civil Service reform movement, America has created an official bureaucracy moved largely by fear, hating initiative, and organized as a solid block to protect itself and its petty, unimaginative, salary-hunting instincts.
Ekich’s book is easy to read, and provides an excellent background in the political evolution of America. If I were teaching a freshman college class in American history, I would probably assign it for an introduction to ideological drift. Check out The Decline of American Liberalism.
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