I don’t care if you call me a progressive or a liberal. I actually consider myself kind of a hybrid between the two. I’m basically a New Deal Democrat without the segregation, and a Progressive Reformer without the holier-than-thou moralism. I’m most likely to disagree with the standard Democratic line on issues of personal liberty, like gun ownership and the right to make shitty lifestyle decisions like drinking, smoking, eating fatty foods and sugary drinks, etc. That also extends to reading my email, listening in to my phone conversations, or throwing me in prison without any due process because you claim I am a terrorist. My basic attitude is that the government should leave me alone and not spy on me, and in return I will pay taxes, obey the law, and show support for things I think the government should be doing.
One thing the government should be doing is keeping rich people in their place. They shouldn’t be able turn this country into a hereditary aristocracy. They shouldn’t be allowed to bankroll politicians. They shouldn’t be allowed to poison our air and water or mistreat their employees. They shouldn’t be able to scam people out of their money with impunity.
I don’t think labels are very important, but I do wonder how people feel about the words ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive.’
I agree completely with everything you said. So, why do we wind up arguing so many times?
I think David Sirota makes the distinctions between the two here (I’m not much of a fan of Sirota either):
The Key Differences Between Progressive and Liberal, and how “Liberal” Thinking Can be Part of the Problem
Liberal is somewhat encompassing. Matt Yglesias is a liberal, but I don’t consider him to be very progressive.
A few years back I was more of a technocrat. Best policy is what we should enforce; ideology is useless. That means we should have single-payer, a carbon tax, increased tax rates on everyone and not just the rich, cutting the defense budget in half, and intervene in foreign affairs in instances like Libya.
Fast forward to now…and I’ve thrown a lot of that out the window. Not that I still don’t favor a lot of those things, but I’ve come to appreciate the importance of ideology because so many people don’t even want the same means. Conservatives can talk about the market providing all sorts of shit, but it hasn’t happened and it will never happen.
Anyway, I tire of labels to a degree as well. For instance, Andrew Sullivan keeps droning on and on and on about “True Burkean Conservatism.” In essence, conservative seems to mean, “Whatever Andrew Sullivan Believes.”
Atrios made a good point about this:
“Nothing really wrong with this Reihan Salam piece, but I’m always struck by the need for conservatives to justify anything they support by arguing that it’s… conservative! Liberals just don’t do that for the most part. There’s no need to shoehorn everything into that ideological box.”
same ends*. Eg, Conservatives have no answer for health care.
See also Freddie DeBoer, who talks about differences between equity in power and equity in means. For instance, many liberals (like Yglesias) don’t care where revenue comes from to pay for “pity charity liberal projects,” they just want more revenue to do it. So tax the shit out of Wall Street bankers to fund programs. The flip side are the labor activists who want to rely on their own wages and bargaining power, not just tax funded benefits:
globalize-grow-give progressivism and its discontents
Speaking of Sirota (it’s hard to find a less insightful supposedly progressive pundit), Nate Silver had a great post several years ago on “the two progressivisms”:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/two-progressivisms.html
Hmmm. How to put this…
“Progressive” is to “Liberal” as “Straight-Acting, on the DL…” is to “Proud Gay Man.”
Liberals aren’t afraid to hold hands in public. Progressives have fabulous roommates.
Think about it. Then all the “Progressives” can flame at me. Tell me why I’m wrong.
Have you been listening to Phil Ochs. Love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal. Except back in 1965, liberals were squishy unwilling to commit, while actual fighters called themselves socialists.
It never changes.
Tell me why I’m wrong
It seems to me that your metaphor doesn’t accurately describe the behavior of “progressives.” They have been hell-raising/shrieking/out-and-proud radicals who scoff at half-a-loaf solutions (for good or ill) for the past decade or so.
I’m very conservative in the way I look at those two words.
My sense of the word “liberal” is almost 18th century, but I don’t buy the current nonsense that liberalism is about Adam Smith laissez-faire. It has to do with the idea of free people engaging in a social contract and having the legitimacy to define the nature of that contract. And it includes the liberal (libertarian is such a contrived word) restraints on government and IMO government-privileged institutions infringements on personal liberty of speech, religion, due process, and you know the rest of the list. And corporations are government-privileged institutions that need restraining.
My view of the word “progressive” goes back to the concerns of the progressive movement of a century ago. Those focused on the extension of methods of participatory democracy–through direct primaries, universal suffrage, elimination of corruption and patronage politics, for example. The focused on competent (now corrupted to technocratic) methods of public administration isolated from interference by vested interests (what we would today call independence from regulatory capture). They focused on rational argument and data-based conclusions as providing guidance for the detailed aspects of government; again, something that has been corrupted to a technocratic bias. And they focused on the elimination of government corruption in permitting, regulation, unequal enforcement of the law, and organized crime.
Progressives insisted on a comprehensive system of education that would educate people who were both capable of freedom (an informed populace) and of contributing to the progress of the society.
Progressives sought restraints on large institutions, especially corporations, through anti-trust legislation, trust-busting, and regulation of commercial activities for health, safety, honesty, and fairness.
Support for organized labor as an institutional counterweight to the political influence of corporations.
Where progressives a century ago pushed for prohibition as a means of reducing corruption and the abuse of women and children, today’s progressives seek decriminalization of drugs and medicalization of drug abuse as reducing corruption, crime, and the school-to-jail conveyor belt for low-income kids. And also more direct laws to handle protections of women and children from abuse.
A century ago, reclamation of land was a progressive objective. Today it is energy sustainability and dealing with global climate change. And a entire ecological framework of thinking that arose out of the 1970s environmental movement.
The important point is that neither of these terms are or should be considered all-encompassing as a description of political identity.
You captured exactly what I was saying. Good comment. Especially about the “data-driven mindset.” That was what I was a few years ago, very technocratic. It’s where a lot of my support for things still lends itself, but I’ve still grown an increased appreciation of ideology simply because of those counterbalancing forces who will not rest until they have it all in terms of both money and power.
The data cannot make the decision about ends. But it can in some very circumscribed circumstances sort out the best means.
Bloomberg is the quintessential bipartisan politician — a nanny capitalist.
“I actually consider myself kind of a hybrid between the two. I’m basically a New Deal Democrat without the segregation, and a Progressive Reformer without the holier-than-thou moralism. I’m most likely to disagree with the standard Democratic line on issues of personal liberty, like gun ownership and the right to make shitty lifestyle decisions like drinking, smoking, eating fatty foods and sugary drinks, etc.”
I agree with all of your description but I’d never want to be called a progressive. To me, that was a moniker adopted by wimps once the GOP was successful in demonizing the word ‘liberal’. Screw them, I’m a proud liberal, and won’t try to run and hide from that by adopting some new nametag.
I would also add to your description: I prefer a strong, activist federal gvt, especially with regard to regulation.
I came into this argument late and didn’t even realize it was a question until a few years ago. The conclusion I have reached since is that very few people know about the history of the terms, and even fewer care. Liberal, for the people I have asked, may call to mind liberty, which is one of those words the Conservatives have claimed for themselves. But more often, it is used in the sense of a “liberal” parent, who has no discipline and doesn’t care enough to be involved in a child’s life. I know that is mostly the fault of the Conservative attack on the word, but it is how many people see it. Progressive does have that baggage, and everyone clearly interprets it as “one who supports progress”.
I prefer Progressive because of its clarity, but also because I am more interested in making things better than I am in arguing principle. I’m not willing to sacrifice principle in the cause of pragmatism, but I am willing to be patient and accept slow progress rather than none. I know a lot of old school liberals find that to be an irritating trait, but I think we have a better chance of selling our policies if we couch then in practical terms. Most people like progress. Let’s use that to our advantage.
Progressive does NOT have that baggage. Sigh.
I’m a bit on the fence about the whole food thing (I’m sure this is a reference to Bloomberg’s limitations on sizes of sodas sold at restaurants)…I understand it’s a bit encroaching, but on the other hand, it’s undeniable that there is way too much shitty food out there to eat that causes Americans to be obese.
That said, the one thing I wish was disclosed more fully is the amount of nutritional information. They’ve gotten a start with disclosing caloric intake, but it’d be handy to have a guide as to what exactly goes into the dish. Some higher-calorie foods may not be as bad, while some lower-calorie dishes can just be loaded with really bad stuff.
Agreed. If obesity continues its trends, we’re going to have no choice but to do what Japan has done and intervene heavily in this sector. I’m not convinced its solely food based (some evidence exists for climate control inside houses as a slight contributor).
It makes me wary, but it might come down to, “we have no choice.” Bans are silly, though. Just go with the soda tax.
The good news (and bad news) is that there are far simpler solutions to the food problems we have than Bloomberg’s approach: putting a price on Carbon and eliminating all crop subsidies.
By getting rid of subsidies for corn and other staples, it’d make non-nutritional calories more expensive and shift the food system towards a greater diversity of crops. By implementing a progressive clean energy dividend to put a price on carbon, it’d also shift things away from megafarms that cut corners and instead re-diversify and re-distribute the food system.
This isn’t a 100% fix of course (nothing can be), but in this case the policies required are very simple, have many other benefits (obviously for climate change), and don’t require Bloomberg’s heavy-handedness.
The labels seem to me most interesting for their usefulness in doing what you are doing now, starting a conversation about values and ethical reasoning. I think a lot of us are some combination of socialist in our vision of a welfare state and libertarian in our views of civil liberties. The role of these values in foreign affairs and the amount of compromise one is willing to countenance in the legislative process are the remaining questions.
There’s a lot of room for disagreement or common cause there. Talking about these labels is a good way to figure out what we agree on most and why, and hopefully to learn from our disagreements, too.
Sounds like you’re left-libertarian (lowercase L, as opposed to Libertarian), which is not how I describe myself but I found out basically describes what I believe in (and it seems to line up with your views from what I can tell).
What may be more important is the Right and the Right entertainment complex makes no distinction. In fact they lump them together with Marxists and communists and if you are Beck even Nazis.
What is important is you are not one of them on the Right and that you do what is necessary to keep them from winning?
I think its like this: We have the tools to keep the rich in place and if we lack the desire and energy needed to do that then they have the resources to take advantage. I think that in the fifties the tax rate for them was 70%. That is about right and this is why: they are loosing an understanding of what daily life is like for many of us. They have no relationship with life as we see it. They don’t want us in their lives except to serve and really don’t want to know much about what our quest is all about. Just remember the history from the depression through the 1950’s when unionism saved us from the more radical isms. We need to help our workers again; they are suffering with from lack of benefits and understanding. They need representatives that actually represent their plight.
To put it mildly, I don’t label well…
The biggest differences I can see between liberals and progressives are 1) tactical (how big a bite should we try to take this time around?) and 2) their attitude towards the market economy (Progressives treat it as something inherently bad, that should be opposed, while liberals treat it as something that is a good, but inadequate, which needs to be restrained and supplemented).