State skepticism
John Judis writes about the supposed origins of Americans’ general distrust of government expansion:
Americans’ skepticism about government dates at least from the Revolution. In The Liberal Tradition in America, published in 1955, political scientist Louis Hartz described the Americans of 1776 as “Lockean liberals.” He was using the term “liberal” in its classic connotation–more like today’s free-market conservative or libertarian. Americans, he perceived, envisaged the state as strictly limited to protecting property relations among equal producers. They saw strong government–which they identified with the British crown–as a threat to economic and political freedom. Government, in Thomas Paine’s words, was a “necessary evil.”
Judis essentially argues that, but for a few moments, this anxiety over government has never left the American ethos, making perennial Democratic efforts to expand government’s role difficult:
Still, with these exceptions, Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have done well under conditions that are not as favorable for reform as they seemed in January. Obama and the Democrats understand not only the opportunity for reform, but also the long-standing ideological obstacles they face in obtaining it, and they have adopted a strategy of dividing business and framing their proposals as market reforms. If they continue to do so, and if they are not scared off by pressure from the right, they should succeed in getting a health care bill and new financial regulations. A climate-change bill will be more difficult but not impossible, as long as they can keep the voting public focused on the specifics of liberal reform rather than the atmospherics of ideological conservatism.
My question has been and continues to be: why cede the premise? Why should Democrats continue to be forced to pursue an agenda defined by an anti-government philosophy? Why not sell a new philosophy about government, one that rejects Lockean liberalism?
-Sam
Related posts:
- Locke-box
- The Obama paradox
- What is equality?
- But if the Dems lose in November, was it worth it?
- Obama administration and state secrets
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