The United States
presidential campaign of 1912 was, all things considered, unique in American
history.
 |
| Socialist Candidate Eugene V. Debs |
It is common to
say such things about one’s subject, of course, but in this case, we believe it
is warranted. It is, for example, the only campaign in which two third parties played a significant
role. These were the Progressive Party, which ran Theodore Roosevelt as its
candidate, and the Socialist Party, which ran Eugene Victor Debs (1855-1926).
Merely to
acknowledge the fact of the third parties, even their importance in the
campaign, however, is to lose sight of the critical issues involved, and the
underlying reasons for the prominence of the third parties in the first place.
The (relatively) recent furor over the “Tea Party” and the “Occupy Movement”
focuses on the radical nature of their demands, and the unusual, not to say
bizarre behavior of some participants and leaders. This obscures the fact that
both were reactions, and in some measure responses, to some very serious and
persistent problems in society.
Something, too,
was seriously wrong in America at the turn of the last century. Possibly the
most serious problem, however, was that no one was really quite sure either
what to do about it, or (if they knew) how
to do it.
 |
| The Panic of 1893 |
The Panic of 1893
had dealt what seemed a deathblow to the American Dream. A farm or a small
business (landed, commercial, or industrial capital) now appeared to be out of
reach of most people. More and more people were forced to rely on wage system
jobs to generate an adequate and secure income.
Wage system jobs
are fine when there are jobs, wages
are high, workers are treated well, and — well, any number of “ands.” The real
problem with wage system jobs, however, is that they impose a condition of
dependency, of effective slavery, on people who are nominally free adults. This
is a clear offense against the dignity and sovereignty of the human person, and
obviously not the ideal arrangement for a just society.
There is also the
problem that the wage system is inherently contradictory. It is geared toward
garnering as much as possible with the least amount of effort. “More for less” is the unquestioned principle
of wage system labor relations.
Say’s Law of
Markets, the principle derived from Adam Smith’s first principle of economics (“Consumption
is the sole end and purpose of all production”) that underpins economic
activity, however, is based on the assumption that to get more, you must
produce more. The ordinary way to
produce more with less effort is to own the technology (the capital) that
produces. “More with less” is the
principle of technology.
 |
| R. Buckminster Fuller |
If, however,
workers own no capital and thus can only produce (generate income) with their
labor, their natural efficiency (the human tendency to do more with less — what
R. Buckminster Fuller called “ephemeralization”), comes into direct conflict
with economic reality: the fact that technology is capable of producing with
little or no human input.
Propertylessness combined
with the wage system in a technologically advanced economy thereby inserts a
devastating contradiction into economic life: those who are productive through
ownership of capital are forced to surrender what is rightfully theirs for the
benefit of others who own no capital. The principle that Paul of Tarsus laid
down, that those who are not productive shall not share in the benefits of
production (“he who does not work, neither shall he eat”), is transformed into
the socialist dogma, “from each according to his ability, to each according to
his needs.”
If the Panic of
1893 had killed the dream of the average American, the Panic of 1907 did the
same to the economic and political elite, or at least shook them up. The
weaknesses of the financial system revealed by the degree to which wealthy and
powerful individuals such as J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) had been able to
manipulate the system to their own benefit proved that laissez faire capitalist ideology and the unbridled “free” market
(which was anything but free for the vast majority of people) was inadequate as
the economic basis of a democratic society. Obviously, neither private sector
nor public sector control of the economy was acceptable, as long as that
control was concentrated in the hands of a few.
 |
| Walter Bagehot |
For their own
survival, the financial elite had to let go of some power — or, at least, seem to surrender a degree of power. As
ordinary people did not have access to the means to gain property, and thus
power, that meant allowing the State to have more power . . . at least until
the private sector elite could control the State — precisely as Walter Bagehot
(1826-1877) had recommended in his economic and political analyses half a
century before. Given that, it would not make too much difference whether the
capitalist private sector or the socialist public sector controlled the
economy, as long as the same people controlled both the private and the public
sectors.
The question in
the campaign of 1912 was what to do about the increasing powerlessness of
ordinary people, and the concentration of power in both the private sector and
public sector elites. Five primary responses developed. There were seemingly
endless variations on these responses, but we think that the following is an
adequate, if broad, summary:
·
The first response (meaning the first we will
look at, not the first to develop, or the first in importance) was the
Republican capitalist or reactionary approach. To be as brief as possible, the
capitalist position was that a well-run economy and a stable political order
were best achieved by having a few private citizens own the bulk of capital.
The State should leave well enough alone; the free market would function
automatically to bring about just results, but only if meddling government
bureaucrats would stop interfering in business and let the market do its job.
 |
| William Jennings Bryan |
·
The second response was the Democratic
capitalist approach. This did not differ substantially from the Republican
capitalist approach. Depending on the degree of loyalty and party politics,
this could mean little or much to individuals and groups involved directly in
politics, but virtually nothing to public at large.
·
The third response was that of the progressives,
originally linked with the Republicans. As “insurgents” against the “Old Guard”
capitalist Republicans, progressives were willing to accept increased State
regulation, even some measure of government control, in order to establish and
maintain a level playing field and keep things together until equality of
opportunity could be reestablished.
·
The fourth response was that of the populists, linked,
off and on, with the Democrats. Populism had, by this time, become imbued with
socialist assumptions and ideology, largely as a result of focusing on the demand
to impose desired results instead of establishing equal opportunity so people
could gain desired results on their own. The degree of government control the
populists believed necessary (as opposed to regulation) was, to all intents and
purposes, the only thing separating them from the socialists.
·
The fifth response was that of the socialists.
Socialism was split into many factions, such as the georgists, the Fabians, and
the Marxists, so it’s a little misleading to lump them all together. In very
broad terms, however, the program was the same for all the socialists: the
abolition of private property in capital, and government control of the economy
to ensure desired results.
Progressivism
thereby achieved a sort of “third way” between the Democratic and Old Guard
Republican capitalists, and the populists and socialists. Accounting for the
confusion in many people’s minds, even at the time, progressivism was, in a
sense, a reaction to the decay of populism as much as it was an insurgent
movement against the reactionary elements of the Republican Party.
#30#
