US History Cycles - Liberal vs. Conservative

[lpetrich]

Arthur Schlesingers Sr. and Jr. have proposed that United States history runs in cycles, one of them being a liberal-conservative cycle. I recently got AS II's book Cycles of American History on Kindle. I used the OSX client; one can also get software clients for Windows, iOS, and Android, so one does not need to get a hardware Kindle. AS I had proposed these cycles in the 1930's, writing about them in a 1949 book, Paths to the Present, and AS II expanded on this discussion. Online page: CYCLES OF AMERICAN HISTORY

1776-1788	Lib	Liberal Movement to Create Constitution
1788-1800	Con	Hamiltonian Federalism
1800-1812	Lib	Liberal Period of Jeffersonianism
1812-1829	Con	Conservative Retreat After War of 1812
1829-1841	Lib	Jacksonian Democracy
1841-1861	Con	Domination of National Government by Slaveowners
1861-1869	Lib	Abolition of Slavery and Reconstruction
1869-1901	Con	The Gilded Age
1901-1919	Lib	Progressive Era
1919-1931	Con	Republican Restoration
1931-1947	Lib	The New Deal
1947-1962	Con	The Eisenhower Era
1962-1978	Lib	Sixties Radicalism
1978-	Con	Gilded Age II

These dates are approximate.

The phases:

Liberal	Public Purpose	Increase democracy	Improve status quo
Conservative	Private interest	Contain democracy	Maintain status quo

"Democracy" should be understood as not only political, but also social and economic. Increasing it involves getting more citizens into the mainstream of American society.

AS II proposed that each sort of era was self-limiting.

Liberal eras involve activists putting in a lot of effort, and that can be hard to sustain. Especially when they seem to have won some major victories. That's what happened to the first wave of feminism when women got the vote nationwide in 1920, and that's what happened to the black civil-rights movement in the mid-1960's.

Conservative eras accumulate problems which society's leaders are unable to address properly. They either are unaware of those problems, or else they consider them non-problems.

Conservative eras are good for consolidation and digestion of previous liberal eras' reforms, however, and many liberal-era reforms survive into subsequent conservative eras. Nevertheless, some of them do go backward in some respects.

Where are we now?

In the mid-1980's, AS II noted that the 1960's, like the 1860's, were a time of great national trauma, and he noted that the conservative era that followed the first of those two liberal eras was exceptionally long. He wondered if the conservative era he was in would be equally long-lived.

In 1999, AS II updated his assessment. The Clinton years were not a new era of liberal reform. Despite right-wingers' demonization of him as a left-wing ogre, he was a mushy centrist. He proposed a gruesomely-complicated health-care plan that his wife had helped develop, but it fell flat in Congress, and he did not propose any other major new initiatives. In fact, he practiced "triangulation", posing as a centrist between his fellow Democrats and the Republicans. AS II concluded that that conservative era was continuing through the Clinton years.

George Bush II's presidency certainly continued it, but Barack Obama's? He seems to have gone the way of Bill Clinton, though he succeeded with Obamacare where Clinton had failed. He has also been demonized by the right wing in Clinton fashion. So it's fair to say that the current era is a conservative era that has continued without interruption from the late 1970's, the time of Jimmy Carter's presidency. I've seen several commentators call this era Gilded Age II, which seems like a good comparison. It's appropriate in another way: it follows an era of major national trauma, as the first one did.

The Occupy movement of 2011 seemed like the beginning of the end of it, but it was crushed, and it was not able to recover. So Gilded Age II shows no sign of ending, though it has lasted even longer than the first Gilded Age.

 

[Zeluvia]

The Clinton and Obama presidencies I think swung just far enough progressive to keep a full progressive backlash from forming. I think things have to reach a "tipping point" in order for a full swing to take place, and we have been balancing on the point for decades.

In my conspiracy theory mode, I suspect this is done on purpose.

 

[Perspicuo]

In my conspiracy theory mode, I suspect this is done on purpose.

How?

 

[boneyard bill]

1776-1788	Lib	Liberal Movement to Create Constitution
1788-1800	Con	Hamiltonian Federalism
1800-1812	Lib	Liberal Period of Jeffersonianism
1812-1829	Con	Conservative Retreat After War of 1812
1829-1841	Lib	Jacksonian Democracy
1841-1861	Con	Domination of National Government by Slaveowners
1861-1869	Lib	Abolition of Slavery and Reconstruction
1869-1901	Con	The Gilded Age
1901-1919	Lib	Progressive Era
1919-1931	Con	Republican Restoration
1931-1947	Lib	The New Deal
1947-1962	Con	The Eisenhower Era
1962-1978	Lib	Sixties Radicalism
1978-	Con	Gilded Age II

These dates are approximate.

The phases:

Liberal	Public Purpose	Increase democracy	Improve status quo
Conservative	Private interest	Contain democracy	Maintain status quo

"Democracy" should be understood as not only political, but also social and economic. Increasing it involves getting more citizens into the mainstream of American society.

I would have to raise a number of objections in terminology and those alone would alter the sense of these "cycles." First of all, not all of the eras labeled as "democratic" necessarily promoted greater income equality. But greater income equality is more properly named "socialist." But due to some unfavorable connotations on this side of the Atlantic I might suggest the word "progressive" instead. So I can see where the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras could be regarded as liberal, but I don't see where they could be regarded as progressive.

I would make the same argument on the other side of the fence. Is there really very much in common between the "conservativism" of Alexander Hamilton and the "conservatism" of Southern slave owners? It's hard for me to see the similarity. On the other hand, doesn't Hamiltonian "conservatism" and Lincolnian "liberalism" have an awfully lot in common? And doesn't Quincy Adams "conservatism" have even more in common with Lincoln? Adams was a precursor to Henry Clay and Lincoln was an admirer of Clay and openly advocated an up-dated version of Clay's "American System." Furthermore, both Hamilton and Adams were strong opponents of slavery, perhaps moreso even than Lincoln.

I would suggest that the eras of Hamilton, Quincy Adams, and Lincoln should therefore be regarded as "nationalists." And the slave owners era as "particularist" because if focuses largely on a special interest. In that sense the "robber baron" era might also be regarded as particularist. The progressive era could the be seen as a combination of both liberalism and nationalism.

It is then only when we get to Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy that we get to a period that might be called "conservative" in the sense that it was a consolidation of the more dramatic changes of a previous era. (Coolidge was merely an accidental link between Harding and Hoover who were progressives). But this also creates some confusion since "conservative" has now come to represent the intellectual reaction to the New Deal which is basically the "liberalism" of Jefferson and Jackson. So instead of "conservative" I will call this era "centrist." And in some respect the "robber baron" era could also be seen as more centrist than particularist.

The new shift to progressivism begins with Lyndon Johnson, not Kennedy, and I would argue that in extended through the Nixon Administration. I know that many would object to that and, while it is true that Nixon held some centrist tendencies, he also had some progressive ones. Moreover, we are talking about the era, not just the man in the White House. So in addition to Nixon's progressive tendencies you have to look at Congress where may reforms were enacted including the elimination of the seniority system for committee chairmen, as well as tax reforms, the investigations into the CIA and other activities that were progressive in nature even if they weren't always necessarily very wise. You also had to look at the reforms of the political parties along the lines the McGovern Commission recommendations which restricted delegate selection to either primaries or caucuses and opened up the nominating process to more popular representation.

Frankly, I think the Schlesinger's are bit too biased by their affiliations with the Democratic Party and with their liberal politics, although I realize that AS II became a bit more conservative in his old age. I have tried to present an analysis that is a little less partisan and sees eras that may overlap party dominance a bit more than the AS's analysis does.

I will deal with the more recent speculations in another post.

 

[boneyard bill]

Ipetrich writes:

Where are we now?

In the mid-1980's, AS II noted that the 1960's, like the 1860's, were a time of great national trauma, and he noted that the conservative era that followed the first of those two liberal eras was exceptionally long. He wondered if the conservative era he was in would be equally long-lived.

In 1999, AS II updated his assessment. The Clinton years were not a new era of liberal reform. Despite right-wingers' demonization of him as a left-wing ogre, he was a mushy centrist. He proposed a gruesomely-complicated health-care plan that his wife had helped develop, but it fell flat in Congress, and he did not propose any other major new initiatives. In fact, he practiced "triangulation", posing as a centrist between his fellow Democrats and the Republicans. AS II concluded that that conservative era was continuing through the Clinton years.

George Bush II's presidency certainly continued it, but Barack Obama's? He seems to have gone the way of Bill Clinton, though he succeeded with Obamacare where Clinton had failed. He has also been demonized by the right wing in Clinton fashion. So it's fair to say that the current era is a conservative era that has continued without interruption from the late 1970's, the time of Jimmy Carter's presidency. I've seen several commentators call this era Gilded Age II, which seems like a good comparison. It's appropriate in another way: it follows an era of major national trauma, as the first one did.

The Occupy movement of 2011 seemed like the beginning of the end of it, but it was crushed, and it was not able to recover. So Gilded Age II shows no sign of ending, though it has lasted even longer than the first Gilded Age.

Following up on my previous post, we cannot overlook the change in outlook following WW II and the rise of the Cold War. The US role in foreign affairs became a much greater part of the domestic picture as well. The New Deal, as might be expected, spawned a reaction. Many Republicans disliked the New Deal programs, but quite a few Democrats also objected to FDR's programs and drifted into the Republican Party. But the GOP did not, as one might expect, become transformed by this. On the contrary, the GOP nominees against Roosevelt: Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, and Tom Dewey were all from the progressive wing of the party.

Opposition to FDR first became pronounced through the "America First" movement. These were critics of FDR's foreign policy which they insisted, correctly as it turned out, was leading the US into war. But the primary thrust of this new movement was Jeffersonian liberalism including Jefferson's aversion to "entangling alliances." These were the "isolationists," and they achieved considerable strength in Congress from time to time, but their leader, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, was never able to achieve the presidency. After Eisenhower was elected, this movement gradually came to accept the necessity of the Cold War and by they time they actually captured the GOP nomination, their candidate, Barry Goldwater, was an unreconstructed hawk.

Now we get to the "conservative" era which I would claim is a combination of Jeffersonian liberalism and Hamiltonian nationalism. But wait. Didn't I already define progressivism as a combination of liberalism and nationalism? Yes, but why should it be a surprise that 20th Century political thought should be a synthesis of the leading 19th century views? Jeffersonian individualism implied the equality of all citizens but it also presupposed self-reliance to those individuals. Progressivism, responding to the robber baron era, emphasized the need to intervene to promote equality. The conservative ascendancy, however, arose after two eras of progressive reforms that had attempted to deal with those inequalities and had reduced both the incentive and the ability of people to be self-reliant and in began, not with Reagan, but with Jimmy Carter.

Those of you who don't remember that era won't remember that Jimmy Carter campaigned in favor of a balanced budget and a promise to reduce government regulation. He failed miserably in the first promise, but he delivered on the second. It was the Carter Administration that abolished the Interstate Commerce Commission, de-regulated the Savings and Loan industry, and eliminated price controls on domestic oil production among other things. This was a perfectly natural response to the excesses of the previous progressive era. Price controls on oil, begun by Nixon, were a huge failure, the inflation of the Johnson/Nixon regimes also produced the need for S&L de-regulation and abolition of the ICC was long overdue.

What Carter failed to do was to reign in the overly stimulating policies of Nixon and Johnson's Fed Chairmen. On the contrary, he still believed and Keynesian economics so he sought even greater stimulus from his new Fed Chairman, William Miller. The result, of course, was inflation in the high double-digits and Carter was forced to replace his Fed Chairman in mid-term. The resulting contraction cost Carter his chance for re-election. My main point, however, is that the "Reagan Revolution" actually began under Jimmy Carter.

Reagan expanded on those policies, but not to a degree that could really be called a "revolution." That is simply typical news media exaggeration. Nonetheless, it was the philosophy that governed for Reagan's next two successors so that even William Clinton was campaigning on the slogan, "The era of big government is over."

But the conservative era ended with Clinton. George W. Bush would institute a new era of bigger than ever government. It was a new progressive era. I know many here will disagree, but look at the facts, Bush proposed a new entitlement - Medicare Part D, for prescription drugs. He boosted spending on education quite substantially. His "no child left behind" program was also designed to bring more federal control over education. It would never have passed if Clinton had proposed it. And education spending wasn't the only thing that went up. So did many other discretionary programs. Bush went from a balanced budget to half trillion dollar deficits in a very short time and this was much more than was required for his two wars. His last deficit topped one trillion dollars.

Compared to Bush, Obama looks like Scrooge. Although his budget deficits have averaged over one trillion dollars, much of that is due to flat revenue growth rather than increases in domestic spending, and the deficits have not increased nearly as much as they had under Bush. But Obama still ranks as a progressive because of the health care plan and because of his interventions in support of infrastructure the Wall Street banks, General Motors, and other actions which are presumed to help equalize incomes even if they have not been very effective at it.

But I would also argue that there are differences between the Bush/Obama progressivism and its' predecessors. That difference is that there was neither a particular necessity for these actions nor a popular ground-swell of support. Had George Bush proposed to maintain a balanced budget, he probably would not have met a lot of resistance. The Afghan War, of course, might have upset that balance but only by a hundred billion or so.

But another difference is in the overseas adventurism. This is most obvious under Bush, but it has continued under Obama. Obama left Iraq in accordance with the time-table negotiated by Bush and well after the dead-line he had promised. He escalated the war in Afghanistan, and we are still there and will still be there after the time that he says we will leave. He has bombed Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. He would have bombed Syria but the popular outcry against it.

For this reason I feel inclined to label the Bush/Obama era as the era of faux progressivism since it appears to me that the progressive programs are rhetoric are simply being used to compensate for more special interest motived policies. It is, perhaps, even more particularist than the robber baron era. But I can't really prove that.

 

[Duke Leto]

Same problem as Turchin.

There aren't any actual cycles, the pattern is extremely irregular.

More importantly, most of the pre-civil war era doesn't fall neatly into the conservative-liberal paradigm. Hamilton and Burr were proto-Abolitionists while Jefferson was majorly interested in expanding slavery (despite his protestations to the contrary). Jacksonian Democracy may have led to universal White Male enfranchisement, but it was also what we would refer to as driven by Fiscal Austerity and bank deregulation. Even the Progressive and Eisenhower eras are dicey in that respect compared to the modern conservative vs. liberal paradigm.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Taken as a whole the American experience has been liberal. The occasional conservative occurrence seems to me to be a result of liberal policy at least initially. When you empower people those people can still use that power to act conservatively, which is what happens. And to me any conservative backlash is proof enough that liberalism works and is working.

Maybe conservatives like the lamp and Liberals like the genie. Conservatives will maintain that the genie needs the lamp while Liberals will maintain that the lamp needs the genie. Round and round we go. I maintain that self rule is a liberal invention. When that's gone I'll know conservatism is truly afoot.

 

[boneyard bill]

Taken as a whole the American experience has been liberal. The occasional conservative occurrence seems to me to be a result of liberal policy at least initially. When you empower people those people can still use that power to act conservatively, which is what happens. And to me any conservative backlash is proof enough that liberalism works and is working.

Maybe conservatives like the lamp and Liberals like the genie. Conservatives will maintain that the genie needs the lamp while Liberals will maintain that the lamp needs the genie. Round and round we go. I maintain that self rule is a liberal invention. When that's gone I'll know conservatism is truly afoot.

Of course, I disagree. As I tried to point out, I believe from the twentieth century onward we have basically seen a shift from the classical liberal vs. nationalist philosophy to a synthesis of both of those doctrines in different ways. So progressives are liberals who have become more nationalistic in wanting to use federal power to achieve more egalitarian ends while the conservatives are nationalists who have come to accept more of the classical liberal views of Jefferson and the anti-Federalists. So progressivism and conservatism both accept the liberal/nationalist position but mix them up differently. If you just want to talk about time in office then I might agree that progressives have dominated the scene more often than conservatives, but I don't think that means the country is necessarily heading a progressive direction. There are more than two entrees on the plate. I don't think we can predict the future by saying that we're heading for another conservative turn in the cycle or another progressive turn. It is my view that we are presently in a particularist era and I expect change, but it could be to another form of particularism or we could invent something completely new.