Traditional Values for Modern Progressives

Let's remember that anti-trust laws and good ol' American values of economic independence were largely created by left-wingers a century ago

by Davis Oldham, Free Press contributor

he idea that individual "initiative" is the basis for economic success has always been a sacred doctrine among defenders of capitalism. It's one of the "traditional values" that are habitually invoked by the right and just as habitually derided by the left. But for the left to dismiss such traditional values outright is to abandon a crucial aspect of our history, a rich source of insight, and a powerful critique of present-day inequality.

Historically, the belief in individual initiative was based on a fundamental economic proposition: that hard work would be rewarded in a very specific way. Work meant the opportunity to obtain productive property, or capital (usually land). Nobody was doomed to remain a wage laborer forever. This idea was so ingrained, according to historian Eric Foner, that Charles Sumner declared, "I never heard the term 'laboring class'... without the same sort of sensation which I used to have on hearing the word 'slave,'" and remarked that "the law should never acknowledge the existence of 'classes in this land of equality.'" To acknowledge the existence of classes was to admit that some people would always have to work for wages. This was unthinkable, because it meant that their individual initiative would go unrewarded.

This is a startling reminder in a world where we now take for granted that most people will always be wage earners. It suggests that the modern rhetoric of "initiative" is misplaced, even perverse, from the point of view of its early champions. Traditionally, Americans believed that people could obtain ownership of the means of production through individual effort. They counted on vast land resources stolen from the Indians, plus democratic institutions that would guarantee them equal opportunity. But ownership of productive property was understood to be the goal.

These traditional values pervade Ida Tarbell's classic History of the Standard Oil Company, which recounts all sorts of underhanded dealings by John D. Rockefeller. What really provokes Tarbell's indignation, more than Rockefeller's cheating, lying, and stealing, is the destruction of oil producers' economic independence. She is scandalized that Rockefeller would offer mere money in exchange for people's autonomy. Rockefeller's moral turpitude is most evident in his failure to value independence more highly than profit.

What is surprising to a modern reader is the combination of traditional values and a scorching attack on economic concentration. Tarbell reminds us that extremes of wealth were just as threatening to liberty as concentrations of political power. But she also reminds us that traditional values offered powerful resistance to that threat. Standard Oil, the ancestor of the modern transnational corporation, was in this view the real danger to individual initiative and the source of moral degradation.

The Governor of Michigan went even further, demonstrating what is perhaps the most surprising aspect of these traditional values. In 1899 Hazen S. Pingree declared his opposition to trusts on the grounds that they would subvert democracy. By making business on a small scale impossible, trusts undermined the foundation of liberty. Trusts eroded the personal bonds between employers and employees, made ambition futile for most workers, and sapped the middle class of its independence. They created "industrial slavery," he said.

This hostility appears strange today because we have forgotten a basic axiom of traditional values--that political liberty is impossible without economic independence. For many people as late as the turn of the 20th century, to be dependent on a boss for a paycheck made one ineligible for participation in political life. People whose livelihoods were at the mercy of another could never feel confident about asserting political independence, because they risked losing that livelihood. Only someone whose property--again, this meant productive property, or capital--protected them from such control could claim political liberty. To be sure, for many this justified excluding the poor from power. But another line of argument from the same premise ran quite differently: the government should protect economic autonomy by preventing the concentration of economic power. These traditional values motivate our anti-trust laws.

Of course, this is only one version of traditional values. Many saw Standard Oil as an example of individual initiative, and agreed with Rockefeller that any criticism was just sour grapes. It would be mistaken to imagine that "traditional values" meant Tarbell's values any more than Rockefeller's. The whole point is that traditional values have always been the object of struggle and conflict. What is liberating and empowering about this realization is that there is a great deal about traditional values that the left can legitimately claim as our own, without stifling the important criticisms of feminists, people of color, queers, and others who have been written out of that narrative. It's not about repudiating "identity politics" or fetishizing "the family." It's about remembering what traditional values has meant.