Liberalism and Big Government: 1920s-1980s - Essay Example

Liberalism and Big Government: 1920s-1980s America was founded on the constitutional concept that the federal government power extended to providing for defense and promoting the general welfare. Generally speaking, Americans historically have been quite unreceptive to the idea of a strong centralized government.  However, the degree and extent of the federal government’s sustained expansion, beginning near the turn of the century and continuing throughout most of the 20th century, has infringed upon the civil liberties that the founders considered to be self evident. The tenets of Liberalism proclaim a strong conviction in democracy and belief that the constitutional authority of the people will limit a powerful, expansive government. Liberal legislative leadership, partly through necessity, has instigated steady governmental growth well beyond where the architects of the constitution and most citizens would favor. This discussion explores and explains the causes and effects of federal government expansion that occurred during ‘liberal thinking’ administrations from the First World War until the 1980’s with a brief preface of public and governmental actions regarding ‘Big Government’ preceding this period. Before the turn of the 20th century, the majority of Americans were of the opinion that Big Business was a threat to democracy and to the free market system. The government consistently attempted to split up monopolies or to prevent them from being formed to begin with. This public and legislative attitude led to the Sherman Antitrust Act passed in 1890, followed soon after by the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act in pursuit of this goal. Congress was obligated to pass these laws as American citizens were more than wary of the negative implications that excessive corporate control over a section of society represented. But as businesses grew large in scale, federal government was forced to increase in size with the purpose of regulating Big Business. In the governmental managing of the large monopolizing corporation, innovative concepts of administration were required. The U.S. was moving away from the idea of the entrepreneur, the independent businessmen of the mid-1800’s, to a work force employed by large, nationally structured and powerful organizations. People began to move into the city from farms to secure steady employment and were no longer in business for themselves. Increasingly, people from all walks of life were forced to work for these large corporations to make a living. World War I was the main catalyst for the government’s historic directional change in the traditionally accepted conservative political philosophies to liberal expansionism. This began a cyclical swing between these vastly different methodologies that persists today. America sent millions of soldiers overseas during World War 1 which required a vast expansion of the federal government in terms of its size, its responsibilities and its expenditures. During this time, income taxes became the major source of the federal government’s revenue.  (Income tax was originally instigated to pay for the Civil War.) It was also during the First World War that a rather comfortable relationship began between the federal government and big business.  Increasingly, the government’s viewpoint was that big business, as a major source of wealth and power for the nation, was something to be embraced. World War I demonstrated how the federal government could effectively assemble the nation’s assets for such an undertaking by cooperating with big business. The government also instituted the first draft since the Civil War and passed numerous laws restricting the freedom of activity of those Americans who did not support the war effort.  The increase of governmental power infringed upon the civil liberties of many American citizens during the war; a topic which is again relevant 85 years later.  In an effort to, in part, draw attention away from the growing fears of this expansion, the federal government attempted to gather public endorsement by encouraging patriotic behavior such as buying war bonds or participating in food and material rationing. By the 1920s, the government had become so large that it enacted the Federal Budgeting and Accountancy Act in 1921 to manage the immense escalation that had taken place and to more effectively arrange the Executive Branch (Furner, 1996). Americans of every economic status were uncertain of how maintaining their individual liberties balanced with the level of government intrusion in their day-to-day lives. During this time of expansive policies, the federal government also exercised this newfound power to increase opportunity and wealth for less influential groups such as women and minorities and working class men. This change of direction towards liberalism was not lost on millions of Americans after the war as many societal factions continued to expect the federal government to use its power to take control of social and economic inequalities.  Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, for example, formed the American Construction Council in 1922, “a trade association that they hoped could impose a ‘fair practices’ code on the industry and cartelize it” (Rothbard, 1970, pp. 164-65). This led to the development of a national culture and economy that was attributed to the mass production of new innovations such as automobiles and radios. Advertising campaigns promoting these products during the 1920’s further broke down regional distinctions and led people to turn to the federal government for leadership and guidance.  The growth in federal authority and size had grown immensely by 1928 and, by the end of World War II in 1945, the United States had developed into what has been referred to as a ‘welfare state.’  After his election to the Presidency in 1929, “Hoover continued the promotion of liberal corporatism encouraging the states to pass pro-ration laws restricting the production of oil, and establishing, in 1932, a tariff on oil imports whence there arose a virtual cartel in the oil industry” (Rothbard, 1970, p. 174). Throughout his career Hoover “sought to transform the American economy into one of collaborating, self-regulating monopoly groups, all under the benevolent auspices of the federal government,” a program fundamentally reminiscent of “the corporate economy of fascism” (Rothbard, 1970, pp. 174-75). During the Great Depression years when Big Business leaders advocated a continued move towards corporatism, Hoover “refused to go all the way to a highly centralized state capitalism” (Rothbard, 1970, p. 179). As a result, Big Business liberals shifted their support to Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 election whose administration proceeded to enact government supported corporatist measures such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. These legislative actions served only to expand the long arms of the government. “Instead of providing recovery, the New Deal promoted the rationalization of the existing syndicalism political economy based on the large corporation” (Appleman, 1966, p. 358). One of the initial tenets of the New Deal measures was the Wagner Labor Act of 1935, the impetus of which had been originated by Hoover. This act defined the position of labor within the corporatist system. “After this the unions settled down to fit in the corporatist mold and enjoy their share of the economic pie” (Appleman, 1966, p. 445). And although the formal corporatism of the NRA was overturned by the Supreme Court, “the New Deal, by imposing less systematic controls and practical cartels, ultimately brought the main functional and syndicalism elements of the political economy into a rough kind of legal and practical balance” (Appleman, 1966, p. 440). In April, 1937, the Supreme Court upheld measures such as the Wagner Labor Act which made up the structure of New Deal corporatism. By 1945, more than ever before in the history of the nation, most Americans were willing to accept the larger role that the federal government was playing in their everyday lives.  Not only had the magnitude and power of the federal government grown during the post World War II period, Americans’ expectations of their government had increased as well.  The Great Depression coupled with World War II led to people looking to the federal government for security.  The upsurge of the welfare state, while a diplomatic, passive evolution, was a revolutionary episode of American history.  The federal government assumed ever-increasing responsibility for managing economic growth as a direct result of the formation of the welfare state, the ensuring of minimal basic needs of its citizens promoting economic opportunity for every citizen and by the sustaining of American power overseas with the expressed intention of promoting the military security of the nation.  Following the enormous expansions of government during the Great Depression which increased further during World War II, those opposed to the federal government exercising control over economic policies, of statist philosophy, returned to power in the late 1940’s. Conservative Congresses restricted the influence of the National Labor Relations Board, eliminated federal agencies concerned with economic planning and effectively halted the expansion of federal welfare state. In reaction to investors’ concerns about increasing inflation, conservative lawmakers overcame public pressure to enact laws that would compel the national government to ensure comprehensive employment for every citizen. The government’s corporate liberal strategy of the Hoover era was reincarnated in 1950’s, the Eisenhower years. Though this approach was discredited by the failure of liberal policies during the Great Depression era, the government’s role during this time period was to promote corporate self-government of the economy. “Rather than requiring that public spending be sufficient to maintain adequate investment and growth, the national government used fiscal and monetary tools to stabilize the business cycle while leaving decisions regarding investment, pricing, and production in private hands” (Furner, 1996). American governmental hierarchy achieved a reasonably constant balance of liberal and republican; corporatist and statist thought between the 1950’s and 1970’s. Government, corporations and labor unions integrated to distribute American commodities and investment around the world. Government enacted substantial measures to create a socially righteous country and was committed to expanding the rights of formerly disenfranchised and disadvantaged factions of society. “In the early 1970’s conditions supporting this blend of corporate liberalism for the economy and moderate statism for society collapsed, undermined by growing fiscal constraints, loss of economic primacy, deindustrialization, and social divisions” (Furner, 1996). The resurgent liberal expansionism during the 1950’s enabled the federal government to become a progressively powerful influence in the lives of people by the 1960’s. The majority of Americans had accepted the government’s expanded role as normal operating procedure but at the same time, were of the opinion that further expansion should not resume. Many Republicans largely accepted a degree of government responsibility but aspired to limit spending and restore individual initiative. Democrats wanted to expand federal benefits for education, health, and welfare and generally expected the government to guarantee growth and stability (“Decades of Change,” 2005). The 1960 presidential election, one of the closest in history, revealed that the nation was evenly divided between these philosophies of governing. By early 1964, President Johnson began to invoke the phrase the ‘Great Society’ when describing his social economic agenda. That year, he pushed through the enactment of a federal jobs program for underprivileged youth. It was the first shot in what he characterized as the ‘War on Poverty.’ The War on Poverty became the focus of the administration’s Great Society program. In 1964, Johnson won in a landslide over conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. The Democrats also controlled both houses of congress for the first time since 1938. This one-sided power in Washington enabled liberals to pass expansive legislation over the collective opposition of both Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats (“Decades of Change,” 2005). Established in 1964, the Office of Economic Opportunity made available training for the underprivileged by forming an assortment of community-action agencies, directed by an ethic of ‘participatory democracy’ that intended to give the underprivileged themselves a say in education, housing and health programs. Medical care soon followed. Under Johnson’s direction, Congress ratified Medicaid, a program giving health-care assistance for the needy and Medicare; a health insurance program for the elderly. The Johnson administration also succeeded in its endeavor to provide additional federal aid for elementary and secondary school education, a glaring example of liberal expansionism as school funds were, until this period in American history, solely a function of state and local governments. Under the Johnson and liberal congress control, Federal assistance went flowing out to artists and academics as well so as to further promote and encourage their works. In fall 1966, Johnson signed a transportation bill into law that provided funds for development of safety programs to both state and local governments (“Decades of Change,” 2005). In 1968, when Richard Nixon took office, liberalism and the ideas of expanded government all but died with the exception of environmental issues. By 1969, even President Nixon was riding the coattails of the environmental movement, mentioning it in his State of the Union address of that year. In 1970, the President established the Environmental Protection Agency, and Earth Day (Hodgson, 1976, p. 404). Where in 1970 the government had taken a very strong pro-environment stance, in 1972 that same Presidency had reversed gears and was “openly attacking the environmental lobby” (Hodgson, 1976, p. 404). The Carter administration believed that the government and business could only be operated as they had for the previous 30 years and that Roosevelt was the architect for the modern governmental procedures. In his view, government must periodically be expanded to aid people in need and that government action is necessary to produce prosperity. But in the 1970’s, Big Government failed to accomplish this. The emergence of a newly energized economic and cultural conservatism in America followed almost 30 years of liberalism. This liberal emphasis resulted in high interest rates, inflation and recession which paved the way for another cycle of public popularity for the decentralization of government in the 1980’s. From the beginning of this federal republic until the First World War, the American government, at was intended, largely kept within its constructional bounds. Beginning with the rise of corporate monopolies and as direct result of the economic effects surrounding World War 1, government expansion began and has grown during ‘liberal thinking’ presidential administrations since that time. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, multiple additional federal agencies were created to manage many facets of American life. Except for a brief conservative swing in the late 1940’s, liberalism worked relentlessly to swell the size and scope of the federal government until conservative policies under President Reagan began to stem the liberalism tide once more. Despite this, Reagan added his own brand of Big Government with the swelling of the National Debt under his watch. As this paper has shown, liberal and conservative philosophies cannot be tied to one party but are constant and measurable guidelines by which the federal government is operated. The founding fathers, whichever party they might belong to today, would always choose to have government do more than provide for defense and promote the general welfare. Works Cited Appleman, William. The Contours of American History. Chicago, IL: New Viewpoints, 1966. “Decades of Change: 1960-1980.” Outline of U.S. History. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of State, November 2005. Furner, Mary O. “Antistatism and Government Downsizing.” Urban Institute. December 1, 1996. Hodgson, Godfrey. America in Our Time. New York: Vintage Books, 1976. Rothbard, Murray N. “The Hoover Myth.” For a New America: Essays in History and Politics from ‘Studies on the Left’ 1959-1967. James Weinstein & David Eakins (Eds.). New York: Random House, 1970. Read More