Cornel West: Future of Progressivism - Investment, Money & Media (1998)

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Progressivism is a broad political philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advances in science, technology, economic development, and social organization can improve the human condition. Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from barbaric conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society. Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread across the world from Europe. Sociologist Robert Nisbet finds that "No single idea has been more important than ... the Idea of Progress in Western civilization for three thousand years" and defines five "crucial premises" of the Idea of Progress as being: value of the past, nobility of Western civilization, worth of economic/technological growth, faith in reason and scientific/scholarly knowledge obtained through reason, intrinsic importance and worth of life on earth. Beyond this, the meanings of progressivism have varied over time and from different perspectives. Immanuel Kant identified progress as being a movement away from barbarism towards civilization. Eighteenth century philosopher and political scientist Marquis de Condorcet pre­dicted that political progress would involve the disappearance of slavery, the rise of literacy, the lessening of in­equalities between the sexes, reforms of harsh prisons and the decline of poverty.[3] "Modernity" or "modernization" was a key form of the idea of progress as promoted by classical liberals in the 19th and 20th centuries, who called for the rapid modernization of the economy and society to remove the traditional hindrances to free markets and free movements of people.[4] German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was influential in promoting the Idea of Progress in European philosophy by emphasizing a linear-progressive conception of history and rejecting a cyclical conception of history. Karl Marx applied the Hegelian conception of linear-progressive history, the modernization of the economy through industrialization, and criticisms of the social class structure of industrial capitalist societies, to develop the ideology of communism. As industrialization grew, concerns over its effects grew beyond Marxist and other radical critiques and became mainstream. The contemporary political conception of progressivism in the culture of the Western world emerged from the vast social changes brought about by industrialization in the Western world in the late 19th century, particularly out of the view that progress was being stifled by vast economic inequality between the rich and the poor, minimally regulated laissez-faire capitalism with out-of-control monopolistic corporations, intense and often violent conflict between workers and capitalists, and a need for measures to address these problems.[5] Progressivism has influenced various political movements. Modern liberalism was influenced by liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill's conception of people being "progressive beings".[6] British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli developed progressive conservatism under "One Nation" Toryism.[7][8] Similarly in Germany, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck enacted various progressive social welfare measures out of conservative motivations to distance workers from the socialist movement and as humane ways to assist in maintaining the industrial revolution.[9] Proponents of social democracy have identified themselves as promoting the progressive cause.[10] The Catholic Church encyclical Rerum novarum issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, condemned the exploitation of labour and urged support for labour unions, government regulation of businesses in the interests of social justice, while upholding the rights of private property and criticizing socialism.[11] A Protestant progressive outlook called the Social Gospel emerged in North America that focused on challenging economic exploitation and poverty, and by the mid-1890s the Social Gospel was common in many Protestant theological seminaries in the United States.[12] A progressive political movement emerged in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in what was known as the Progressive Era with support among conservatives and liberals. American President Theodore Roosevelt of the US Republican Party and later the US Progressive Party declared that he "always believed that wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand".[13] American President Woodrow Wilson was also a member of the American progressive movement within the Democratic Party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism Image By Foto: Bernd Schwabe (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons