A friend asked me the other day, What are Progressives trying to achieve? The short answer is, “a just society.” But what does that mean? Here is a bird’s eye view of the Progressive agenda and its consequences.
1. Economic Justice: Redistribution of wealth to alleviate systemic poverty and income inequality. This involves government confiscation of private wealth and property (primarily through aggressive taxation) to whatever degree is necessary to bring about “economic equality“ (e.g., through welfare, free education, Medicare for all, etc.). But after nearly 60 years and $24 trillion, government efforts to eliminate economic inequality have largely failed because many causes of poverty cannot be fixed by money.
2. Social Justice: Elimination of unjust social structures like racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. Expanded rights and privileges are granted to “oppressed groups” in order to eliminate vestiges of systemic injustice and redress past injustices. But these rights are usually exercised by denying or violating the rights of others (e.g., LGBTQ rights supersede religious rights; abortion supersedes the unalienable right to life, etc.) and punishing “oppressors” (e.g., shaming, demonizing, deplatforming, demonetizing, fining, terminating employment).
3. Environmental Justice: Protecting the poor and minorities from the inequitable distribution of environmental hazards, sharing the benefits of increased wealth from energy consumption with those in developing countries, and implementing climate justice for impoverished people afflicted by climate change. This is carried out through a system of heavy-handed regulations and penalties imposed on businesses and free markets by government agencies (e.g., EPA, DOE, DOT) in an effort to end the use of fossil fuels. Ironically, the resulting increase in regulatory and green energy costs to the consumer has the greatest negative impact on the poor and middle class, especially in third world countries.
Finally, and most importantly, perhaps, Progressivism has no intrinsic principle for limiting the size and scope of government. Government wealth and power will expand to whatever degree is necessary to achieve a “just society.” As the American Founders feared, this is the historic pathway to tyranny. Writing in 1800, Thomas Jefferson said, "a single consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on earth."
