“Total Regulation: LBJ’s Great Society”
Week 6 — Kevin Portteus • Associate Professor of Politics
Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society is the logical extension of Progressive politi-
cal thought and FDR’s New Deal. While the Founders held that the task of good government
is to secure its citizens’ natural rights, LBJ argued that government must eradicate all external
constraints—legal, economic, educational, and environmental—which hamper the “spiritual
fulfillment” of its citizens. The extensive regulations and programs of the Great Society are thus
meant to guarantee not only the right to pursue happiness but also the full achievement of it.
Lecture Summary
Lyndon B. Johnson anchored his Great Society program in the Progressive understanding of
freedom: Freedom in its fullest sense encompasses more than the formal or legal right to do
a thing; freedom entails the ability to effect that thing. Thus the central conceptual element
of the Great Society—the purpose of both civil rights and the War on Poverty—is the elimination of any economic, legal, or social hindrances to the achievement of excellence and the
“fulfillment of the human spirit.”
The Founders believed that the causes of necessity are rooted in human nature itself, and
that a government that seeks to eradicate necessity quickly becomes tyrannical. By contrast,
LBJ held that specific government policies and programs, initiated and guided by bureaucratic experts, could overcome the unhappiness and discontent brought about especially by
racial injustice and poverty.
Consequently, his Great Society legislation focuses on cities (developing community and
aesthetically pleasing spaces), the countryside and the environment at large (engaging in conservation efforts to make beauty accessible to all), and education (funding not only programs and
initiatives for all levels of schooling but also educational broadcasting for the public at large).
Declaring that “the Great Society is a place where the City of Man serves not only the
needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and the hunger
for community,” LBJ argued for a radically new purpose for the federal government: It would
go beyond securing natural rights and seek the fulfillment of the longings of the human soul.
CONSTITUTION 201:
THE PROGRESSIVE REJECTION OF THE FOUNDING AND THE RISE OF BUREAUCRATIC DESPOTISM
Key Passages from the Readings
Commencement Address at Howard University
•
Lyndon B. Johnson
“Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society.”
—The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 766
“But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you
are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring
him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’
and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.
Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the
ability to walk through those gates.” —The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 766
“We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but
equality as a fact and equality as a result.” —The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 766
Remarks Upon Accepting the Nomination
•
Lyndon B. Johnson
“So let us join together in giving every American the fullest life which he can hope for. For
the ultimate test of our civilization, the ultimate test of our faithfulness to our past, is not
in our goods and is not in our guns. It is in the quality—the quality of our people’s lives
and in the men and women that we produce. This goal can be ours. We have the resources;
we have the knowledge. But tonight we must seek the courage.”
“This is the true cause of freedom. The man who is hungry, who cannot find work or educate his children, who is bowed by want—that man is not fully free.”
Remarks at the University of Michigan
•
Lyndon B. Johnson
“The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that
wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.” —The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 759
“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty
and racial injustice…. But that is just the beginning…. [It] is a place where every child can
find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents…. It is a place where the city
of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire
for beauty and the hunger for community.” —The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 760
“[The Great Society] is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place
which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the
race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the
quantity of their goods.” —The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 760
“I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the Great Society—in our
cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms.” —The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, page 760
CONSTITUTION 201:
THE PROGRESSIVE REJECTION OF THE FOUNDING AND THE RISE OF BUREAUCRATIC DESPOTISM
Study Questions
1. What are the theoretical foundations of LBJ’s Great Society? How is the Great
Society a rejection of the natural rights teaching of the Founding and an extension
of the Progressive movement?
2. Does LBJ’s understanding of freedom and equality mirror the Founders’
understanding of these natural rights? How might they differ?
3. What is the importance of the “War on Poverty”?
4. What is the correct understanding of the purpose of civil rights, according to LBJ?
5. What three pillars of the Great Society does LBJ identify in his “Remarks at the
University of Michigan”?
Discussion Questions
1.
LBJ says: “We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we
must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities.
Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and
development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is
not with nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world around
him. Its object is not just man’s welfare but the dignity of man’s spirit.” What
implication does this statement have for the role of government?
2. Why would the Founders be wary of the attempt to eradicate poverty and all necessity?
3. Why would it be a radical departure from the Founders’ understanding to attempt
to use government regulations and programs to ensure that its citizens have access
to a beautiful and safe environment?
4. How is the development of public broadcasting connected to the purpose of the
Great Society?
© 2012 Hillsdale College Press.
Learn more about the Constitution at constitution.hillsdale.edu.