Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
JÖRN LEONHARD
Progressive Politics and the Dilemma of Reform
German and American Liberalism in Comparison, 1880-1920
Originalbeitrag erschienen in:
Maurizio Vaudagna (Hrsg.):The place of Europe in American history : twentieth-century perspectives.
Torino: OTTO Ed., 2007, S. 115-132
7 '
nova americana in english
edited by Maurizio Vaudagna
ce of Europe in American History:
Twentieth-Century Perspectives
Tiziano Bonazzi, Darla Frezza, Claudio
Zambianchi, Giuliana Muscio,
Giuliana Gemelli, Antonella
Cardellicchio, Jam Leonhard,
Raffaella Baritono, Marco
Mariano, Mario Del Pero,
Jennifer Klein, Elisabetta
Vezzosi, Maurizio Vaudagna,
Manuel Plana, Alessandra
Lorini, Simone Cinotto
OTTBEDITORE
THE PLACE OF EUROPE IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
TWENTIETH- CENTURY PERSPECTIVES
edited by M. Vaudagna
OTTBEDITORE
The Place of Europe in American History: Twentieth-Century Perspectives
Edited by M. Vaudagna
Collana Nova Americana in English
Comitato scientifico:
Marco Bellingeri, Marcell° Carmagnani, Maurizio Vaudagna
Prima edizione gennaio 2007
©2007, OTTO editore – Torino
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ISBN 88-95285-02-6
ISBN 978-88-95285-02-3
E vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuato, compresa la
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PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM:
GERMAN AND AMERICAN LIBERALISM IN COMPARISON, 1880-1920
JORN LEONHARD
I. INTRODUCTION: LIBERALISM AS AN EXHAUSTED POLITICAL CONCEPT AFTER 1945
Speaking at a conference of German liberals in December 1948, which led to the
foundatio n of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in West Germany, Theodor Heuss, later
the president of the Federal Republic, asked his audience whether the label "liberal"
could still be used to identify a political party that regarded itself as part of the tradition of political liberalism. The fact that the conference members voted in favor of the
Free Democratic Party instead of the Liberal Democratic Party as its official party name
indicated a widespread skepticism. The very concept of liberalism, representing the ambivalent experiences of the nineteenth century, seemed too closely tied to the German
liberals' Kulturkampfof the 1870s and the capitalist Manchester School. In the eyes of
so many, this had prevented liberals from exercising a more progressive social policy that
in turn could have bridged the gap between bourgeois liberalism and social democracy
before 1914, and especially after 1918.1
In 1950, Thomas Mann, one of the most prominent representatives of the Germaneducated bourgeoisie and its impact on the political culture of the German middle classes,
went even further. Reflecting upon the fate of liberalism after the experience of European
fascism from his position as American exile, Mann pointed out that the very term "liberal"
had become void and meaningless. Against the background of the fascist challenge and
European liberals' inability to prevent its rise, Mann demanded a redefinition of how
liberty and equality could be reconciled. In contrast to what he regarded as a liberal
primacy of liberty, Mann pointed to equality as the "leading idea of the current epoch."
What the postwar period needed, in Mann's eyes, was a social emancipation distinct from
the totalitarian model. But while liberalism seemed to represent political emancipation,
constitutions, and political institutions as the bourgeois legacy of the nineteenth century,
"social emancipation" could no longer be defined by a simple reference to a concept that
seemed semantically exhausted. In the same context, Mann pointed to the necessity to
transform the paradigm of bourgeois revolution into "social democracy." If Goethe, at the
end of his life, had declared that every reasonable individual was actually a liberal, Mann
underlined that at present every reasonable human being was to be a socialist.2
How are we to explain the obvious exhaustion of the semantics of liberalism, reflecting the exhaustion of liberal political agendas after 1945? Was it a particularly German
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response to the experience of liberals' electoral decline and their failure to prevent the
rise of fascism? Or was it a general European and transatlantic trend that needs careful
explanation? Either way, the answer lies in a comparative understanding of the challenges and transformations of European and American liberalisms from the end of the
nineteenth century. In contrast to approaches which define liberalism as a universal
set of more or less unchanging ideas which appear to have proved their validity under
changing circumstances,' this paper first concentrates on a comparative analysis of how
liberals in different historical contexts, in Germany and the United States, responded to
a rapidly transforming society and political world, beginning in the 1870s. 4 Secondly, the
interaction between liberal discourses in Germany and the United States, the dialogue
and transfer, is given particular attention in order to contribute to an analysis of Europe's
place in American political culture at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The starting point of this examination is the apparent triumph of liberalism in nearly
all western European societies of the 1870s. Had Matthew Arnold, in his Culture and
Anarchy of 1869, not defined the success of the English liberal idea as "the legislation
of middle-class parliaments ... the local self-government of middle-class vestries ... the
unrestricted competition of middle-class industrialists ... the dissidence of middle-class
Dissent and the Protestantism of middle-class Protestant religion?" 5 Towards the end of
the century, it appeared that Gladstonian liberalism was already a symbol of the British
nation as the most progressive power in the world, as well as a personalized style of politics.
Benjamin Jowett, vice-chancellor of Oxford University, thus commented on Gladstone's
role in the home-rule debate by pointing to the apparent triumph of an evolutionary
reform strategy by which liberals seemed to have stimulated even their conservative
counterpart for the good of the country: "Liberals have, to a great extent, removed the
impression they had created in England that they were the friends of disorder. Do you
know, I cannot help feeling that I have more of the Liberal element in me than of the
Conservative? This rivalry between the parties, each surprising the other by their liberality, has done a great deal of good to the people of England."6
The same triumph of liberal principles could be observed in other contexts. The
Gilded Age and the open frontier in North America seemed to offer unrestricted possibilities for the future of individual liberty.' In Germany, liberals achieved what they had been
seeking from the early nineteenth century on. The unified German nation-state of 1870,
although excluding Austria, was regarded by most contemporaries not just as Bismarck's
creation but also as a success of German liberalism. Together, progressive and national
liberals won an impressive majority of 52% of the seats in the first general elections of the
new Reichstag in 1872. Given the democratic franchise, this was a remarkable political
success.' The new nation-state provided a stable framework for further political and constitutional reforms, as the successful coalition between Bismarck and the national liberals
seemed to indicate. Germany's economic strength, together with the rise of bourgeois
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JORN LEONHARD
culture and the successful implementation of a Rechtsstaat – a state founded on the rule
of law, as the completion of the Civil Code in 1900 illustrated – reflected a silent yet very
successful bourgeois revolution, indicating an impressive learning process from the days
of the 1848 revolution on. 9 This triumph of liberal Realpolitik, to use Ludwig August
von Rochau's famous phrase from the 18505, 10 seemed to mark the essence of Germany's
modernity as both a successful industrial society and a strong nation-state.
How are we to explain the difference between the perception of liberal successes in
the 1870s and the fact that, after 1918, liberalism had already become an ideology in
defense? Or that, after 1945, most political parties in Europe and certainly in the U.S.,
despite incorporating many traditions of liberalism, avoided identifying too closely with
the nineteenth-century semantics of liberalism? In other words, how are we to understand the ideological and programmatic crisis of an ideology that had shaped the "long"
nineteenth century more than any other contemporary political movement?
In order to approach this question from a comparative angle, this paper looks at liberals' responses to particular challenges as they developed in Europe and the United States
starting in the last third of the nineteenth century. These multiple challenges characterized a structural transformation that developed gradually, just around the period when
the triumph of liberalism seemed so obvious. What liberals had to respond to was the
outcome of modernization made possible by their constant fight for political participation, as well as social and economic emancipation, from the start of the dual revolution
during the last third of the eighteenth century. However, from the mid-1870s onwards,
a whole set of complex challenges began to overlap:" the changing meaning of nationstate and nationalism in Germany after 1871 and the emergence of empire-politics in the
United States and Germany; the emergence of a new market of mass politics with new
forms of ideological communication and political mobilization; the fundamental impact
of highly-intensified industrialization, rationalization, and urbanization on societies; the
First World War as a fundamental challenge to the traditional architecture of state, nation,
and society; and the post-1918 period with its political and ideological polarization in a
period of social tension, economic crisis, and political destabilization.
This paper concentrates on attempts made to reformulate liberal agendas after 1880
in Germany and the United States against the background of distinct political traditions
and connotations of liberalism. Given Thomas Mann's remark about the antagonism
between liberalism on the one hand and social emancipation and social democracy on
the other, the presence, or absence, of a distinct social liberalism in the two societies as
an attempt to respond to new social conditions seems fundamental. It is with regard to
these problems that liberals had to define their position towards the meaning of state and
society in an age of mass democracy. An analysis of this problem may also contribute to
an understanding of the erosion of European liberalisms and their crisis in the context
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PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM
of rising fascism on the European continent and the very different development in the
United States.
2. GERMANY: THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL LIBERALISM IN AN AGE OF
FRAGMENTED SOCIO-CULTURAL MILIEUS
From the 1880s onwards discussions over a necessary reformulation of liberal
positions intensified among German liberals. Confronted with the consequences of
dynamic industrial development and the emergence of an independent and strong party
representing the working classes' interests, the circle around Friedrich Naumann and his
Nationalsozialer Verein sought to bridge the ideological gap between liberalism and the
Social Democratic Party. Naumann openly criticized German liberals who, because of
their primary focus on constitutional and legal agendas, had never really developed a positive response to a modern industrial society and the emergence of a strong working class.
In Naumann's eyes that also explained the crisis of liberalism's political legitimacy that
became obvious around 1900 with continuously decreasing electoral support in general
elections. A merely political, constitutional, or legal definition of progress, which had
dominated the liberal paradigm of the pre- and post-1848 period, would not gain liberalism any popularity. 12 Naumann's premise was derived from his experiences of Christian
socialism, which, under the sway of Germany's dynamic industrial development in the
1870s and 1880s, had sought reconciliation between social classes. As a young theologian
under the influence of Johann AdolfWichern and later as a protestant minister, Naumann
had observed the social consequences of rapid industrialization. His initial response was
not to attack the concept of private property, but rather a vague anti-capitalism, which
sought both to go beyond traditional paternalism and to respond positively to the rise
of the SPD after the end of the anti-socialist legislation."
Given the agenda of German national liberalism and progressive liberalism under
Eugen Richter in Wilhelmine Germany, there was not much common ground between
Naumann's position and that of organized party liberalism. For Naumann, German
liberalism in general and Eugen Richter's party in particular represented an inflexible and
old-fashioned liberalism of notables (Honoratiorenliberalismus), staunchly opposed to any
idea of social or economic state intervention. The contemporary criticism of German
"Manchester" liberals referred to the fact that the social expectation of most German
liberals, be they national or progressive, was still that of the early nineteenth century: the
bourgeois model of a harmonious middle class in which all members would sooner or
later, and as the result of a natural process, become property owners and hence be qualified
for active political participation." This model ruled out even modest attempts at social
reform, not to mention the implementation of compulsory social insurance schemes.
Despite certain tendencies from the 1890s onwards, which indicated at least the start
of a reorientation of progressive liberalism, intellectually stimulated by Lujo Brentano
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and politically fostered by Theodor Barth, 15 social liberalism still provoked widespread
resistance among many progressive liberals in Germany. In 1896, Ludwig Bamberger
could still not see any fundamental difference between the regulation of working hours
in bakeries and a state's trade monopoly, as they seemed to stand for the same mistaken
principle. '
Confronted with the intransigent position of the Protestant churches in Germany,
Naumann gave up his Christian socialist beliefs and began to focus more on party politics.
His Nationalsozialer Verein, modeled after the Nationalverein of the late 1850s, was meant
to function as a political storm trooper, balancing between the political representatives
of the working classes and the established parties of Germany's political spectrum. At
the same time, Naumann supported Max Weber's nationalist and imperialist position,
as formulated in Weber's Freiburg inauguration lecture." Naumann linked the idea of a
necessary German expansion to the concept of social reform. Liberal imperialism could
therefore be directed against the contemporary anti-socialist integration policy, the socalled Sammlungspolitik. The result was a very ambivalent program which entailed support
of navy armaments, demands for the unrestricted right of workers to form coalitions,
an aggressive colonial policy against Britain, and a democratic franchise in all regional
and local elections. However, in terms of party politics, this progressively oriented social
imperialism had no chance. Naumann's Nationalsozialer Verein remained without major
influence among the liberal electorate."
On the other hand, Naumann's political program, the introduction of plebiscitary
elements in order to make a German monarchy more popular and to change into a
bulwark against the vested interests of conservative elites, did not convince many social
democrats. It was only after the Daily Telegraph Affair that Naumann gave up the idea
of a social monarchy and began to support the British parliamentarian model. But more
importantly, Naumann's political ideas reflected problematic aspects of the liberal concept
of parliamentarianism in Germany. Both in Naumann's ideal of social monarchy and in
Max Weber's concept of a plebiscitary Ffihrerdemokratie, the assumption dominated that
highly developed industrial societies could not rely entirely on a representative parliamentarian principle, but needed additional plebiscitary elements and a charismatic ruler like
Gladstone in Britain in order to achieve a minimum of social cohesion.°
it
Regarding the liberal concept of society and the necessary political responses to its
transformation, Naumann did more than just criticize the traditional assumptions of
German liberalism which he regarded as stagnant and characterized by a retrospective
ideal of social harmonization. In clear contrast to the early bourgeois concept of a society of equal state citizens, forming a homogeneous middle class, he also recognized the
existence of distinct class interests in any modern society. However Naumann's concept
of Gesamtliberalismus, a movement encompassing the progressive middle and working
classes and opposing traditional conservative elites, remained a theory. Although a political
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coalition, according to the model of a block "from Bassermann to Bebel" from national
liberals to social democrats, developed in the regional state of Baden under exceptional
circumstances, Naumann's expectation that such a program would enlarge the liberal
electorate in the Reichstag elections was never fulfilled. The agrarian middle classes could
not be won over to the liberal camp and continued to vote for conservative candidates,
and representatives of the old Mittelstand continued to insist on socio-economic protection. Progressive social liberalism as a reformulation of the liberal agenda was confronted
with more and more cemented socio-cultural milieus that characterized not only German
political parties but also Germany's political culture in general. This proved to be a major
burden already before 1914, but even more so after 1918.20
Despite the intellectually significant influence of middle class reform associations
in Wilhelmine Germany – from the school of new political economists in the 1870s
around Gustav Schmoller and Lujo Brentano to the Nationalsozialer Verein, the Verein AiSozialpolitik, the Gesellschaft fiir Soziale Reform, and the Evangelisch-Sozialer Kongre_ if – liberal revisionism never became a political program that could mobilize much popular support.21 Despite integrating the liberal revisionists, the Fortschrittliche Volkspartei did not
become a spearhead of social liberalism. Cooperation with the social democrats remained
exceptional and reflected strategic rather than programmatic common features. Furthermore, the progressive liberal party's electorate remained small and regionally fragmented.
The political mass market with its new forms of communication and its mobilization of
voters continued to be a major problem that all liberal parties found difficult to respond
to, particularly in comparison with the more stable socio-cultural milieu parties of the
social democrats and the catholic Center.22
Nowhere did the German liberals' dilemma become more obvious than in local
politics. On the one hand, liberals were still strongly represented in municipal councils
and could, as illustrated by numerous examples from the 1870s, make cities places for
successful liberal politics, especially in implementing social politics. On the other hand,
however, this relatively strong position was only guaranteed by restricted franchises,
which provided liberals with comfortable majorities and secured the survival of a political style that continued to be dominated by municipal notables. Progressive liberals who
demanded the end of undemocratic franchises in regional and local elections questioned
at the same time the very basis of successful liberal politics.23
From this perspective it was no accident that progressive liberals, and in particular
the supporters of social liberalism around Naumann, utilized nationalist and imperialist
agendas to present themselves as a convincing political alternative, encompassing the
dynamic forces of the new German nation-state. In fact, it revealed that German liberals,
experiencing the limits of domestic power and the pressure from more successful political competitors on both the left and the right, had to look for compensatory discourses
in order to appear as a popular and progressive movement. But in stark contrast to the
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JORN LEONHARD
progressive nationalism of German liberals between the mid-1860s and the early 1870s,
which had been regarded as an essentially modernizing force providing the framework
for further political, constitutional, legal, and economic reforms after 1871, liberal nationalism in the era ofWilhelmine Weltpolitik reflected a defensive position of liberalism,
unable to compete with the nationalist agenda of the right. 24 It was this constellation that
limited German liberals' freedom of political action even more. In combination with the
revolutionary connotations that many liberals still associated with social democracy, it
postponed the development of a proactive concept of social liberalism, and it became
a major obstacle when progressive liberals and social democrats were forced to cooperate in order to provide a more stable basis for Germany's first democratic republic after
1917/18.
The legacy of German liberalism before 1914 thus reflected the ambivalence of modernity: first, a progressive analytical framework, as Max Weber and Friedrich Naumann
demonstrated, which conceptualized the complex relations between state and society;
secondly, a restricted political influence in the federal state before 1914; thirdly, a serious polarization of the socio-cultural milieus by which the liberals became "sandwiched"
between the catholic Center Party and the social democrats; and fourthly, a tendency of
many liberals of a younger generation to develop compensatory discourses, focusing on
both imperialist and social reform agendas in order to demonstrate the German Empire's
ability to respond to both the need for integration at home and increasing international
competition.
3. THE UNITED STATES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES TOWARDS THE END
OF THE CENTURY AND THE LIMITS OF HEGEMONIC LIBERALISM
Any comparison between European and American liberal agendas has to take into
account fundamental historical differences. It was this contrast between Europe and the
United States that gave transatlantic liberalism its particular character. 25 Three factors,
which had marked essential lines of conflict and shaped the emergence of European
liberalism from the last third of the eighteenth century on, were missing in the U.S.26
First, there was no Ancien Regime and no aristocracy of a European kind, which meant an
absence of a reactionary, legitimist, or restorative conservatism as existed for example in
Germany and France after 1789, challenging the political and social consequences of the
French Revolution and thereby catalyzing the emergence of a liberal movement. Secondly,
the lack of conservatism also contributed to the lack of socialism, and was thus part of
the answer to Werner Sombart's famous question of 1906 "Why is there no socialism in
the United States?"27 There was no such clearly defined ideological enemy against which
a strongly organized and self-confident workers' movement could have developed in the
way it did in European societies. Thirdly, and this aspect is often overlooked, there was
no conflict between church and state in the United States which had done so much to
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promote the rise of European liberalisms. British reform-liberalism after 1815 is difficult to
imagine without the program for catholic emancipation and, later in the century, against
the traditional church establishment. French liberals from 1815 onwards and especially
in the Third Republic derived their political identity not least from the fight for a clear
separation between church and state. 28 In Germany, the Kulturkampf of Prussian liberals
against the supposed Romish principles and the Catholic Church's influence on state and
society generated a strong anti-catholic identity for liberalism.29
The absence of these three lines of conflict led, in Alexis de Tocqueville's words, to a
certain emptiness in the American political landscape, consisting of economically active
individuals without the sharp ideological conflicts so characteristic of European societies
in the nineteenth century. Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish sociologist who has become in
many ways a Tocqueville of twentieth-century America, remarked that the "American
Creed," as one of the foundations of American liberalism, was essentially a political
culture of consensus. 3° As James Fenimore Cooper wrote in 1828, Americans seemed to
share a basic Weltanschauung, a consensual set of values, which had been derived from
the founding history of the republic and stood in stark contrast to European societies
with their ever-renewed post-revolutionary conflicts over the past and future of state,
church, and society."
This is not to deny conflicts in American society, but it stresses an important point of
comparison: in the United States, political and social conflicts did not ultimately challenge
the belief in the universal equality of men and their equal rights, although there was a
long and painful debate over who exactly counted as men - a debate which reflected the
long-term dominance of an anglo-saxon white male political culture and became more
intensive, in both the course of the Civil War in the 1860s and in confrontation with
mass immigration towards the end of the century. In other words, the long absence of
ideological conflicts typical of Europe in the United States meant that debates and conflicts
took place within a basically liberal framework, as it had evolved from the revolutionary
period and the political culture of the founding fathers. This marked a fundamental difference between American and continental European societies.32
Against this background, the last third of the nineteenth century marked a fundamental watershed for liberals both in European societies and across the Atlantic. From the
last third of the nineteenth century onward, and especially around 1900, a general impression of crisis and transformation developed. For the United States, this meant that
the individualistic and egalitarian promise of the American dream – "equal rights for
all, special privileges for none" – came to be challenged." With the frontier closed and
the United States on their way to an imperial power, dollar diplomacy and the end of
traditional agrarian capitalism led to a critical moment. The traditional value concepts of
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Jefferson's ideal of an autarkic, democratic republic of virtues based on a religious concept of work ethic, and the localism of
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JORN LEONHARD
democratic institutions and the geopolitical isolation of the United States came under
severe pressure. Large cities, the building of railways, monopolies, and economic trusts
led to a transcontinental incorporation, which seemed to leave behind both the agrarian
ideal of the epoch of 1776 and the laissez-faire liberalism of the Gilded Age. Politics, as
Max Weber observed while traveling in North America, was made a business with a new
management-type of a politician.34
The social challenges of industrialization, rapid urbanization, and mass poverty forced
liberals in very different contexts to explain how the classical liberal agenda of individual
freedom could be preserved under dramatically changing circumstances. Although the
traditional focus of British liberals on free trade and unrestricted market forces continued
to be a major point of orientation in the United States, there also developed a critical
school of social liberals. But in contrast to Britain, American social liberals at least concentrated on a theoretical discussion of socialist premises. These American reform discourses
took place primarily in universities and scientific communities and thus represented a
phenomenon of an intellectual elite."
Basically, one can identify two different generations of these progressive American
liberals. By attempting to reformulate liberalism on the basis of a critical evaluation of
American society, John Commons, Richard Ely, Edward Ross and an older generation
remained within the framework of key liberal values such as individual liberty, equality
of opportunities, and social fairness. But in contrast to traditional liberals with their
strong anti-state orientation, they already advocated a proactive and interventionist state.
Distancing themselves from socialist theories of class-warfare, they felt a much closer
affinity to intellectual and social liberals in contemporary Germany, who came to be
known as Kathedersozialisten. Here the transfer of contemporary interpretative knowledge
from Germany to the United States became an important catalyst for the development
of American liberalism. Men like Adolph Wagner, Gustav Schmoller, and Ludwig von
Brentano, as well as the Verein fiir Sozialpolitik, founded in 1872, served as models for
pragmatic and scientifically based social politics. 36 The influence of this new school of
national economists in Germany, who not only insisted on economic consequences
but also an ethical foundation for social politics, on American liberals around Ely can
hardly be overestimated. Ely stressed the importance of social. Christianity as a means to
overcome classical premises of economic liberalism in Germany: "Professors of political
economy finding themselves forced to abandon every hope of reconciling adverse interests
of society without a moral and religious regeneration of the various social classes, turn to
Christianity, and appeal to it for co-operation in their endeavors to bring about an era
of peace and harmony."37
The generation of Ely and Ross, in accordance with the new school of political
economists in Germany, advocated social reform, moderate state intervention, and economic regulation. At the same time, they tried to amalgamate this program with the value
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PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM
concepts of a particular American tradition, such as the ideas of social Christianity and
organic republicanism. By distancing themselves from socialist premises, this generation
contributed to the absence of socialism as a possible political alternative in the United
States. Reform discourses in American society could not develop within a socialist framework, and the possibility of a cooperating with the social democratic workers' movement
was ruled out - a clear contrast to developments in Germany before 1914. Rather, it followed the model of the early Fabians in Britain with their middle class ideals.38
The efforts of the second generation of American liberals, who concentrated on a
reformulation of liberalism between 1901, the year President Roosevelt was inaugurated,
and 1918, came to be known as the Progressive Movement. It was based on a reform
movement, rather than particular party ties as in European societies, and, in accordance
with Alexander Hamilton's concepts, it regarded the United States as an industrial nation with imperial ambitions, no longer in terms of Thomas Jefferson's agrarian republic.
Progressivism as an urban intellectual movement of the East Coast meant the "confident,
purposeful and successful effort of a new middle class of ambitious professional and scientific experts to bring system and rationality to a society suffering from the evils – even
if democratic – of disorder, inefficiency and localism." 39 The consequence was a program
of centralized executive power, a proactive foreign policy, and cultural reconstruction of
American society. For the first time, a new elite of intellectuals and scientists, managers
and administrators, who emerged as a result of educational and university reforms and a
professionalization of research, production, and management, became more influential
in American politics after 1910.4°
That America needed a new balance between state and society was also a basic premise
for Herbert Croly, spokesman for a group of progressive intellectuals, among them Walter
Lippman and Walter Weyl, who in 1914 founded the weekly New Republic as an organ
of progressive liberalism against agrarian radicalism." Croly identified a fundamental
crisis which was about to challenge the American promise of individual liberty and economic wealth: "During the past generation, the increased efficiency of organisation and
politics, the enormous growth of an individual irresponsible money power, the much
more definite division of the American people into possibly antagonistic classes ... [have
questioned] American national cohesion ... These changes ... have brought out a serious
and a glaring contradiction between the demands of a constructive democratic ideal and
the machinery of methods and institutions which have been considered sufficient for its
realization." 42 From the beginning, Croly regarded the weakness of the American executive, in particular the presidency, as a major obstacle for reform. For him, the American
Constitution with its focus on decentralization, localism, and anti-statism prevented the
development of a truly democratic state, capable of fulfilling its moral and educational
functions. Against the tradition of individual liberty and equality, Croly favored a political and social elite of experts and charismatic citizens. For him, the average American
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needed "the sincere and enthusiastic imitation of heroes and saints."43 It was no accident
that President Theodore Roosevelt took up this argument and used it to coin the political
motto of "New Nationalism."44
In his attempt to achieve an improvement of the social situation of the masses,
Croly was deeply influenced by his perception of Bismarckian Germany. The German
chancellor, in his historical function to organize the new nation-state of 1871, could not
follow a laissez-faire policy. His attempt to win the support of the industrial workers by
state-led social insurance legislation alienated him from theories of strictly individualistic
liberalism. The framework of an empire could not work according to a democracy with
unrestricted market forces. Thus, Bismarck's role had been to translate a program "of
responsible administrative activity into a comprehensive national policy." Bismarck, in
Croly's eyes, had succeeded in bringing about "the all-round development of Germany
as an independent national economic unit." Prussia, with her educational system and as
the nucleus of the empire of 1871, became a model of a state in which skilled scientific
experts and industrial efficiency went hand in hand. Croly was full of enthusiasm when
commenting on the German model: "In every direction German activity was organised
and was placed under skilled professional leadership, while at the same time each of these
special lines of work was subordinated to its particular place in a comprehensive scheme
of national economy."45
Croly's concept of "reconstruction," developed through the perception of contemporary Germany and its modernity, was at the same time a critique of anti-state, laissez-faire
liberalism in the United States. In contrast, Croly favored a stronger federal government
and state planning as a means of social and moral progress, as well as a new expert role
for American intellectuals. Without advocating socialist positions, he also argued for the
implementation of a general scheme of social security. The ideal of the regulatory state
became reality, at least partly, during the First World War through wartime economy and
the mobilization as well as the organization of national resources by the state, such as the
War Industries Board, the National War Labor Board, and the Food Administration.46
From this perspective, Woodrow Wilson's wartime executive represented a prototype of
rational and organized political planning, anticipating many elements of Franklin D.
Roosevelt's New Deal efforts in the 1 930s. 47 It generated, in the eyes of the progressives,
a new type of expert-manager politician with all the qualities of a charismatic national
leader. America's entry into the war seemed to mark the beginning of an era of a new
"conscious social ideal," as Croly remarked." The writer for the New Republic commented
on America's entry into the war: "Never was a war fought so far from the battlefields for
purposes so distinct from the battlefield."49 However, the end of the war also brought the
end of wartime statism, "war time socialism," and the failure of Wilson's internationalist
concept of the role of the United States in the postwar world. The far-reaching hopes of
many progressive liberals turned into disillusions.5°
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PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM
4. CONCLUSION: EUROPEAN AND TRANSATLANTIC LIBERALISMS
AND THE DILEMMA OF DEMOCRATIC MODERNITY
(1) The dynamic social and economic transformation of European societies from the
last third of the nineteenth century on was mirrored by American experiences.
Whereas liberals in European societies had to reformulate the concept of progress in
an age of rapid social disintegration, American liberals had to respond to the end of
the Jeffersonian ideal of an economically independent republic shaped by localism,
agrarian production, and foreign political isolation. They also reacted to the legacy of
the Gilded Age with its unrestricted market forces and to America's transcontinental
incorporation on the basis of economic trusts and monopolies. The apparent triumph
of liberal successes from the 1870s on provoked a critical evaluation of the liberal paradigm. Responding to a dramatically changing environment, liberals in both Europe
and North America from the 1880s on began to reformulate the agenda of liberalism
by shifting their focus from political emancipation, constitutional achievements, and
economic liberty to a new balance between state and society, the social question, and
a new meaning for the interventionist and regulatory state.
(2) In stark contrast to Hobson's and Hobhouse's New Liberalism in Britain, which was
essentially anti-imperialist - imperialism was opposed because a democratic society
could not agree to the imperial practice in the colonies - German social liberals
around 1900 strongly advocated a German Weltpolitik. Friedrich Naumann's and
Max Weber's position, which linked social reforms to an active imperial policy of the
new nation state, was much closer to liberal imperialism than the New Liberalism
of Britain." The nationalist discourse about social liberalism in Germany reflected a
search for popularity while liberalism itself was under increasing pressure from more
successful parties with more stable milieus, such as the Catholic Center and the Social
Democratic Party. Whenever progressive liberals tried to integrate the concept of social
democracy, for instance through a reform of the franchise, giving workers an equal
vote in regional and local elections, they also put the last remaining strongholds of
liberal politics at risk.
In contrast to the practical limitations in facing modernity, the contemporary
German analysis of the liberal dilemma proved to be adequate and influential well beyond
Germany, as demonstrated by the stimulating perception of Germany among American
progressive liberals from the 1870s on. Basically, two periods of intensive perception can
be distinguished: an earlier generation, represented by Ely and his contemporaries, was
influenced by German political economists of the 1870s; a later generation after 1900
looked rather towards Max Weber's analytical framework of rationality, the organizational
state, and the function of charismatic rule in democratic societies. If one looks carefully at
the conceptual paradigms, then Max Weber's analysis of the dilemma of liberalism seems
to be much more modern compared with the writings of the New Liberals in Britain.
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American progressive intellectuals like Croly came close to Weber's analytical concept
of the modern state. Concerned with the prospect of democracy in a modern state and
in an industrialized as well as rationalized society, Weber tried to find an answer to the
question of how, under the conditions of a modern, highly fragmented but inevitably
organizational society (Organisationsgesellsch aft) liberty could still be maintained. These
questions pointed to the modern challenge to traditional liberalism, with its focus on
a classless ideal of social harmony rooted in Germany's pre-industrial era. Even if one
is to admit that Weber was prepared to concede too much too early to the importance
and power of the modern organization of state and society, as his concept of a plebiscitary Fiihrerdemokratie revealed, his analysis nevertheless revealed problems which New
Liberalism in Britain, with its traditional focus on the moral betterment of society, had
not yet discovered. 52 Its reform agenda, despite all its intellectual stimulation, had much
of a noble reformulation of a classical liberal tradition. It certainly revived the humanist
potential of liberalism, but remained essentially an ideological paradigm of the nineteenth century.
it
American progressive intellectuals' perception of Germany was extremely selective:
whereas the modernist aspects seemed to stimulate American discourses about social
reform, the practical complexities, programmatic ambivalences, and political as well as
socio-cultural limitations of German liberalism before 1914 were neglected. As so often
occurs, the perception told more about the motives of those looking for intellectual and
analytical stimuli abroad than about the reality of the object of perception itself
(3) In their attempts to respond to new political and social challenges, American progressive liberals were, at least before 1914, looking particularly to Germany, to the new
school of political economists or, as in Croly's case, to the modernity of Bismarck's
politics. Before 1914, Germany, and not just Britain, served as a stimulating impulse
to reformulate the balance between state and society in the United States. In particular, the new meaning of the regulatory and interventionist state with a centralized
executive became a prominent feature. However, the hopes associated with the state's
role during the First World War and the prospect of a new era of proactive planning
and regulation were not fulfilled, as the post-1918 era demonstrated. Yet they did
not simply vanish: many elements of the New Deal legislation mirrored premises
that had been conventionalized by progressive intellectuals.
(4) The difficulties and limitations, which liberals experienced when they had to react
to the challenge of transformation, point to a more fundamental problem, namely
how liberals responded to the consequences of modernity in all its political and social complexities. Paradoxically, what liberals were confronted with from the 1870s
onwards was in itself the result of their earlier achievements. To a certain degree, after
the 1880s European liberals became victims of their own previous successes, which
limited their ability to present themselves convincingly as a movement that was still
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PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM
progressive, a spearhead of progress, even though they were able to stimulate reform
discourses temporarily before 1914.
In all European societies, the belated or limited success of liberals in conceptualizing
social liberalism and implementing it as a means to bridge the gap between liberalism and
social democracy became a major cause for the erosion of liberalism in the early twentieth
century. This seems to be a common European feature rather than just an isolated German
experience. In the United States, on the other hand, the New Deal period showed how
influential the progressive movement could be as a major watershed for American political culture and reform discourse in the long term. In Germany, the consequences of the
erosion of liberalism for the survival of civil society were fundamentally different, as the
history of the 1920s and 1934s demonstrated. In stark contrast to the United States,
the presence of deeply rooted ideological conflicts and the socio-cultural polarization of
society reduced the freedom of liberal politics in post-1918 Germany. Both analytical
and conceptual modernity, as well as political erosion, marked but two sides of the same
coin of German liberalism in the early twentieth century.
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J 6 RN LE 0 NHARD
1. Theodor Heuss, "Speech at the Party Founding Conference, 10th/11th December 1948," in
Bundesvorstand der Freien Demokratischen Partei, ed., Zeugnisse liberaler Politik. 25 Jahre F.D.P. (Bonn,
1973) 13-15, see H. Kaack, Zur Geschichte und Programmatik der Freien Demokratischen Partei, 3rd edn.
(Meisenheim, 1979), 12.
2. Thomas Mann, "Meine Zeit" (1950), in id., Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11: Reden und Aufiiitze, part 3
(Frankfurt/Main, 1990), 322-23.
3. See Guido De Ruggiero, Storia del liberalismo europeo (Napoli, 1925); "Liberalism," in: International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 9 (New York, 1957), 435-42; Harold Laski, The Rise of European
Liberalism (London, 1936); Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford, 1984);
see also the main text collections: E. K Bramsted, K. J. Melhuish, eds., Western Liberalism. A History in
Documents from Locke to Croce (London, 1978); Lothar Gall, Rainer Koch, eds., Der europiiische Liberalismus
im 19. Jahrhundert. Texte zu seiner Entwicklung, 4 vols. (Frankfurt/Main, 1981); Pierre Manent, ed., Les
liberaux. Textes choisis, 2 vols. (Paris, 1986).
4. For a detailed analysis of contemporary political language and the place of liberalism in France, Germany,
Italy, and Britain see Jorn Leonhard, Liberalismus. Zur historischen Semantik eines europiiischen Deutungsmusters
(Munich, 2001).
5. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869), ed. J. Dover Wilson (Cambridge, 1971), 63; see also
Matthew Arnold, "Irish Catholicism and British Liberalism," in Fortnightly Review 30 (1878): 26-45; id., "The
Future of Liberalism," in Nineteenth Century 8 (1880): 1-18; id., "The Nadir of Liberalism," in: Nineteenth
Century 19 (1886): 645-63.
6. Benjamin Jowett, quoted in M. Asquith, Autobiography (London, 1936), 110-111.
7. See Hans Vorlander, Hegemonialer Liberalismus. Politisches Denken und politische Kultur in den USA
1776-1920 (Frankfurt/Main, 1997), 137-165.
8. Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt/Main, 1988), 135.
9. See David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Pecularities of German History. Bourgeois Society and Politics
in Nineteenth Century Germany (London, 1984); Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 128-232.
10. Ludwig August von Rochau, Grundsiitze der Realpolitik, angewendet auf die staatlichen Zusteinde
Deutschlands (Stuttgart, 1859).
11. James J. Sheehan, Der deutsche Liberalismus (Munich, 1983), 213-258; Heinrich August Winkler, "Vom
linken zum rechten Nationalismus: Der deutsche Liberalismus in der Krise von 1878/79," in id., Liberalismus
und Antiliberalismus. Studien zur politischen Sozialgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Gottingen, 1979),
36-51; Lothar Gall, Europa auf dem Weg in die Moderne 1850-1890, 3rd edn. (Munich, 1997), 72-80;
Vorlinder, Liberalismus, 167-175.
12. Friedrich Naumann, "Der Niedergang des Liberalismus. Vortrag auf der 6. Vertretertagung des
Nationalsozialen Vereins zu Frankfurt am Main 1901," in id., Politische Schrifi-en, ed. Theodor Schieder,
vol. 4: Schriften zum Parteiwesen und zum Mitteleuropaproblem (Cologne, 1964), 215-36.
13. Peter Theiner, "Friedrich Naumann und der soziale Liberalismus im Kaiserreich," in: Karl Holl, Gunter
Trautmann and Hans Voriander, eds., Sozialer Liberalismus (Gottingen, 1986), 72-83; Peter Theiner, Sozialer
Liberalismus und deutsche Welipolitik. Friedrich Naumann im Wilhelminischen Deutschland (Baden-Baden,
1983).
14. Lothar Gall, "Liberalismus und `biirgerliche Gesellschaft'. Zu Charakter und Entwicklung der liberalen
Bewegung in Deutschland," in Historische Zeitschrifi- 220 (1975): 324-356; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, "Der
deutsche Liberalismus zwischen, Ilassenloser Biirgergesellschaft' und Organisertem Kapitalismus'. Zu einigen
neueren Liberalismusinterpretationen," in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4 (1978): 77-90.
129
PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM
15. Lujo Brentano, "Die liberale Partei und die Arbeiter," in Preuflische Jahrbucher 40 (1877): 112-23;
I. Jastrow, Sozialliberal. Die Aufgaben des Liberalismus in Preuflen, 2nd edn. (Berlin, 1894); Theodor Barth,
Neue AuAaben des Liberalismus. Nach einer in Munchen am 28. Januar 1904 gehaltenen Rede fiber Liberalen
Revisionismus (Berlin, 1904); id., Was ist Liberalismus? Eine Gegenwartsfrage! (Berlin, 1905); L. Haas, Die
Einigung des Liberalismus und der Demokratie (Frankfurt/Main, 1905); Der Liberalismus und die Arbeiter.
Seinen Arbeitskollegen gewidmet von einem Arbeiter (Berlin, 1906); Friedrich Naumann, Gegenwart und
Zukunfi- des Liberalismus (Munich, 1911).
16. Theiner, "Naumann," 73, and Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 195-98.
17. Max Weber, "Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaftspolitik" (1895), in: id., Gesammelte Politische
Schrifien, ed. J. Winckelmann, 3rd edn. (Tubingen, 1971): 2-25; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber und
die deutsche Politik 1890-1920, 2nd edn. (Tubingen, 1974).
18. Dieter Duding, Der Nationalsoziale Verein. Der gescheiterte Versuch einer parteipolitischen Synthese von
Nationalismus, Sozialismus und Liberalismus (Munich, 1972), 47-52; Theiner, "Naumann," 73-74.
19. Friedrich Naumann, Demokratie und Kaisertum, in: id., Werke, vol. 2 (Cologne, 1964); Mommsen,
Weber, 416; Theiner, "Naumann," 74-75.
20. Friedrich Naumann, "Der Niedergang des Liberalismus," in id., Werke, vol. 4 (Cologne, 1964) 215,
Friedrich Naumann, "Klassenpolitik des Liberalismus," in ibid., vol. 4, 255-57; Heinrich August Winkler,
"Der riickversicherte Mittelstand. Die Interessenverbande von Handwerk und Kleinhandel im deutschen
Kaiserreich," in id., Liberalismus, 83-98; Theiner, "Naumann," 76.
21. Raliger vom Bruch, ed., "Weiler Kommunismus noch Kapitalismus." Bfirgerliche Sozialreform in Deutschland
bis zur Ara Adenauer (Munich, 1985).
22. Theiner, "Naumann," 80-81.
23. Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 200-211; James J. Sheehan, "Liberalism and the City in Nineteenth-Century
Germany," in Past and Present 51 (1971): 116-137.
24. James J. Sheehan, "Deutscher Liberalismus im postliberalen Zeitalter 1890-1914," in Geschichte und
Gesellschaft 4 (1978): 29-48; Wolfgang J. Mommsen, "Wandlungen der liberalen Idee im Zeitalter des
Liberalismus," in Karl Holl and G. List, eds., Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat (Gottingen, 1975),
109-147; Langewiesche, Liberalismus, 216-222.
25. Lore Blanke, "Liberalismus in den USA 1776-1996. Ein Uberblick im Spiegel der deutschen und
amerikanischen Historiographie," in Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 8 (1996): 43-67.
26. James J. Sheehan, "Vorbildliche Ausnahme: Liberalismus in Amerika und Europa," in Jurgen Kocka,
Hans-Jurgen Puhle and Klaus Tenfelde, eds., Von der Arbeiterbewegung zum modernen SoziaLstaat. Festschrift
fur Gerhard A. Ritter zum 65. Geburtstag (Munich, 1994), 236-248.
27. Werner Sombart, Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? (1906), new edn.
(Darmstadt, 1969).
28. Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 237-238.
29. Karl-Egon LOnne, Politischer Katholizismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt/M., 1986), 151-92.
30. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma. The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), new edn. (New
York, 1962); Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience (Chapel Hill, 1990), and Sheehan,
"Ausnahme," 239.
31. James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans Picked Up by a Travelling Bachelor (1828), quoted in
Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 239.
32. Sheehan, "Ausnahme," 242.
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JO RN LE 0 N HARD
33. Quoted in Vorlander, Liberalismus, 169.
34. See Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber. Geseaschaft, Politik und Geschichte (Frankfurt/M., 1974),
88-89.
35. Vorlander, Liberalismus, 172-174.
36. Jurgen Herbst, The German Historical School in American Scholarship: A Study in the Transfer of Culture
(Ithaca, 1965).
37. Richard T. Ely, French and German Socialism in Modern Times (New York, 1883), 244-245; Vorlander,
Liberalismus, 161-162.
38. A. M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics 1884-1918 (Cambridge, 1966), 119-121, 307-309;
Vorlander, Liberalismus, 163.
39. David M. Kennedy, "Overview: The Progressive Era," in The Historian 37 (1975): 453-468, 460; Robert
H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920 (New York, 1967); Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism:
1885-1914 (Chicago, 1957); David F. Noble, America by Design. Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate
Capitalism (Oxford, 1977); Vorlander, Liberalismus, 187-188.
40. Vorlander, Liberalismus, 187-188, Paul F. Bourke, Culture and the Status of Politics, 1909-1917. Studies
in the Social Criticism of Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, Randolph Bourne, and Van Wyck Brooks (Ph.D.
Wisconsin, 1967); Charles Forcey, The Crossroads of Liberalism. Croly, Weyl, Lippmann and the Progressive
Era, 1900-1925 (London, 1961), 121-217; Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Lift (New
York, 1962), 408-420.
41. Paul F. Bourke, "The Status of Politics. The New Republic, Randolph Bourne and Van Wyck Brooks,"
in Journal of American Studies 8 (1974): 171-202; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 192.
42. Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (New York, 1909), new edn. by Arthur M. Schlesinger
(Cambridge, 1965), 269-270; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 193.
43. Croly; Promise, quoted in Hans Petersen, "Liberal" im Amerikanischen. Eine Studie zur historischen
Semantik im gesellschafilichen Kontext (Kassel, 1992), 55.
44. Croly, Promise, 265-267, 286-288; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 195.
45. Croly, Promise, quoted in Petersen, Liberal, 58.
46. Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations During World War I (Baltimore,
1973); James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State: 1900-1918 (Boston, 1968), 214-254;
Vorlander, Liberalismus, 197.
47. William Leuchtenburg, "The New Deal and the Analogue of War," in John Braeman, Robert Bremner
and Everett Walters, eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century America (Columbus/Ohio, 1964),
81-143.
48. Croly, Promise, 139.
49. New Republic, 21 April 1917, 337; Vorländer, Liberalismus, 205; Jorn Leonhard, Nom Nationalkrieg
zum Kriegsnationalismus - Projektion und Grenze nationaler Integrationsvorstellungen in Deutschland,
GroLbritannien und den Vereinigten Staaten im Ersten Weltkrieg," in Ulrike v. Hirschhausen und Jorn
Leonhard, eds., Nationalismen in Europa. West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich (Gottingen, 2001), 204-240.
50. Sidney Kaplan, "Social Engineers as Saviors: Effects of World War I on Some American Liberals," in The
Journal of the History of Ideas 17 (1956): 347-369; Vorlander, Liberalismus, 204.
51. Karl Rohe, "Sozialer Liberalismus in Grabritannien in komparativer Perspektive. Zur Gesellschaftstheorie
des New Liberalism 1880-1914," in Holl, Trautmann and Vorlander, eds., Liberalismus, 110-125; Michael
131
PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM
Freeden, The New Liberalism. An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978); id., "The New Liberalism Revisited,"
in Karl Rohe, ed., Englischer Liberalismus im 19. undfriihen 20. Jahrhundert (Bochum, 1987),133-154.
52. Rohe, "Liberalismus," 120-122.
132