The rebirth of progressivism

Progressivism is on the retreat. The last American President who can remotely be said to belong to the tradition was Lyndon Johnson and probably the last flag bearer was Paul Wellstone. In the UK as in the US it reached its zenith around rthe end of the nineteenth century particularly with the London County Council and with Lib-Labbery. The term progressive has often been misused as a cover for something else as with Communist influenced front organisations and incredribly by the pre 1974 Tories in Scotland and the Canadian Tories and more recently by Nick Clegg in describing government economic policies as progressive.

However with the excesses of the banks and the collpase of state dominated economies progressivism offers an alternative a role for the state in regulating business rather than running it as it can't be trusted to regulate what it owns

How can we ensure a rebirth of progressivism?
 
I think it's going to come back, slowly but surely. People are getting a bit PO'ed about the great amounts of Wealth inequality and I think people may turn to them.
 
One of the biggest issues of Progressivism Part I from 1890-1920 is that you had the threats of anarchism and socialism to make the more comfortable take working-class grievances more seriously.

In this century, ideologies have become largely passe. The Occupy movement has no identified leader or ideology beyond the premises "status quo sucks" and "let's return to something fairer/more democratic".

I agree with their goals, but by and large, the framework of what "we" want to do hasn't been spelled out.

Socialism was designed for the Industrial Revolution. Now, the post-industrial world has made old definitions of the working class obsolete and labor organization an oxymoron. People shift employers and careers too much for old school craft-unions to work. As to who's going to be the new community organizers and advocates for common working people, IDK.
 
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