Jefferson, Bryan, and libertarianism

Thanks, Logan, for publicizing my book on Daily Kos and on Blue Dog Blog (http://www.bluedogdemocrat.org/blog/?q=node/107).

I'm glad you're enjoying Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy (Univ. Missouri Press, 2006).

You are surprised that I identify the Bryan stream rather than the Cleveland stream as the true heirs of Jefferson. Grover Cleveland and his allies called themselves "Jeffersonian" but this was not the case in many ways. Bryan and his populist brethren were much closer to Jefferson, and this was even true in terms of libertarianism and decentralization. Bryan led a Jeffersonian revival within the Democratic Party. Woodrow Wilson symbolized a betrayal of Jeffersonianism and he set the stage for Franklin D. Roosevelt, in terms of Hamiltonian domestic and foreign policies.

Bryan gets a bad rap from libertarians who assume he was an advocate of big government because some historians have mistakenly depicted him as a forerunner of FDR and the New Deal. Michael Kazin's new biography, A Godly Hero, helps to perpetuate this error. Unlike Roosevelt, Bryan was not a supporter of the welfare state and centralized bureaucracy. I deal with this in chapter 9 of my book but you can find even more information in the Deleted Scenes of chapter 9 on my website: http://popcorn78.blogspot.com/2006/05/deleted-scenes.html

I have an article scheduled to be published in the October issue of Chronicles. Here's an excerpt from "Don't Blame Bryan":

“Bryan was not an early advocate of the welfare state created by politicians like Franklin Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, and Lyndon Johnson. Bryan’s concern for the common people--many of whom were relatively poor--did not include using the federal government to ‘solve’ their poverty problems. He believed in a laissez-faire economy through which industry, thrift, cordiality, and honesty would be naturally rewarded. He objected to governmental favors that artificially interfered with this natural order. This is why he opposed members of ‘the privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class’ who acquired wealth through exploitation and political favoritism.”

Populism is not synonymous with statism or paternalism.

What has happened to the national Democratic Party? Largely founded by Thomas Jefferson on the basis of libertarian, laissez-faire, quasi-pacifist, and republican principles, it has fallen captive to the distinctly un-Jeffersonian--and unpopular--values of statism, government-sponsored capitalism, militarism, and imperialism. My book presents the sobering story of a party’s slide toward Leviathan and Pax [sic] Americana.

I am a libertarian with an appreciation for the non-coercive, anti-statist tradition associated with writers as diverse as Jefferson, Paine, Thoreau, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Orwell, Dwight Macdonald, Dorothy Day, A.J. Nock, Murray Rothbard, Jacques Ellul, and Lew Rockwell. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is one of my favorite members of the U.S. House. In addition to being a libertarian, I am a populist. Sometimes the basic American values of freedom and democracy clash, but more often than not they are allied. Ironically enough, the modern Democratic Party has generally stood opposed to both. Where Did the Party Go? explains why and surveys the current political landscape in this era of Democratic mushiness and Republican mendacity.

W.J. Bryan was an evangelical Christian who took Scripture and the teachings of Jesus seriously, including a commitment to nonviolence and the drawing of a clear line between Church and State. This is rather different from modern evangelicals who have placed their faith in G.W. Bush (a front man for practitioners of power who seem more committed to Machiavelli or Trotsky than Christ). The conclusion of the book includes a description of how the Bush administration has become a part of the Humphrey legacy through its emphasis on unchecked federal power at home and neoconservative-inspired nation-building abroad.

I know there are some differences among Democrats dissatisfied with the national prospects of the party. There are Jefferson-admiring libertarians. There are socially conservative Dems who admire the FDR-HHH tradition and are somewhat hawkish when it comes to international affairs. And there are socially liberal Dems tired of losing Middle America voters and irritated by the hypocrisy of trust-fund faux populists like Howard Dean. What sort of "conservatism" is advocated? By today's standards, Bryan was conservative in some ways and the same can be said about Cleveland in other ways. In his economic conservatism, Cleveland would fit in well with the DLC. That's not my kind of conservatism, partly because I don't think it's compatible with the ideals of Jefferson and Jackson.

-- Jeff
http://www.popcorn78.blogspot.com

That sounds like an interesting book. Ive always wondered how the democratic party went from Jeffersons "govt that governs least governs best" idea to what it is now. I figured it all started with FDR. Ive also read that John Dewey had something to do with it by changing the classical definition of liberalism from being about small govt and individual rights etc.. into a sort of a socialist idea of govt providing positive rights (that seems to be what Kos is still pushing :rolls eyes:). I think that may be the problem too, for both parties (and the country), they both seem to think that rights come from the gov't instead of the Constitution.

I have to say I find it hard to accept someone like Bryan as a 'libertarian' and a defender of sep of church and state considering the Scopes trial and the fact that he was an evangelical; he seems like he would be the kind of guy that would be for using the govt to legislate morality in the same way the religious right is.

I know it's surprising, but Bryan did believe in Separation of church and state. He was following Jesus ("Render unto Caesar...") and Jefferson (who coined the expression "wall of separation"). Of course, to Jefferson and Bryan that didn't mean the total exclusion of all religion from government or public life. They did, after all, believe in God and they did believe in democracy (majority rule). So modern secularists have taken the idea of separation far further than ever intended by Jefferson.

Here are some quotes from my book:

"Bryan was a strong Christian, but he did not want to create a sacral state. In 1906, he wrote, 'The attempt to unite church and state has never been helpful to either government or religion...'"

"Even with all of his enthusiasm for politics and social reform, Bryan never made the mistake of confusing the American Republic with the Kingdom of God. Certainly his faith informed his political views, but he was not trying to build a Constantinian state or man-created theocracy. Bryan advocated the sociopolitical policies he did not only because he believed in them as a Christian but because the majority of Americans shared his views. He was not trying to impose something on the people that they themselves did not want."

Bryan did believe that government should be based on truth and should uphold morality, but he was much more libertarian-minded than the Bush administration and the Religious Right (for starters, he believed in states' rights and thought most domestic powers were reserved to the states).

"Bryan advocated the sociopolitical policies he did not only because he believed in them as a Christian but because the majority of Americans shared his views. He was not trying to impose something on the people that they themselves did not want"

So he was a radical majoritarian. How does that jibe with this view of WJB as any sort of kin to libertarians?

Majorities can want a lot of things via government, that doesn't mean they're OK. Personally I've always believed the only application of majority-rule that isn't easily corrupted is the spontaneous, unguided type, the type that doesn't involve politics at all. Get politics involved, and it becomes demagoguery more often than not.

Good point, b psycho. Bryan was more of a populist than a libertarian, to be sure. When conflicts between the two arose, his belief in democracy trumped his belief in freedom. However, most of the time they're compatible. Show me a statist and you'll also be showing me an elitist.

Libertarianism is a continuum. Bryan was far more libertarian than Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, or Hillary Clinton. That was my point. He wasn't a big booster of bureaucratic government or the welfare state. He also had isolationist tendencies, in terms of foreign affairs. In those senses, he was a libertarian. But you're right that he wasn't a "pure libertarian" to the exclusion of other traditional American values.

Jefferson's political thought included support for personal liberty but it wasn't confined to that. It also included majority rule and a dimension of social morality. Bryan followed in those footsteps. If Democrats of 2006 were to follow Bryan, they'd be far more libertarian than they are even if they wouldn't measure up to the standards of the Libertarian Party (or, let's go all the way and say Anarchy).

I'm distracted right now, but I've been making my way through "Where Did the Party Go?" and it will most certainly be a book I bring up in the future on this blog.