Another take on progressivism

Thanks for starting us off, Salette.
I have a different take, and I love that we could actually engage in a discussion at this level. Hope someone joins us.
The liberal/conservative continuum, when it's boiled down, seems to me is an economic continuum, from socialism to robber baron capitalism. It deals with the social contract around resources, how they are earned, how they are distributed. The basic values tension is whether the "free market" should determine the fate of individuals, each competing in their own selfish interest to grab as much as they can, or whether more sucessful people should be forced to take care of "those less fortunate" through the government (taxes), and to what extent.

Conservatism here says the poor are poor because they are lazy and thriftless, and somehow have not properly employed their bootstraps, with which everyone is equally endowed. It simplistically ignores differences in opportunity and capacity. Unfettered, it believes in funneling all resources to the private sector, ignoring the interest of the public in those resources. In truth, while they claim to enjoy an unregulated market, the market is highly regulated to favor the wealthy.

On the other hand, liberalism responds with the notion, "from each according to their ability, to each according to his (her) need," and the liberal fights for the government to assure the basic wellbeing of all the people, through taxation and regulation, making it comfortable for some people to get by without much bootstrap-pulling going on. It simplistically ignores questions around what motivates people to do what’s uncomfortable or disagreeable, or why anyone would bother to get ahead. All of us know people who won’t work for fear of jeopardizing their disability check, even if their lives would be much better with a decent salary.

I don't want to dwell on this axis of experience. It is absolutely still relevant to decisions today, but it does not define a progressive. Ted Kennedy today on YouTube was magnificent in defending the working men and women who produce our wealth as he fought that the Senate might actually vote on increasing the minimum wage. This is the government acting to assure the wellbeing of the powerless.

Most progressives would believe that both the individual and the commons hold economic responsibilities toward each other, that corporations and consumers ought to fairly pay the full and actual cost of production, and most progressives believe that we should pay for things collectively as we go along in a way that sustains our society for the long run and keeps us self-sufficient.

I would argue that modern progressivism is on a whole different continuum, a “y” axis if you will rather than an “x axis.” In fact, a person could plot his or her position any given day on each axis and come pretty close to predicting their stand on any issue.

For me this axis relates to the social contract around distribution of "rights and powers," in which economic resources are but one factor. And on this continuum, progressives tend to side with Thomas Jefferson, that all power is inherent in the people, and that the government works for the people who vote for them and pay their salary, and that each human being is endowed with inalienable rights and we include in that our undeniable responsibilities toward future generations and Mother Earth.

We speak of ideas of "fairness," "honesty," “equality,” "respect," “responsibility,” "balance," "justice," “human rights,” “human dignity,” “neighborliness,” ideals that had little context in the old discussion of social darwinism vs the nanny state. But these are the ideals of small town America and we can call them up in people.

We intuitively resonate to Howard Dean’s cry for we the people to “take our country back,” we idealize the equality (and the pragmatism) of a 50 state strategy (however imperfectly carried out), we shudder at human rights abuses anywhere in the world, we rebel at the way wealth buys power in this country, and in our own party, and we resent the taxing authority squandering our money and our kids lives without our OK. Taxation without representation is again a rallying cry.
Progressivism grows out of a concerted response to the neocon philosophy, which is held by many powerful people on both sides of the aisle. The neocons believe in elitism as an article of faith, consciously build aristocracies especially of wealth, and believe a select few elite rightly know what’s good for everyone (I’m the decider.”), and the elite is in fact obliged to provide “noble myths” (LIES) to assure a “stable” (COMPLACENT) society. (Leo Strauss)

Leo Strauss and his neocons, believe that nothing could ever eradicate the basic evil in man, expressed in dangerous (sexual) hedonism, to be rigidly controlledby a strong authority, while progressives tend to trust the collective wisdom and basic goodness of ordinary people to make things right. And we all have a little of that neocon in us, if we will but look in the mirror.

Progressives would argue that you don’t sell your birthright as a free citizen to the wealthy or the powerful in order to stay alive, and that even the poorest among us have equal standing before the law, or should have, a level playing field of education and opportunity, and an equal say as to what happens in the commons.
Neocons would hold that by birthright some men (and some countries) are more equal than others, that the elitist social order is to be protected and expanded, that the commons should be privatized and removed from the control of the people, and that really only the elite need to be educated.

Progressives dream of a future sustainable world that offers dignity and equal opportunity to all – a life-friendly world. Neocons dream of a world they can dominate that maintains their social standing.