Whatever Happened To Roosevelt Republicans?
Posted on August 13th, 2009
by David Lindsay |
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From the Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt:
“I hold that a corporation does ill if it seeks profit in restricting production and then by extorting high prices from the community by reason of the scarcity of the product; through adulterating, lyingly advertising, or over-driving the help; or replacing men workers with children; or by rebates; or in any illegal or improper manner driving competitors out of its way; or seeking to achieve monopoly by illegal or unethical treatment of its competitors, or in any shape or way offending against the moral law either in connection with the public or with its employees or with its rivals. Any corporation which seeks its profit in such fashion is acting badly. It is, in fact, a conspiracy against the public welfare which the Government should use all its powers to suppress.
“If, on the other hand, a corporation seeks profit solely by increasing its products through eliminating waste, improving its processes, utilizing its by-products, installing better machines, raising wages in the effort to secure more efficient help, introducing the principle of cooperation and mutual benefit, dealing fairly with labor unions, setting its face against the underpayment of women and the employment of children; in a word, treating the public fairly and its rivals fairly: then such a corporation is behaving well. It is an instrumentality of civilization operating to promote abundance by cheapening the cost of living so as to improve conditions everywhere throughout the whole community.”
I have been hoping for years to read a proper study of the two Presidents Roosevelt in terms of their similarities, preferably leading to a synthesis of their thought as applicable in the present age. If anyone knows of such a work, then do please let me know – davidaslindsay@hotmail.com.
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Don’t you know that most modern conservatives/libertarians think that old TR was a closet commie?
I mean Lew Rockwell contends that TR’s efforts to establish the national parks and forests was a conspiratorial plot designed to increase the value of John Rockefeller’s real estate holdings and prevent poorer Americans from buying land. I guess this example doesn’t exactly parse with my earlier point about TR being a commie, but it nonetheless demonstrates my point that TR’s moderate sensibilities have fallen out of favor with the modern right.
Apparently in America criticizing corporations and/or their business practices now amounts to heresy. I suppose this mindset is due to the fact that we have become ever more dependent on large corporations for our livelihoods. Still, for a society that claims to be based on individual liberty and subservience to no one, we seem all to willing to do the bidding of corporations who may not be looking out for our best interests, whether those interests be at the individual or national level.
Libertarians credit the Progressive Era for corporatism, the imperial presidency, a shift away from federalism, and the warfare-welfare state:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/rothbard_on_war.html
Bully Boy by Jim Powell on TR, he also wrote FDR’ s Folly.
Then see the hagiographic Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood, page 41-42 (hardback ed) where he quotes
from a TR speech that is more openly statist-collectivist
than anything FDR said (to my knowledge.)
Considering that free-market monopoly is basically an oxymoron - and if it ever happened - it would simply be the manifestation of consumer preferences - Roosevelt was basically just grandstanding.
“we seem all to willing to do the bidding of corporations who may not be looking out for our best interests, whether those interests be at the individual or national level.”
The health insurance companies.