There is more similarity than even the admission that the two "are not incompatible" (96). But the
deepest fault in Hartz is not any inability to case such similarities, but rather the exacted task of effectively
attempting to unify opposites or even conflicting views under the one tradition of liberalism. It is not
merely that there have been conflicting views throughout America's past, but that one of these, termed the
capitalist republican heritage here, has persisted throughout our history, but continually under attack by a
group of ostensibly somewhat similar ideologies, which in reality operate under a diametrically opposing
rubric.  The position taken here is that the great pretenders of liberal democracy have managed to cloak
themselves in such cover when it serves only as a ruse. There is a sense in which 'republicanism' may be
taken to be a form of at least classical liberalism, but the abuses carried out under that guise, especially in
contemporary America, almost make it obligatory to set the republican form formally separated. And such
differentiation is crucial to understanding the essence of the American civil religion tradition. 

     Hartz' discussion of the New Deal's supposed liberalism is the most disappointing of all. Having
largely ignored the Progressive contempt for individualism, its lust for the collective, its racism and the
institutionalization of it, and more, he now would describe the New Deal by ignoring it, too. Not that he
doesn't discuss it, but that he does so without substantive treatment and by cloaking it in truisms. At the
point anticipated by the reader from the outset as the logical place for the key to be presented which would
unlock and unravel the mystery of his system, there suddenly is no bottom card, and, in fact, the house of
cards he has built, collapses. He is actually quite mundane about the deceit. Nor does his pragmatism
argument fly very well. This liberalism isn't very liberal, nor does it work. The tact he has taken of
differentiating between liberal and republican has some pitfalls. In some respects it is a play on words, but
it is useful in distinguishing between complete control directly 'by' the people, the 'liberal' philosophy, and
governance through elected representatives, the republican persuasion. The purpose is that the 'play's the
thing.' For calling the New Deal and Great Society 'liberal,' erroneous as that may be, is perhaps not as
bad as applying the term to Jefferson or Jackson. Republican doesn't suit any of the four any better. It
might be possible to build an argument that they are 'republican' in the sense of their relative prescriptive
agenda through representative institutions, or 'liberal' on the grounds that their support, interest, and
service layers of society are the broad 'masses.' That is a specious argument, however. Nor do either
cultivate 'republican virtue' or 'democratic faith' -- indeed, their actions have tended to undermine those
things. It is the contention of Hartz that the Depression brought the new Whiggery crashing down, and
that:

	" ... what emerged to deal with the economic problem was a movement within
	the framework of the liberal faith ... What emerged was a movement ... which
	sought to extend the sphere of the state and at the same time retain the basic
	principles of Locke and Bentham." (97)

     He runs on passed that without so much as a pause. The reader might find it necessary to pause
momentarily to catch one's breath. But he is quick to admit that opponents to the New Deal attempted
unsuccessfully to "expose the non-Lockean  nature of much of the New Deal." (98) but were largely unable
to accomplish  general recognition of it, although it is a valid point. He also argues that "America came
late to positive social legislation." (99) That may be true, but it may also attest to our level of development
prior to that relative to other nations which experienced it earlier. 

     What the New Deal did do, since it had its major theoretical challenge from the 'right' was to bury
'socialism' as a viable alternative, if it ever was one (100). Identifying the pragmatic approach of Roosevelt
to the American tradition of experimenters like Edison and Bell (101) not only does violence to them, but
to scientific inquiry generally, relegating both it and them to a status of 'tinkerers.' But again, it is the
radical reformers of the New Deal that waged war on the left through much of their tenure, perhaps to
seem more moderate, though their conflict with the left was often one of stealth than it had been with
Wilson or would be with Truman. And Hartz utilizes the alleged lack of any real challenge from the 'left'
as the basis for rationalizing Roosevelt's antagonism toward property and his class-war posturing. (102) 
And from this, Hartz infers:

	"What emerges then in the case of the New Deal is a liberal self that is lost
	from sight: a faith in property, a belief in class unity, a suspicion of too much
	state power, a hostility to the utopian mood, all of which were blocked out by
	the weakness of the socialist challenge in the American liberal community." (103)

     It gets even more incredible, for this stance permitted the New Deal to pursue its pragmatic agenda:
	"And this, in turn, permitted the American democrat to go about solving
	his problems ..." (104)

This was, of course, no devious attempt to sneak socialism in unknown to the people. There were those
like Wallace who spoke of the 'Third Way' of the 'American Way,' (105) and on top of that:

	" ... when war came and the Truman prosperity appeared ... having been responsible
	for the solving of 'problems,' they could themselves happily adopt a modified version
	of the Alger ethos, attributing its strength indeed to the very problems they had
	solved." (106)

     But 'they' had not 'solved' any 'problems.' Indeed, the problems the nation faces today can be traced in
great measure to them (as could those he says they solved). Further, talking about the 'Truman prosperity'
can only leave you at a loss for words, while describing the New Deal's 'liberal self that is lost from sight'
in the same sentence that locates socialism even in weakness in any 'liberal community' boggles the mind.
Hartz proceeds to trump even such absurdity in his description of strategies employed by the 'deflated
Whiggery' which "behind this patchwork of disintegrated Whig thinking" of a 'querulous' and 'scriptural'
character due to its being left with little more than 'thunder' attempted to stir up turmoil. Particularly
drawing on such as Hayek and von Mises, at least this American Whiggery became "the home of dead
English philosophies retained by Austrian professors" (107). In his effort at describing the liberal tradition
in America, Hartz has buried liberalism.

     It is fortunate that reports of the death of liberalism were premature. Hartz, however, laments the
possibility that the Republican Party might have been able to awaken the American democrat to the
inconsistencies involved because "capitalism was at stake" and "they had little philosophic viability in
their approach" (108).  And among the casualties in Hartz' obituary appears to have been America's public
faith for the 'unphilosophic' American, in the description offered of  Albert Jay Nock:

	" ... so long as he can listen to the pattern of litanies, no practical inconsistency
	disturbs him -- indeed, he gives no evidence of even recognizing it as an
	inconsistency." (109)

     What the liberal tradition in this country has produced, according to Hartz, out of its "colossal liberal
absolutism" is this "death by atropy of the philosophic impulse" (110). Not at all comprehending that it
was actually modern liberalism's absolutism that led to the red scares, lumping all classical liberal
recoiling to "irrational anti-communist frenzy," he would see atropy where there has been a generation of
creative thought and action. In America's response to totalitarianism, he recites "a principle applicable to
all countries" that "the struggle for national survival leads to the constriction of internal freedoms," (111)
and seems to be incapable of understanding that where this has been the case, it has been due only to
expanded government. His remorse is tempered by gratitude that the situations which give rise to the
Palmers and McCarthys also create Wilsons! But it was the Progressivism of Wilson that created Mitchell
Palmer, in response to which Debs was jailed and the ACLU born, and the international regime of whom
destroyed economies of scale across much of Europe in name of supposed 'self-determination,' leaving the
British Empire, tattered and torn but hegemonic particularly in Europe. 

     Even if Hartz' perspective on the alleged imperialism of McKinley is not completely corrupted (112), it
is jaded enough. There was no 'ideological war' except domestically which was a hallmark of McKinley's
'imperial enterprise,' (113) but if:

	"The Filipinos posed no threat to the American way of life, [or] Aquinaldo
	had no agents in Washington or San Francisco ... " (114)

and if there was:

	" ... the absence of any real sense of national danger even during the
	Spanish-American War," (115)

what of the hungry British eyes cast at the disintegrating Spanish Empire and London's role in arming
Aquinaldo? It is a curious 'national faith' being spoken by Bryan against Mahan's theory of maritime
strength for any world trading power because:

	"Since the days of Adam Smith the liberal creed has assailed colonial
	expansion." (116)

     Taft's Dollar Diplomacy to promote world capitalist development becomes, for Hartz, as 'imperialist
messiahism' which drifts to 'Anglo-Saxon superiority' and looting (117). After all, there had been those
anti-imperialist Republicans of the old tradition which were schooled by "the work of Lincoln and the
Civil War" -- like perhaps John Hay (who had served close to Lincoln) whose Open Door saved China
from British designs to reduce it under the collar of an Asian model of partitioned Africa when he was
McKinley's Secretary of State? America's record is, to be sure, "not a bad one," (118) and it is due in good
measure to "the fact that national domination is peculiarly distasteful" not "to the dogmatic liberal mind."
What escapes Hartz is that it is due rather to the republican virtue cultivated by our civic faith.

     Conformity to convention is a trait of most cultures. It is certainly not uniquely American, and, indeed,
may be much less a constraining factor on behavior here than elsewhere. In a manner similar to other
analyses such as Hofstader's PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS, Hartz seems to try to
explain away that aspect of American exceptionalism that has left socialism per se out in the cold by
attributing the phenomenon to a fault within ourselves, apparently not even considering that the fault may
lie elsewhere, like with socialism itself. In his closing remarks, he himself launches into a diatribe against
the communist menace, and maybe that may due to his proximity to the McCarthy period, but it may be
more than that; it may be Progressivism's internecine warfare of the left. It would be difficult to conclude
from this study that Hartz was a classical liberal suffering from guilt, either. Turning the American liberal
tradition into an American liberal absolutism is a little like the heliocentric Kepler or Galileo being
accused of absolutism for utter rejection of flat-earth theories, and that does not depend upon a dogmatic
mind. Turning classical liberalism into contemporary liberalism, on the other hand, requires somewhat
more than smoke and mirrors, and Louis Hartz is no David Copperfield. 

     One of the problems faced by this heterogeneous nation is not, in any event, too much conformity.
Quite to the contrary, the liberality of this people throughout its history has created the impulses of a
nonconformity perhaps unseen anywhere else. And we are less one-dimensional today than at any other
time in the past. That is not to assert that a certain 'cloning' phenomenon has not been observable, but
liberation from it is at base a liberal potentiality. But convention of a degree is a requisite for any
functional society. There must be common denominators in order for the members of any culture to
'interface' no less than the form of liberal republic this nation represents depends upon a degree of
republican virtue. American individualism is no myth because that exists. This examination has
delineated the civil religion as an important aspect for the interfacing of America, but it is of quite a
different species than the liberal faith in Hartz. He has posed the Anti-Geist as the Geist. Lipset's
pendulum theory of our history is problematic in much the same manner, for rather than equality as an
alternative to achievement, achievement is the only path toward greater equality. For the 'faith' of Hartz,
the dilemna may lie in a flawed premise that fails to comprehend the distinction between being 'born free'
and 'born equal.' What the anti-Geist embodies is the loss of the soul of America.



XIX  LOST SOUL IN PURGATORY

     Over the last couple of decades, we have witnessed a change in the direction of the attack emanating
out of the what Louis Hartz identified as the liberal absolutist conformity. As has been argued here, it may
not have been precisely as Hartz portrayed it, but in the recent period, so long as 'Progressives' maintained
control, they seemed content to periodically fire across the decks of the ghost ships of the left, that is, if
after the implementation of their policies there were any shells or ships left in our arsenal for the nation.
More recently, there has been a decided alteration of that pattern.             

     If 'liberal' means an 'open' society, freer in mobility and more egalitarian, then not only are we more
liberal than in 1955 when Hartz published, but clearly more than at any other time. That is no accident. It
results out of the lawful process of capital formation of capitalism. But, if it is taken to mean open to
change as social experimentation by an elite of social planners and engineers, we may be  more liberal,
but that is necessarily regrettable (and it is hardly liberal). Many of the experiments of the last half
century have been utterly counter-productive if not destructive. Those are comparative statements, of
course, but there are some noticeable trends. Government is bigger and more pervasive -- and there is
more poverty -- than in 1965, but that is not attributable to the Reagan years when poverty actually
decreased though it increased under both Carter and Clinton. Taxes are much higher than at any time
during that period. This is in spite of the huge cuts of the early Reagan years, which not only increased
government receipts tremendously but actually resulted in a higher tax incidence on wealthier citizens,
while the tax hikes of Clinton raised rates on the rich more and increased the share of taxes paid by the
'non-rich.' And although it has not necessarily made the world a safer place, in the interim, Ronald
Reagan won the Cold War.  What these somewhat conflicting trends portray is not only the descent out of
failure of contemporary liberalism, but a rising star for the somewhat more classically liberal
'conservatives,' made most noticeable in the 1994 elections. The trend has led to a somewhat ironic twist.
The McCarthyist absolutism of Hartz may be taking the last dying shots by the social engineers against
the 'myths' with a different vision posing a threat to them, and winning. The American ethos of American
liberal absolutism, as personified by contemporary liberalism, may have given us Mitchell Palmer and the
House un-American Activities Committee, but it has more recently also given us convictions of Oliver
North (since overturned) and Admiral Poindexter on 'contempt of Congress' charges. It also gave us the
wretched treatment of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. And yet, it is blind to blatant illegality when it
comes to its 'own' -- Whitewater and Cattlegate for example among a stable of crimes. With the One
Hundred Days of the Contract with America, the response of liberals in the party structure and media has
been hysteria and blatant fabrication. (Regrettably, this has also been too much the case in scholarly
literature).

     John P. Diggins has undertaken an examination which in some respects picks up where Louis Hartz
left off. His assessment of Hartz, about which more will follow, suggests that one of the gaps in his
reasoning was the lack of orientation toward the religious influence in our history (1). Diggins is
approaching the matter from the standpoint of Weber and Calvinist religion, but his emphasis on
republicanism and republican virtue invites consideration with the arena of this discussion of civil
religion. No sooner, however, has he launched his exposition, than he flounders badly, and tellingly, in
his commentary, referring to "at least those conservatives who can tell the difference between immediate
corporate profits and genuine industrial productivity, between making money and making goods." (2) This
is a political economic perspective which is as bankrupt as any firm or economy based on such a premise
would be.
     
     With apologies to Henry Ford, who did know better, the Ford Motor Company is not in the business of
making cars. It's business is making money. As the earlier discussion of operations theory attempted to
make clear, there will be and can be no investment not based on reasonable expectation of a competitive
return on that investment. And what is it exactly that business or individuals of high disposable income
levels so with that profit, what does society do with the aggregate social surplus? It invests it toward that
end. And without it, or to the extent that it is diminished, there will be less investment, less increases in
productivity levels, less economic activity, and less employment and income. Hence, it is only through
achievement and its commensurate return that living standards can be raised, so that capitalism must be
seen as the 'great leveler.'

     In spite of what such as Rawls and Kymlicka insist, redistributive justice is an oxymoron. Accepting at
they do that equality is a non sequitor, their formulae for regime action to compensate for inequalities is
self-defeating. It is also lawful enough that even those in the original position behind the veil of ignorance
would have to see it. And if they truly were to decide 'rationally,' the choice would have to be the
distribution  of wealth that occurs out of Robert Nozick (and Adam Smith, et al). 

     Diggins purports to demonstrate that there was a disconnect between the time of the Declaration and
the Second Founding  with the Constitution which exudes a loss of faith in human nature, the liberalism
of independence being replaced by a neither liberal nor republican constitutional regime (3). He wants a
return to the faith of liberal virtue, but in order for that to be possible, we must liberate ourselves from the
dark vision of human nature which that order, in its creation and perseverance, represents (4). But the lost
soul he would resurrect is based on a flawed conception of the faith of the Framers, and his bogeyman
leaves his 'lost soul' in purgatory. Happily, that does not preclude the possibility of a paradise regained,
except that his path to salvation is through governance, the very device of our soul's thanatosis, when, in
fact, the stone of our entombment that needs to be rolled back is his very perceived solution to our
dilemna, while the nature he misconstrues is the real resurrection and life our spirit. Diggins' theology,
much like that of Hartz, is the antithesis of the American faith. Their remedy is more the cause of the
discontent of the American soul.

     While it is by no means universal, it may be much more pervasive an attitude than even evidence
suggests, as may be indicated by the idea of positive apathy. In the effort to try to help explain the high
level of 'nonparticipation' in American politics that marks our 'exceptionalism,' the idea that great
numbers of individuals would be effectively apathetic, though possessed of considerable capabilities and
interests, because they were simply too involved in those interests  is of crucial import. It was recognized
to a degree in the Declaration where "men are more disposed to suffer where evils are sufferable" and
explained in part by Anthony Downs' Economic Theory of Voting where the relative costs and benefits of
political activity would determine the efficacy of voting at all, let alone the direction of that vote.
Estimated at perhaps one-third of non-participants, the psychology involved, especially on Downs'
analysis, is probably much broader in application, for even the more 'traditionally' apathetic might well be
motivated were the cost/benefit balance to weigh in upon them adequately. It rests not on an American
trait of having been 'born equal,' but on our blessing of having been 'born to equality,' not on our having
been 'born free' so much as having been 'born to freedom.'  Much to his misfortune, Rousseau was not
personally familiar with America. Had he been, he would have had to revise at least some of his
philosophy, for his "Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains," would have  had to have been
addended with "except in America." Rousseau would have had to consider Pinocchio's little song
(obviously, there would have been notable exceptions such as slavery, but comparatively speaking and on
balance, he might well have thought thusly):

	"I have no strings to tie me down,
	to make me laugh or make me frown.
	I once had strings, but now I'm free --
	There are no strings on me."

Not even are we hamstrung by Hartz' liberal absolutism. It is, rather, the extent to which this is a liberal
republic, politically, socially, economically, which is so liberating. 

Continue