Illiberal Reformers

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In this work, Thomas Leonard reexamines the economic progressives whose ideas fueled the Progressive Era's dismantling of laissez-faire capitalism and the establishment of the regulatory welfare state, intended to humanize industrial capitalism. Key figures like Richard T. Ely, John R. Commons, and Edward A. Ross, alongside reformers in social work and law, were instrumental in enacting minimum-wage laws, maximum-hours regulations, workmen's compensation, progressive taxes, and antitrust measures. However, while they aimed to uplift certain groups, they simultaneously advocated for the exclusion of others in the name of progress. Leonard meticulously explores the impact of Darwinism, racial science, and eugenics on these scholars and activists, revealing their ambivalence towards the poor. Economic progressives supported labor legislation to benefit the "deserving" poor while vilifying immigrants, African Americans, women, and those deemed "mental defectives" as threats to the American workforce and racial integrity. Their rejection of property and contract rights as obstacles to reform reflected a broader disregard for civil liberties. Leonard illustrates that the architects of the regulatory welfare state sought not to assist those they viewed as inferior, but rather to exclude them entirely.