JÖRN LEONHARD Progressive Politics and the Dilemma of Reform
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Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg JÖRN LEONHARD Progressive Politics and the Dilemma of Reform German and American Liberalism in Comparison, 1880-1920 Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Maurizio Vaudagna (Hrsg.):The place of Europe in American history : twentieth-century perspectives. Torino: OTTO Ed., 2007, S. 115-132 7 nova americana in english edited by Maurizio Vaudagna ce of Europe in American History: Twentieth-Century Perspectives Tiziano Bonazzi, Darla Frezza, Claudio Zambianchi, Giuliana Muscio, Giuliana Gemelli, Antonella Cardellicchio, Jam Leonhard, Raffaella Baritono, Marco Mariano, Mario Del Pero, Jennifer Klein, Elisabetta Vezzosi, Maurizio Vaudagna, Manuel Plana, Alessandra Lorini, Simone Cinotto OTTBEDITORE THE PLACE OF EUROPE IN AMERICAN HISTORY: TWENTIETH- CENTURY PERSPECTIVES edited by M. Vaudagna OTTBEDITORE The Place of Europe in American History: Twentieth-Century Perspectives Edited by M. Vaudagna Collana Nova Americana in English Comitato scientifico: Marco Bellingeri, Marcell° Carmagnani, Maurizio Vaudagna Prima edizione gennaio 2007 ©2007, OTTO editore – Torino [email protected] http://wvvw.otto.to.it ISBN 88-95285-02-6 ISBN 978-88-95285-02-3 E vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuato, compresa la fotocopia, anche ad use interno o didattico, non autorizzato. PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM: GERMAN AND AMERICAN LIBERALISM IN COMPARISON, 1880-1920 JORN LEONHARD I. INTRODUCTION: LIBERALISM AS AN EXHAUSTED POLITICAL CONCEPT AFTER 1945 Speaking at a conference of German liberals in December 1948, which led to the foundation of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in West Germany, Theodor Heuss, later the president of the Federal Republic, asked his audience whether the label "liberal" could still be used to identify a political party that regarded itself as part of the tradi- tion of political liberalism. The fact that the conference members voted in favor of the Free Democratic Party instead of the Liberal Democratic Party as its official party name indicated a widespread skepticism. The very concept of liberalism, representing the am- bivalent experiences of the nineteenth century, seemed too closely tied to the German liberals' Kulturkampfof the 1870s and the capitalist Manchester School. In the eyes of so many, this had prevented liberals from exercising a more progressive social policy that in turn could have bridged the gap between bourgeois liberalism and social democracy before 1914, and especially after 1918.1 In 1950, Thomas Mann, one of the most prominent representatives of the German- educated bourgeoisie and its impact on the political culture of the German middle classes, went even further. Reflecting upon the fate of liberalism after the experience of European fascism from his position as American exile, Mann pointed out that the very term "liberal" had become void and meaningless. Against the background of the fascist challenge and European liberals' inability to prevent its rise, Mann demanded a redefinition of how liberty and equality could be reconciled. In contrast to what he regarded as a liberal primacy of liberty, Mann pointed to equality as the "leading idea of the current epoch." What the postwar period needed, in Mann's eyes, was a social emancipation distinct from the totalitarian model. But while liberalism seemed to represent political emancipation, constitutions, and political institutions as the bourgeois legacy of the nineteenth century, "social emancipation" could no longer be defined by a simple reference to a concept that seemed semantically exhausted. In the same context, Mann pointed to the necessity to transform the paradigm of bourgeois revolution into "social democracy." If Goethe, at the end of his life, had declared that every reasonable individual was actually a liberal, Mann underlined that at present every reasonable human being was to be a socialist.2 How are we to explain the obvious exhaustion of the semantics of liberalism, reflec- ting the exhaustion of liberal political agendas after 1945? Was it a particularly German 115 PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND THE DILEMMA OF REFORM response to the experience of liberals' electoral decline and their failure to prevent the rise of fascism? Or was it a general European and transatlantic trend that needs careful explanation? Either way, the answer lies in a comparative understanding of the chal- lenges and transformations of European and American liberalisms from the end of the nineteenth century. In contrast to approaches which define liberalism as a universal set of more or less unchanging ideas which appear to have proved their validity under changing circumstances,' this paper first concentrates on a comparative analysis of how liberals in different historical contexts, in Germany and the United States, responded to a rapidly transforming society and political world, beginning in the 1870s.4 Secondly, the interaction between liberal discourses in Germany and the United States, the dialogue and transfer, is given particular attention in order to contribute to an analysis of Europe's place in American political culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. The starting point of this examination is the apparent triumph of liberalism in nearly all western European societies of the 1870s. Had Matthew Arnold, in his Culture and Anarchy of 1869, not defined the success of the English liberal idea as "the legislation of middle-class parliaments ... the local self-government of middle-class vestries ... the unrestricted competition of middle-class industrialists ... the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the Protestantism of middle-class Protestant religion?" 5 Towards the end of the century, it appeared that Gladstonian liberalism was already a symbol of the British nation as the most progressive power in the world, as well as a personalized style of politics. Benjamin Jowett, vice-chancellor of Oxford University, thus commented on Gladstone's role in the home-rule debate by pointing to the apparent triumph of an evolutionary reform strategy by which liberals seemed to have stimulated even their conservative counterpart for the good of the country: "Liberals have, to a great extent, removed the impression they had created in England that they were the friends of disorder. Do you know, I cannot help feeling that I have more of the Liberal element in me than of the Conservative? This rivalry between the parties, each surprising the other by their liberal- ity, has done a great deal of good to the people of England."6 The same triumph of liberal principles could be observed in other contexts. The Gilded Age and the open frontier in North America seemed to offer unrestricted possibili- ties for the future of individual liberty.' In Germany, liberals achieved what they had been seeking from the early nineteenth century on. The unified German nation-state of 1870, although excluding Austria, was regarded by most contemporaries not just as Bismarck's creation but also as a success of German liberalism. Together, progressive and national liberals won an impressive majority of 52% of the seats in the first general elections of the new Reichstag in 1872. Given the democratic franchise, this was a remarkable political success.' The new nation-state provided a stable framework for further political and con- stitutional reforms, as the successful coalition between Bismarck and the national liberals seemed to indicate. Germany's economic strength, together with the rise of bourgeois 116 JORN LEONHARD culture and the successful implementation of a Rechtsstaat – a state founded on the rule of law, as the completion of the Civil Code in 1900 illustrated – reflected a silent yet very successful bourgeois revolution, indicating an impressive learning process from the days of the 1848 revolution on.9 This triumph of liberal Realpolitik, to use Ludwig August von Rochau's famous phrase from the 18505, 10 seemed to mark the essence of Germany's modernity as both a successful industrial society and a strong nation-state. How are we to explain the difference between the perception of liberal successes in the 1870s and the fact that, after 1918, liberalism had already become an ideology in defense? Or that, after 1945, most political parties in Europe and certainly in the U.S., despite incorporating many traditions of liberalism, avoided identifying too closely with the nineteenth-century semantics of liberalism? In other words, how are we to under- stand the ideological and programmatic crisis of an ideology that had shaped the "long" nineteenth century more than any other contemporary political movement? In order to approach this question from a comparative angle, this paper looks at liber- als' responses to particular challenges as they developed in Europe and the United States starting in the last third of the nineteenth century. These multiple challenges character- ized a structural transformation that developed gradually, just around the period when the triumph of liberalism seemed so obvious. What liberals had to respond to was the outcome of modernization made possible by their constant fight for political participa- tion, as well as social and economic emancipation, from the start of the dual revolution during the last third of the eighteenth century. However, from the mid-1870s onwards, a whole set of complex challenges began to overlap:" the changing meaning of nation- state and nationalism in Germany after 1871 and the emergence of empire-politics in the United States