Liberalism: Power, Economic Crisis, Reform, War 81themes from real life, or educators urging their students to be open-minded
and inquisitive, the era of Progressivism led to great changes in American life,
and made capitalism a little less harsh for many of those at the lower levels
of society. But there was much more to Progressivism than helping women,
children, consumers, and the poor. Corporations had their own vision of
reforming capitalism too.
Corporate Liberalism
While the traditional story of Progressivism is a tale of muckrakers and activ-
ists seeking justice and new ways of thinking, there is a lesser-known version,
the “other Progressivism,” which is highly important in understanding the
reforms of that era. As noted earlier regarding Roosevelt’s views on labor,
many ruling class figures wanted “stability,” “cooperation,” and “harmony” in
class relations rather than the conflict, often violent, that had marked the later
19 th and early 20th Centuries. Episodes like Haymarket, the Populist rising, or
Ludlow showed that capitalists could crush those seeking an alternative soci-
ety, but it was much better to create a system where fighting in the streets
was not necessary; thus, the development of what many scholars would call
“corporate liberalism.” That term may seem contradictory—Americans gener-
ally associate corporations with a conservative desire to maintain and expand
their power, while they often think of liberals as people who want to smooth
out the rough edges of capitalism and make life better for the have-nots. But
conservatives and liberals were not as far apart as one might think. Both
believed in capitalism, private ownership of businesses and banks, a govern-
ment role in helping the economic elites expand the economy and their prof-
its, and a stable system, which might mean reforming laws to help the poor
or creating regulations to make class relations less angry.
Corporate Liberalism is not a complicated idea. It basically means that
reform comes from the top down; it is not motivated, as Americans are often
taught, by “the people” practicing democracy by seeking aid or changes in the
law from their elected representatives. Corporate leaders understood that
capitalism was still problematic in the early 1900s; there was still significant
poverty, unregulated business practices, and gross inequality. So they sought
“liberal” measures to fix capitalism, so that it would work more efficiently and
discourage radical ideas and groups like Socialists, anarchists, farm radicals, or