As of this writing, President Obama’s czar count has reached the tidy sum of 34 (not to be outdone by the first lady, who has 20 servants assistants, but that’s another story). Czars are public officials that are unelected yet have sweeping powers the same as Congress, with no accountability to Congress or a Cabinet secretary (or you, the taxpayer, for that matter). There are currently czars for climate change, executive pay, drugs, health care reform, urban affairs, domestic violence, energy, and so on ad nauseam. Czars are nothing new, as many Presidents have had them, but no President has had this many unelected officials with the tools and resources to make policy while being accountable to no one except the administration. The worst thing is these czar's don't have to undergo Senate Confirmation Hearings, as they are simply appointed by the President. Obama’s use of czars is just one tool in the progressivist toolbox used to build a bureaucratic apparatus that will circumvent the Constitution toward its own ends. It is, quite frankly, a power grab by Obama to advance his utopian agenda with impunity through unelected “experts” that answer to no one but him. Again, this is nothing new, but is entirely consistent with the goals of the progressive movement that began in the late nineteenth century. So perhaps a little history might illuminate the actions of the Obama administration today.
At its inception, the progressive movement’s agenda, in addition to its push for social reform, included a wide array of legislative proposals to regulate business and property. Yet the Constitution, undergirded by the principle of individual property rights, provided an obstacle to these legislative programs. State constitutions were also resistant to progressive legislative programs, noting that the new programs extended the power of government well beyond its constitutional limits. The problem though, as progressives saw it, was a failure of the courts to see the Constitution as a “living” organism, one whose limitations on government ought not be read strictly or literally, but instead interpreted to fit the demands of a new age. For Woodrow Wilson, the structure of the Constitution itself made it nearly impossible for progressively minded interpreters to adapt it to their new agenda. The Constitution rested on a system of divided powers, both between federal and state levels of government, which thwarted Wilson’s efforts to bring about a unity of the “popular will.” Thus, he detested the separation of powers, and was highly critical of this system of government. The ideal model for Wilson was the parliamentary one, where the legislative and executive are essentially united, both rising and falling on the evolving popular will.
Wilson believed government was a living thing that falls under the theory of organic life, which is modified by its environment and shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. Thus it needed to be reformed to reflect the unity of the public mind that progressives believed had been brought about by history. Separation of powers, therefore, had to be discarded and replaced by a system that separated politics and administration. The most contentious political questions had been resolved by historical development (such as the Civil War), so the real work of the government was not in politics, but in administration. Thus the plan for reforming national institutions was to democratize and unify national political institutions while separating and insulating administrative agencies. Wilson believed the original intention of separation of powers could be circumvented by an enhanced presidency that could energize an active national government. To the extent that Wilson could claim to embody the people’s will, he would move institutions of national government by the force of that popularity. These national administrative institutions would then translate that broad will into specific policy.
Though the idea was to democratize national political institutions, the exact opposite was done through administrative agencies made up of a substantial bureaucratic apparatus, shielded from political influence, staffed by educated “experts” who would become the means for facilitating government through regulatory activity. This was clearly at odds with the Constitution, because whereas administration was supposed to be confined to the executive branch, a progressive administration engaged itself not only in executive action, but legislative and judicial action as well. These administrative agencies could superintend the activities of private businesses, and on the basis of their expertise, could make rules and regulations, enforce them, and adjudicate violations of them. Since these administrators were unlike ordinary politicians, they could, ostensibly, be objective and could focus on the good of the whole people. Yet the irony here is that this administrative model called for shifting policymaking power away from popular institutions and giving it to educated elites. Since they were “free” from political or electoral control, in actuality what Wilson was proposing was a distinctly elitist model under a democratic veneer.
Between Wilson and Roosevelt, progressives of both parties played a significant role in national, state, and local politics throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century. Roosevelt and Wilson reformed politics through federal regulation of numerous aspects of public life, which became commonplace. They inaugurated a new era in American government that, as I discussed in the last blog, was continued by other progressive presidents, with Obama simply being the latest torchbearer of the progressive movement. While Wilson’s concept of government was concerned with shielding administrative agencies from political influence so administrators could run rampant in making policy, Obama’s chosen method to circumvent the Constitution is to appoint a small army of czars reporting directly to him to accomplish the same end. Is this the change we’ve been waiting for? For me, indeed not.
Note: I realize that according to the previous post this post was supposed to discuss the dangers of progressivism, but I couldn’t resist getting in a “jab” about czar-mania. The next post will address that topic.
* References
Pestritto, Ronald J. and William J. Atto, eds. American Progressivism: A Reader. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008.
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