Progressivism: the proper role of government is to encourage co-operation

The FTC's website has a PDF file on it's servers titled "The Origins of the FTC: Concentration, Cooperation, Control", (Google Docs) which is more telling than it leads on:

Concentration and co-operation are conditions imperatively essential for industrial advance; but if we allow concentration and co-operation there must be control in order to protect the people, and adequate control is only possible through the administrative commission. Hence concentration, co-operation, and control are the key words for a scientific solution of the mighty industrial problem which now confronts this Nation.

Theodore Roosevelt, who is quoting from Charles Van Hise at the Progressive Party Convention. Notice the language used, it's consistent. Concentration, and Cooperation. This one is the interesting one, from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: (A Wilson appointee)

The proper role of the government is to encourage not combination, but co-operation.

If encouraging combination is government's role, how would they do this? With social regulations. Nudging people, groups, and companies into "doing the right thing" according to the planners.

This notion of co-operation is an important one in progressivism, which I will explore in later detail in the future.

http://tinyurl.com/c479vg2