New audiobook release: The Principles of Scientific Management, by Frederick Winslow Taylor

Science. Experts.

Have you ever wondered how we got here?

I've spent many years focusing on the main progressives, in the political realm, and their ideas and bureaucracies and how that became pervasive throughout lawmaking in a way that so much of lawmaking really is not lawmaking any more in the sense of what it used to be. Modern laws are mainly permission slips for which the rest is handled by regulatory bodies, unelected reglatory bodies by the way, which can regulate and re-regulate and re-regulate behind our backs in the shadows and we have no idea what the rules actually are. Any announcements of regulatory change are tiny if at all, and virtually never covered in depth by journalistic outlets. We get regulatory changes done against us all the time.

But that is only half the story. How did industry also get infected by this idea? Well. That was Frederick Winslow Taylor. And make no mistake, Taylor's ideas for industry did have a "snap-back" sort of effect which only increased the cult of experts which was coming to dominate politics through Progressive leaders of that age of Progressivism such as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and many others.

Taylor's book, this is a very important starting point. This book launched international organizations which rallied around experts, and many of those organizations still exist up until this day under their original names or else, have been renamed and merged and many still exist under other new names.

https://librivox.org/the-principles-of-scientific-management-by-frederick-winslow-taylor/

For understanding the full sphere of how Taylorism and the cult of expertise infected everything, two cases stand out - one is a court case and the other is a case hearing. Muller v. Oregon, the court case which gave us the infamous "Brandeis Briefs" relied heavily upon the idea of rule by experts and "science". Now at this time Brandeis had not yet actually met with Taylor or his people but Brandeis was very much already deeply in that mindset by the time of this case. In 1910, Brandeis was involved in crucial dealings with the ICC for which, after meeting with Fred Taylor himself, Brandeis had his moment to fully deploy Taylorism on the national political stage.

Now, during this whole thing, nobody really asks "what is science?" For Taylor, it was science because Taylor said so. Boy that must be nice right? I'm the expert and listen to me because I'm the expert.

And so it is. The title of this book, "The Principles of Scientific Management" is partially not Taylor's choice. What is "Scientific Management?", that term? That term was coined by Louis Brandeis himself in 1910 in the hearings during the Eastern Rate Case. Brandeis shows what Scientific Management is, Taylor observes, then writes the book about those principles the following year. In Taylor's personal letters, he even credits Brandeis for the term. That's how the book came together.

That's how we got here. Of course progressive journalism had a strong role to play here as well, Brandeis's Eastern Rate Case findings caused a sensation at the time. Can't leave that out. Free press gushing is worth billions of dollars of advertising.

Make no mistake, Taylor was an elitist and a progressive himself. He just was not obsessed with the never ending increase in governmental power lording over us like most progressives are. That makes Taylor a bit of an oddity among most other progressives. For Taylor, the key word was always the word "efficiency." You know as well as I do, the word efficiency is constantly used by progressives in modern times and it has been that way for just about 100 years. That's all due to the assuming of Taylorist ideas through, among others, Louis Brandeis. Brandeis once exclaimed that "Efficiency is the hope of democracy."

That is how we got here. Woodrow Wilson wrote the birth certificate of the modern progressive administrative state in 1887, Theodore Roosevelt has the first real modern president to have started to build administrative state agencies employing experts,(Such as the 1903 Bureau of Corporations) and the combination of Taylor and Brandeis(and the media) mainstream it with cute colorful packaging in 1911. For those who want an excessively summarized timeline. That is not to say that there weren't others. Authors and advisors such as but not limited to Herbert Croly and Edward House played crucial roles by providing "intellectual firepower". But Mr. Scientific Management himself, Louis Brandeis, became a supreme court justice for 23 years and was nominated by Wilson himself.

Now, why didn't Wilson oppose the ideas of Scientific Management? You do not need me to explain that one.

You know why. Experts and science. It all comes full circle. That's how we got here.

Now you are rejecting the idea that progressivism is liberalism. Welcome to my world.

In an address in North Carolina, FDR said:

In those days, 1913 and 1914, the leadership of the Nation was in the hands of a great President who was seeking to recover for our social system ground that had been lost under his conservative predecessor, and to restore something of the fighting liberal spirit which the Nation had gained under Theodore Roosevelt. It seemed one of our great national tragedies that just when Woodrow Wilson was beginning to accomplish definite improvements in the living standards of America, the World War not only interrupted his course, but laid the foundation for twelve years of retrogression.

Yes, you read that paragraph correctly. Now does FDR actually believe Teddy was a "liberal" having a "fighting liberal spirit"? No probably not. But FDR was retcon-drunk trying to retroactively change progressivism's back story after the deathblow 1920 election. And in changing history as FDR was doing, it simply required calling Teddy Roosevelt a liberal too on account of consistency. FDR also did this to Wilson, BTW.

Now, the thing is, I do not believe Theodore Roosevelt was a "liberal". And neither do you.

But this is a litmus test. If you are the kind of person who trust progressives when they say that progressivism = liberalism, if you are the kind of person who agrees with progressives(and there are a lot of you who will see this) then you don't get to exempt yourself, you have to be consistent. You need to call Theodore Roosevelt a liberal as well, because Teddy was in fact a big time progressive, a big time statist, and he was not a fan of the kinds of things related to governmental limitations. Theodore Roosevelt wanted maximal government.

Like all other progressives, Theodore Roosevelt was a postliberal. He wanted to get past the Constitution. Get past government limitations. Get past John Locke. Get past natural law and natural rights. Get past anything and everything related to the idea that he, Teddy, could not do whatever the heck he wanted to do. There is a whole party platform from the 1912 Progressive Party, Teddy's Party, explaining what exactly they wanted the government to be able to do to us. To us, understand that - do to us. That's what progressives are about.

Note how the 1912 Progressive Party is not the Liberal Party. Progressivism is not liberalism.

Progressivism was the first postliberal ideology to be seen in the U.S. Good job on you for being consistent in your refusal to call Theodore Roosevelt a "liberal". Progressives are not liberals.

New audiobook release: The Pioneer Mothers of America, Volume 2

Its been rougly 1 year to the day, Volume 2 of The Pioneer Mothers of America has been completed. This book series if you remember, goes into detail about our Founding Mothers. I'll be getting started on the final volume of the series soon. https://librivox.org/the-pioneer-mothers-of-america-volume-2-by-mary-wolcott-green/ https://progressingamerica.blogspot.com/2025/09/new-audiobook-release-pioneer-mothers.html

New audiobook release: Evolutionary Socialism, by Eduard Bernstein

Socialism is not always my wheelhouse. I think progressivism is the greatest threat that the U.S. has ever faced, not socialism. However that does not mean that I am not aware of the similar ideologies and have opinions of them. So it is with Socialism and its Revolutionary as well as Evolutionary variants.

The interesting thing about Evolutionary Socialism is that most people refuse to acknowledge its existence, just like people don't pay much attention to progressivism. Which is weird because arguably the most successful socialists in history are the British Fabians who promise to make haste slowly. An interest of note is how at times, the British Fabians and American Progressives did collaborate, and differences aside do take the same outlook of doing actions generally in small moves.

Well, the best way to understand something is simply to read (or now listen) to what they said about the topic and as such here is Eduard Bernstein's book about socialism piece by piece. It's literally the hand book about socialism by slowly boiling the frog in the pot.

Evolutionary Socialism, by Eduard Bernstein

Now I'm not saying pay a blind eye to the Revolutionaries. But what I am saying is that if over the decades, the Evolutionaries have been the most successful at implementing their goals, then you should be prioritizing your view and your discourses on the Evolutionaries. It's priorities. Most people that I see focus on the Revolutionaries and leave a blind eye to the Evolutionaries, which is a huge mistake. That is all I am getting at. In my summary for this book here is what I wrote:

Contains a challenge to the rigid Marxist orthodoxy that revolution is required in order achieve a centrally planned society. Bernstein believed in working from within a capitalist system in "revisionist", that is, evolutionary steps toward socialism. By gradually evolving in consistent legislative reforms, socialism could be made to become inevitable. Doing this would not only avoid the violence seen in earlier attempts to establish communism, but it would (Bernstein believed) endear the voting populace toward embracing a socialist future.

I think this is pretty accurate of a summary, even moreso for the view of Evolutionary Socialists than just simply the book itself.

New audiobook release: A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects, by John A. Ryan

Other than the Founding era, the Progressive era is the most interesting era of U.S. history, its a shame that most people scoff at looking directly at it though. We have so much to learn from this era and all that it did to us and keeps doing to us to this day.

In modern times we are sold on ideas of things like a "living wage", not realizing that the idea is over 100 years old and rooted directly smack in the middle of progressivism.

In 1915, Father John Ryan wrote the book "A Living Wage", after being deeply influenced (in part) by the Pope's encyclical Rerum Novarum. Best I can tell, that Rerum Novarum is pure poison. Its toxic and anybody who reads it and agrees with it is permanently polluted in their brains. That's all I ever see from people exposed to it. In any case, here is the link if you are interested in where the "Living Wage" comes from.

A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects, by John A. Ryan

New audiobook release: The Naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen

Check this one out my friends, got a heavy hitter here. This audio book is free and open source in the public domain, so give as many copies and links as you can to as many people as you want and it costs nothing. Its entirely free and legally sharable.

This book sells itself, so it needs no introduction from me. In 1958, Cleon Skousen wrote The Naked Communist, and along the way never re-applied for copyright protections. Here is where the audio is at, on Librivox at this link: (You can google search the name and title at LibriVox if you really feel that is necessary.)

https://librivox.org/the-naked-communist-by-w-cleon-skousen/

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=librivox+naked+communist

Now, luckily, we found it. We found that this book has been sitting there in the public domain with an expired copyright claim for years. As soon as this situation was discovered, work was initiated. Now the work is complete, my colleague did a fantastic job, and every single person with only rare exception can benefit from this.

Please enjoy.

New audiobook release: Mourt's Relation; or Journal of the plantation at Plymouth, by Edward Winslow

Because American culture is important to celebrate and remember. In this instance, the first Thanksgiving.

Mourt's Relation; or Journal of the plantation at Plymouth

Mourt's Relation is an account of the first year of the Plymouth Colony who arrived in Massachusetts, and is one of two books used as primary sources about the first Thanksgiving. The other is William Bradford's "Of Plimoth Plantation". - Summary by progressingamerica

"Of Plimoth Plantation": Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1608-1650