Conservative/libertarian political activist Ned Ryun (son of former Kansas congressman and Olympian runner Jim Ryun) authored a well-researched and insightful book, American Leviathan, published September last year on the origins and growth of America’s unconstitutional and progressive administrative state. This is an excellent read on the historical devolution of the United States from a constitutional republic to a progressive authoritarian state. It provides an historical account not likely to be found in any mainstream high school or college American history books.
Ryun’s book explains that the progressive political movement in the United States began in the 1880s, a movement completely antithetical to the fundamental principles of personal liberty framed in the US Constitution. Ryun labels this movement as “progressive statism,” which, in practical terms, is another name for socialism. The movement had its intellectual origins emanating from Europe, particularly German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770-1831). American progressives studying in Germany in the latter part of the 19th century embraced Hegel’s ideas and imported them to America.
Ryun writes that Hegel is best known for creating the philosophy of “historicism,” which is the belief that all philosophy is a product of the spirit of the time, that there is no transcendental truth, that truth is relative to a particular time in history, and that the whole of human history is a continual march from irrational to rational thought, leading to continual human progress. But such human progress can only be derived from the state, not from free individuals.
Ryun references a book by Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1966, in his discussion on Hegel, in which Popper quotes Hegel’s writing:
‘The freedom of thought, and science, can originate only in the state’ and, if faced with subversive opinions, ‘The state must protect objective truth… the state has, in general… to make up its own mind what is to be considered objective truth.’”’ In the same book, Popper refers to Hegel as the ‘father of modern historicism and totalitarianism.’
Hegel’s philosophical views were in direct conflict with those of America’s Founding Fathers and the original intent of the US Constitution to protect individual liberty.
An important propagator of progressive statism (i.e. socialism) in the late 1800s and early 1900s was John Burgess, a law professor at Columbia Law School from 1876 to 1912. Burgess was a strong advocate of Hegel’s ideas and was considered by many as the founder of American political science. Ryun writes that Burgess influenced thousands upon thousands of law and political science students.
Ryun identifies the “Four Horsemen of the Progressive Apocalypse” who heavily influenced American politics at the turn of the 20th century as proponents of progressive statism: (1) Robert La Follette, a Republican politician from Wisconsin; (2) Herbert Croly, an influential progressive political writer; (3) Teddy Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States (1901-1909); and (4) Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States (1913-1921).
Theodore Roosevelt has been lauded by many historians over the years as a great American president, in large part due to his leadership in orchestrating the construction of the Panama Canal (started in 1904, completed in 1914) as well as his reputation as the “trust buster” of breaking up corporate monopolies. However, Roosevelt was an outspoken advocate for a stronger executive branch with new oversight authorities and the redistribution of wealth. In 1903, he signed into law the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor (later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor in 1913), which included a new regulatory agency, the Bureau of Corporations (later renamed the Federal Trade Commission in 1915). In 1908, Roosevelt created a new federal law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by executive order.
Ryun writes that after Roosevelt left the presidency in 1909, he elevated his support of progressive statism (i.e. socialism), including his advocacy of a graduated income tax and an estate tax – both of which came to fruition during the Woodrow Wilson presidency.
In August 1910, Roosevelt gave his “New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, that left no doubt he sought to be the national leader of the progressive statist movement. In his speech, he dismissed the Founding Fathers’ ideas on individual rights, especially property rights. Ryun quotes Roosevelt as saying, “…every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it… We should permit it (property) to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.” This quote is in alignment with any of today’s prominent American advocates of socialism.
Ryun explains that progressive statism had arrived as the predominant, mainstream political force in the United States during the presidential election year of 1912. It was this year that every political party and presidential candidate accepted, at least at some level, the administrative state as the governing framework of the nation. The presidential election featured four candidates: Democrat Party candidate Woodrow Wilson, incumbent Republican president William Howard Taft, Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt, and Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs. Wilson, Roosevelt, and Debs all fully embraced a progressive statist agenda.
Roosevelt’s departure from the Republican Party and launching of the new Progressive Party in the summer of 1912 badly split a potential Republican vote, a fatal blow to Taft’s reelection campaign, resulting in an easy election victory for Democrat Wilson. The progressive statists were in strong control of the American political agenda for the following eight years during Wilson’s two-term presidency.
Wilson, also influenced by the ideas of Hegel, was a proponent of a powerful administrative state many years before he was elected president. He studied and wrote extensively on the workings of the federal government at Johns Hopkins University where he earned a PhD in history and government. He subsequently served as a professor of political economy at Princeton University and eventually became its president, from 1900 to 1910. Wilson’s writings and speeches revealed his belief in establishing a bureaucracy of educated experts, detached from politics, to run the government. This is contrary to the principles of a representative government.
Two of the most consequential legislative acts in US history were signed into law during Wilson’s first year in office: (1) The Revenue Act of 1913, which established a graduated income tax that Wilson, Roosevelt, and other progressive statists had been advocating for years; and (2) the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, establishing the Federal Reserve System. Both acts have contributed greatly to the growth of the administrative state, the American Leviathan, since then.
Ryun summarizes the growth of the progressive administrative state at the expense of America’s constitutional representative government as follows:
1895-1920: The first wave of progressive statism that developed and established an unelected federal bureaucracy within the executive branch.
1932-1945: The second wave of progressive statism during FDR’s “New Deal” presidency.
1963-1969: The third wave of progressive statism during LBJ’s “Great Society” presidency.
Over the above time periods, governing power was slowly but surely transferred from elected representatives in Congress to unelected and unaccountable federal bureaucrats.
Ryun states that our elected members of Congress have gradually abdicated their roles as the stewards and guardians of the American people’s money and interests to being nothing more than middlemen allocating taxpayer money from the American people to fund the state to advance the state.
Ryun references a book by John Marini, Unmasking the Administrative State, 2019, in which Marini writes that “Congress lost the will to legislate and became facilitators of the administrative state” after LBJ’s Great Society legislation was enacted. Marini derives this conclusion based on Congress passing more regulatory legislation from 1968 to 1978 than it had done in the entire previous history of the nation.
The American Leviathan now comprises approximately 440 federal government bodies with over 2.3 million federal civilian employees, 1.3 million active-duty military personnel, over 500,000 US postal service workers, and over 4 million federal government contractors.
One obvious result of America’s march to an ever larger and more powerful progressive administrative state over the past century is a current national debt of almost $37 trillion and projected to reach $57 trillion by the year 2034. Relative to America’s Gross National Product (GDP), the national debt is now 123 percent of GDP – a record high. And the national debt does not even include the long-term unfunded payment obligations of the federal government comprising Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal pensions – an amount that ranges from $80 trillion to over $150 trillion depending on timeline and other assumptions.
Over the past 40 years, the administrative state was further strengthened by a 1984 Supreme Court, Chevron USA, Inc v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that any ambiguity in laws passed by Congress should be deferred to federal agencies for interpretation. Thus, in any legal challenges to laws, courts deferred to the relevant federal agencies for a determination on how the law should be interpreted and applied. This became known as the Chevron Doctrine and gave federal agencies even more administrative power in applying regulations.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine last year with two related cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. It remains to be seen how the Supreme Court’s ruling on these two cases will affect the regulatory decisions of federal agencies, but they could prove to be watershed rulings in lessening the regulatory power of federal agencies and returning that power to Congress.
In order to reverse course and dismantle America’s administrative state, i.e. “Drain the Swamp,” Ryun outlines several recommended actions that are now be possible under the new reform-minded Trump administration with the help of its new private sector Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy:
Reductions in Force: A presidential executive order could direct all cabinet secretaries and agency heads to engage in a reorganization of their agencies, identify which positions are essential and which should be abolished, and then legally abolish thousands of positions in each federal agency. Other means to reduce the bloated federal government workforce include voluntary separation incentive payments, voluntary early retirement packages, and job reassignments from Washington, DC to remote locations.
Reimpose “Schedule F” Positions: On October 21, 2020, President Trump signed executive order 13957 to create a new federal government employment category, Schedule F. The purpose was to reclassify all federal civilian employees working in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions into a new “at will” employment category to give federal agency heads to ability to hire and fire such employees at will. President Biden revoked President Trump’s executive order just two days after taking office on January 22, 2021, but President Trump will likely issue a new executive order after he takes office again to reissue an executive order to reimpose Schedule F.
The above suggestions are only a small sampling of many other actions that should be taken to reverse the long trend of America’s progressive statist movement, and return it to the constitutional republic of liberty as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.