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The Progressive Legacy Rolls On: A Critique of Steinbaum and Weisberger on Illiberal Reformers

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  • Phillip W. Magness

Abstract

This essay evaluates the harsh criticism directed at Thomas Leonard’s book Illiberal Reformers by Marshall Steinbaum and Bernard Weisberger, primarily as manifest in their review published in the Journal of Economic Literature. Steinbaum and Weisberger first fail to do justice to Leonard’s extensive and original scholarship, and then, by reburying progressive eugenics in euphemism, they aim directly at undoing Leonard’s substantive contributions to the history of economics. Steinbaum and Weisberger are motivated to offer progressive economists a redemptive escape from association with eugenics, and they attempt to deliver such escape by parsing the motivations of progressives and those of progressives’ ideological opponents. But, absurdly, Steinbaum and Weisberger’s parsing rests on an ascription to the progressives’ opponents of a particular “racist typology” regarding labor markets, even though the book they were ostensibly reviewing documents that leading progressives deployed that “typology.” The JEL review of Illiberal Reformers thus offers little but leftist declamation—and even to that end Steinbaum and Weisberger largely traffic in avoidance and euphemism, notably so in their treatment of the progressive economist Edward Ross.

Suggested Citation

  • Phillip W. Magness, 2018. "The Progressive Legacy Rolls On: A Critique of Steinbaum and Weisberger on Illiberal Reformers," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20–34, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:15:y:2018:i:1:p:20-34
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas C. Leonard, 2003. "“More Merciful and Not Less Effective”: Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 687-712, Winter.
    2. repec:eme:rhet11:s0743-4154(2012)000030b004 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Thomas C. Leonard, 2011. "Religion and Evolution in Progressive Era Political Economy: Adversaries or Allies?," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 429-469, Fall.
    4. Thomas C. Leonard, 2016. "Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10572.
    5. Thomas C. Leonard, 2005. "Mistaking Eugenics for Social Darwinism: Why Eugenics Is Missing from the History of American Economics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 37(5), pages 200-233, Supplemen.
    6. David M. Levy & Sandra J. Peart & Margaret Albert, 2012. "Economic Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Documents on Government and the Economy, pages 1-116, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Thomas C. Leonard, 2015. "Progressive Era Origins of the Regulatory State and the Economist as Expert," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 47(5), pages 49-76, Supplemen.
    8. Marshall I. Steinbaum & Bernard A. Weisberger, 2017. "The Intellectual Legacy of Progressive Economics: A Review Essay of Thomas C. Leonard's Illiberal Reformers," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1064-1083, September.
    9. Thomas C. Leonard, 2005. "Protecting Family and Race," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 757-791, July.
    10. Leonard, Thomas C., 2009. "Origins of the myth of social Darwinism: The ambiguous legacy of Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 37-51, July.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Progressivism; eugenicists; history of economic thought;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B13 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Neoclassical through 1925 (Austrian, Marshallian, Walrasian, Wicksellian)

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