WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.779 Imagine a political movement that successfully 00:00:03.779 --> 00:00:07.240 ended child labor, gave women the right to vote, 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:10.259 and basically broke up these massive, tyrannical 00:00:10.259 --> 00:00:12.300 corporate monopolies. I mean, it sounds incredible, 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:14.179 right? Yeah, it sounds like this perfect triumph. 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:16.440 But then you have to imagine that exact same 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:19.019 movement simultaneously laying the groundwork 00:00:19.019 --> 00:00:22.660 for systemic racial segregation, strict immigration 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:25.960 quotas, and, well, eugenics. Right. You actually 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:27.940 don't have to imagine it at all, because that 00:00:27.940 --> 00:00:30.469 was the American progressive era. It really is 00:00:30.469 --> 00:00:32.969 one of the most intellectually dizzying periods 00:00:32.969 --> 00:00:35.710 in history, I think. Oh, absolutely. We're talking 00:00:35.710 --> 00:00:39.090 about a window of time roughly from the 1890s 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:42.530 through the 1920s that just completely rewired 00:00:42.530 --> 00:00:45.009 how society functions. So today, we are taking 00:00:45.009 --> 00:00:48.310 a deep dive into the source code of modern America. 00:00:48.530 --> 00:00:51.789 A big one. It is. Our mission here is to understand 00:00:51.789 --> 00:00:54.909 how this massive coalition of middle -class reformers, 00:00:55.350 --> 00:00:56.869 investigative journalists, and really ambitious 00:00:56.869 --> 00:01:00.450 politicians looked at the extreme wealth inequality 00:01:00.450 --> 00:01:03.390 of the Gilded Age and the rampant political corruption 00:01:03.390 --> 00:01:06.549 and just decided to forcefully install a new 00:01:06.549 --> 00:01:08.790 operating system on the country. Yeah, they really 00:01:08.790 --> 00:01:11.150 hacked the political machine. They did. But we're 00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:14.189 also going to confront the deeply troubling blind 00:01:14.189 --> 00:01:16.609 spots of this movement. Because if you have ever, 00:01:16.609 --> 00:01:19.549 you know, voted in a primary election, or eaten 00:01:19.549 --> 00:01:22.609 government -inspected meat, or even taken a vacation 00:01:22.609 --> 00:01:25.469 to a national park, you are interacting with 00:01:25.469 --> 00:01:27.769 the exact system the progressives built. You're 00:01:27.769 --> 00:01:29.569 living in their house, essentially. Exactly. 00:01:29.870 --> 00:01:33.430 Okay, let's unpack this. To fix a broken operating 00:01:33.430 --> 00:01:35.790 system, you first have to realize it's infected 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:38.810 with malware, right? So how did the average American 00:01:38.810 --> 00:01:41.530 in the 1890s suddenly wake up to how corrupt 00:01:41.530 --> 00:01:44.150 things had become? Well, it required a fundamental 00:01:44.150 --> 00:01:47.370 shift in how people consumed information. In 00:01:47.370 --> 00:01:50.650 the 1890s and early 1900s, America experienced 00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:53.609 this mass media boom that, honestly, it looks 00:01:53.609 --> 00:01:55.590 surprisingly similar to the dawn of the internet. 00:01:55.870 --> 00:01:58.390 Really? How so? So before this point, magazines 00:01:58.390 --> 00:02:00.829 were largely these high brow literary journals. 00:02:01.310 --> 00:02:03.549 They were meant for the wealthy elite. They were 00:02:03.549 --> 00:02:05.930 super expensive to produce and obviously expensive 00:02:05.930 --> 00:02:08.530 to buy. Right. But then national advertising 00:02:08.530 --> 00:02:10.729 enters the picture. Ah, so the unit economics 00:02:10.729 --> 00:02:13.530 completely flip. Exactly. Companies started buying 00:02:13.530 --> 00:02:16.650 these full page ads for soaps and bicycles. And 00:02:16.650 --> 00:02:19.610 that advertising revenue subsidized the printing 00:02:19.610 --> 00:02:22.039 costs. Which means the cost for the reader goes 00:02:22.039 --> 00:02:25.120 way down. Way down. The cover price of popular 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:28.780 magazines plummeted to just 10 cents. Suddenly, 00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:31.520 the financial barrier to high quality information 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:34.099 was totally eliminated for your average middle 00:02:34.099 --> 00:02:36.580 class citizen. Wow. And with that cheap access 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:38.680 came a whole new breed of journalists, right? 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:40.919 Yeah. Theodore Roosevelt actually coined the 00:02:40.919 --> 00:02:42.919 term for them. He called them the muckrakers. 00:02:43.139 --> 00:02:45.620 It was just such a great name. It is. But he 00:02:45.620 --> 00:02:48.120 actually meant it as an insult. He was complaining 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:50.340 that they were entirely focused on raking up 00:02:50.340 --> 00:02:54.139 the muck of society. But the writers, they wore 00:02:54.139 --> 00:02:56.020 the name like a badge of honor. I mean, I would 00:02:56.020 --> 00:02:59.280 too. Right. These journalists specialized in 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.960 deep, serialized, investigative nonfiction. They 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:05.360 weren't just writing angry opinion pieces. They 00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:07.360 were digging through financial records and court 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:10.379 documents to expose corporate and political corruption 00:03:10.379 --> 00:03:14.199 with undeniable proof. It feels very analogous 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:17.500 to today's like viral investigative substacks 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:21.520 or those massive, meticulously cited social media 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:24.340 threads that take down a public figure. Oh, totally. 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:26.639 That's a perfect comparison. You had journalists 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:30.060 like Ida Tarbell, who spent years dissecting 00:03:30.060 --> 00:03:33.460 the ruthless monopoly tactics of John D. Rockefeller's 00:03:33.460 --> 00:03:35.740 Standard Oil Company. Yeah, her work was groundbreaking. 00:03:36.139 --> 00:03:38.539 And then you had Upton Sinclair, who took a slightly 00:03:38.539 --> 00:03:41.129 different route with fiction. Sinclair is the 00:03:41.129 --> 00:03:43.590 perfect case study for the visceral impact of 00:03:43.590 --> 00:03:46.969 this era. In 1906, he published a novel called 00:03:46.969 --> 00:03:49.770 The Jungle. Right, and his goal there was to 00:03:49.770 --> 00:03:53.449 expose the horrifically unsanitary and unsafe 00:03:53.449 --> 00:03:55.590 working conditions in the Chicago meatpacking 00:03:55.590 --> 00:03:57.750 industry. Because he was hoping to arouse a sense 00:03:57.750 --> 00:04:00.270 of working -class solidarity. Exactly. He wanted 00:04:00.270 --> 00:04:02.349 people to care about the workers. But the public 00:04:02.349 --> 00:04:05.650 reaction bypassed labor solidarity entirely and 00:04:05.650 --> 00:04:07.750 went straight to sheer panic about what was on 00:04:07.750 --> 00:04:09.469 their dinner plates. Yeah, they missed the point. 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:12.060 but it was still incredibly effective. There 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:14.500 is an incredible quote from Sinclair reflecting 00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:17.939 on the aftermath. He said, I aimed at the public's 00:04:17.939 --> 00:04:20.620 heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach. 00:04:21.339 --> 00:04:24.100 It's so good. What's fascinating here is the 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:27.480 mechanism of why this media shift works so well. 00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:30.079 Yeah, let's get into that. So for decades prior, 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:32.879 during the Victorian era, the dominant philosophy 00:04:32.879 --> 00:04:36.279 in America was strict individualism. Meaning 00:04:36.279 --> 00:04:39.300 you are entirely responsible for your own fate 00:04:39.300 --> 00:04:41.480 right if you were poor or I don't know if you 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:44.819 lost an arm in a factory gear Victorian morality 00:04:44.819 --> 00:04:47.000 dictated that it was your own personal failing 00:04:47.420 --> 00:04:50.259 you'll act character. Which is just a brutal 00:04:50.259 --> 00:04:52.899 way to view the world. It really is. But the 00:04:52.899 --> 00:04:55.060 Muckrakers provided undeniable evidence that 00:04:55.060 --> 00:04:57.740 the game was actually rigged. So a factory worker 00:04:57.740 --> 00:05:00.259 wasn't poor because of a character flaw. They 00:05:00.259 --> 00:05:02.740 were poor because a monopoly was suppressing 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:05.920 wages and bribing the local aldermen. Exactly. 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:08.720 That completely shatters the illusion of individualism. 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:11.079 If the system is rigged, then poverty and injury 00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:14.060 aren't moral failings. They are systemic failures. 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:16.879 And that realization just completely galvanized 00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:20.579 the middle class. It did. They abandoned strict 00:05:20.579 --> 00:05:24.540 individualism and embraced this new sociological 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:27.540 concept popularized by reformers like Jane Addams. 00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:30.759 It was called association. Association, which 00:05:30.759 --> 00:05:32.920 was the idea that different classes are interconnected, 00:05:33.019 --> 00:05:35.660 right? Yeah, and with that connection comes a 00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:37.839 shared social responsibility. Because once you 00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:40.379 see the structural rot, you feel responsible 00:05:40.379 --> 00:05:42.680 for fixing it. Right, you can't unsee it. But 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.139 the reformers quickly slammed into a massive 00:05:45.139 --> 00:05:47.379 roadblock because, well, you can't just politely 00:05:47.379 --> 00:05:50.759 ask a corrupt political boss to pass a law outlawing 00:05:50.759 --> 00:05:52.160 his own corruption. No, they're not going to 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:54.560 vote themselves out of power. Exactly. The entire 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:56.899 system, the local courts, the state legislatures, 00:05:57.040 --> 00:05:59.819 the police was controlled by these political 00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:02.620 machines. So the progressives realized they had 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:05.399 to bypass the politicians entirely. They had 00:06:05.399 --> 00:06:08.310 to hack. the democratic system itself. And the 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:10.670 laboratory for this political hacking was at 00:06:10.670 --> 00:06:12.930 the state level. Let's look at Oregon, for example. 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:16.649 Yeah, Oregon is a great example. In 1898, a political 00:06:16.649 --> 00:06:19.569 activist named William Uren read a book analyzing 00:06:19.569 --> 00:06:22.550 Swiss democracy and inspired by the Swiss model, 00:06:22.790 --> 00:06:24.810 he pushed for what became known as the Oregon 00:06:24.810 --> 00:06:29.350 system. By 1902, Oregon adopted two massive patches 00:06:29.350 --> 00:06:31.949 to their political operating system. The initiative. 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:34.560 and the referendum. Let's break down how those 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:36.319 actually function because they fundamentally 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:39.319 change the power dynamic. They really do. So 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:41.420 an initiative means that if you gather enough 00:06:41.420 --> 00:06:44.000 signatures from everyday citizens, you can place 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:46.439 a proposed law directly on the ballot. Meaning 00:06:46.439 --> 00:06:48.180 you don't even need a politician to introduce 00:06:48.180 --> 00:06:50.620 it? Exactly. And a referent is the flip side. 00:06:50.899 --> 00:06:53.040 If the corrupt legislature passes a terrible 00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:56.060 law, citizens can gather signatures to put that 00:06:56.060 --> 00:06:58.579 law on the ballot and vote to veto it. It is 00:06:58.579 --> 00:07:01.500 a direct bypass of the corrupted hardware. Yeah. 00:07:01.610 --> 00:07:05.189 And by 1908, Oregon added the recall, meaning 00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:07.509 citizens could directly fire corrupt elected 00:07:07.509 --> 00:07:10.089 officials before their term was even up. Wow. 00:07:10.350 --> 00:07:12.389 And this hacking spread, didn't it? Oh, like 00:07:12.389 --> 00:07:15.610 wildfire. In the Midwest, you had Wisconsin Governor 00:07:15.610 --> 00:07:18.310 Robert M. LaFollette practically declaring war 00:07:18.310 --> 00:07:21.050 on the political bosses. He implemented the direct 00:07:21.050 --> 00:07:23.990 primary. Which took the power to choose political 00:07:23.990 --> 00:07:26.509 candidates away from the backroom party bosses 00:07:26.509 --> 00:07:29.569 who, you know, used to just select their cronies 00:07:29.569 --> 00:07:32.019 in a smoke filled room. Right. And it handed 00:07:32.019 --> 00:07:35.100 that choice directly to the voters. And La Follette 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:37.439 went further with something called the Wisconsin 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:41.000 Idea. She understood that modern society was 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.680 becoming incredibly complex. Meaning what, exactly? 00:07:44.040 --> 00:07:46.500 Well, if you want to regulate a massive railroad 00:07:46.500 --> 00:07:50.060 monopoly, you can't just write a vague law. the 00:07:50.060 --> 00:07:52.040 railroad's corporate lawyers will tear it apart 00:07:52.040 --> 00:07:54.500 in court. Ah, of course. They'll find the loopholes. 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:57.360 Exactly. So, Lafollette partnered with experts, 00:07:57.720 --> 00:07:59.240 economists, and professors at the University 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:02.439 of Wisconsin to draft these airtight, scientifically 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:04.939 rigorous reform laws. They were writing bulletproof 00:08:04.939 --> 00:08:07.540 code. Yes. And because of that partnership with 00:08:07.540 --> 00:08:10.040 university experts, Wisconsin was able to create 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:12.939 the first effective workplace injury compensation 00:08:12.939 --> 00:08:16.519 law and the first state income tax. And this 00:08:16.519 --> 00:08:19.339 drive to break the power of party bosses eventually 00:08:19.339 --> 00:08:21.939 scaled all the way up to the U .S. Constitution, 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:24.980 right, with the 17th Amendment in 1913. Yeah, 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:27.019 that amendment established the direct election 00:08:27.019 --> 00:08:30.560 of U .S. senators. Because prior to 1913, senators 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:32.539 were appointed by state legislatures. Right. 00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:34.580 And since those state legislatures were almost 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:36.940 always in the pocket of the local political machine. 00:08:37.179 --> 00:08:40.259 The U .S. Senate was essentially a millionaire's 00:08:40.259 --> 00:08:42.820 club of machine cronies. So the 17th Amendment 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:45.799 handed that power directly to the public. Exactly. 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:47.340 Wait let me stop you there because I'm looking 00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:50.179 at the historical record and there is a massive 00:08:50.179 --> 00:08:52.519 glaring contradiction staring me in the face 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:53.980 here. Oh I think I know where you're going with 00:08:53.980 --> 00:08:56.740 this. On one hand, you have the progressives 00:08:56.740 --> 00:08:59.159 fighting tooth and nail for more direct democracy. 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:02.340 They want ballot initiatives, referendums, direct 00:09:02.340 --> 00:09:05.080 primaries, the direct election of senators. They 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.620 are screaming power to the people. Right. But 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:10.159 on the other hand, these exact same reformers 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:13.240 are pushing to hand huge amounts of power to 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:15.980 entirely unelected experts. They're advocating 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:18.940 for city managers, appointed university professors, 00:09:19.860 --> 00:09:22.340 independent commissions to run things. Yeah, 00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:25.080 they really are. Aren't those two ideas totally 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:28.179 at odds? How do you champion the everyday voter 00:09:28.179 --> 00:09:30.960 while simultaneously saying, actually, let's 00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:33.320 let unelected scientists and academics run the 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:36.580 city? This raises an important question. And 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:39.120 that tension is really the defining psychological 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:41.980 trait of the progressive era. OK. Because to 00:09:41.980 --> 00:09:45.080 a reformer in 1905, it wasn't a contradiction 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:47.590 at all. How is that not a contradiction? Because 00:09:47.590 --> 00:09:50.590 the unifying enemy was the political boss. The 00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:53.309 political machine was seen as wasteful, corrupt, 00:09:53.809 --> 00:09:56.529 and above all else, incredibly inefficient. Inefficient, 00:09:56.629 --> 00:09:58.649 right. Yeah. So whether they were empowering 00:09:58.649 --> 00:10:00.870 a grassroots voter through a ballot initiative 00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:03.350 or empowering a university economist to write 00:10:03.350 --> 00:10:06.570 the tax code, the ultimate goal was always efficiency. 00:10:07.149 --> 00:10:09.129 They wanted to eliminate the corrupt middleman. 00:10:09.230 --> 00:10:12.490 So, in their minds, a nonpartisan expert running 00:10:12.490 --> 00:10:14.870 a city like a streamlined business was just as 00:10:14.870 --> 00:10:17.230 democratic as a primary election because both 00:10:17.230 --> 00:10:19.610 methods successfully destroyed the power of the 00:10:19.610 --> 00:10:22.110 corrupt politicians. Exactly. It is the absolute 00:10:22.110 --> 00:10:25.129 gospel of efficiency. And that gospel inevitably 00:10:25.129 --> 00:10:27.149 scaled up to the federal stage, which brings 00:10:27.149 --> 00:10:30.570 us to the rival presidents. Yes. The progressive 00:10:30.570 --> 00:10:32.990 era forced the federal government to completely 00:10:32.990 --> 00:10:35.509 abandon its traditional laissez -faire approach 00:10:35.509 --> 00:10:38.570 to the economy. Just for context, before this 00:10:38.570 --> 00:10:41.210 era, the federal government was practically invisible 00:10:41.210 --> 00:10:43.889 in daily life. Pretty much. It basically delivered 00:10:43.889 --> 00:10:47.149 the mail, fought occasional wars, managed international 00:10:47.149 --> 00:10:50.409 tariffs. It was completely hands off regarding 00:10:50.409 --> 00:10:52.850 domestic business. Right. If a monopoly crushed 00:10:52.850 --> 00:10:55.110 its competitors, the government just watched. 00:10:55.350 --> 00:10:58.509 But Theodore Roosevelt changes the paradigm entirely 00:10:58.509 --> 00:11:01.590 with his square deal. He makes the federal government 00:11:01.590 --> 00:11:06.070 an active, muscular player. He does. Roosevelt 00:11:06.070 --> 00:11:08.470 was massively influenced by Gifford Pinchot, 00:11:08.909 --> 00:11:11.450 a pioneer in scientific forestry. Okay, how did 00:11:11.450 --> 00:11:13.919 that influence him? Well, Pinchot convinced Roosevelt 00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:16.460 that the nation's natural resources were being 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:19.080 violently depleted by private timber and mining 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:21.559 monopolies. So this led Roosevelt to establish 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:23.960 the Forest Service and drastically expand the 00:11:23.960 --> 00:11:25.740 national parks system. Right. The government 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:28.000 was suddenly managing millions of acres of land 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.879 to prevent private exploitation. And then Woodrow 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.960 Wilson takes office with his new Freedom Agenda, 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:37.100 which fundamentally rewired the economic engine 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:39.340 of the country. Totally. Under Wilson, you get 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:41.879 the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. So instead of 00:11:41.799 --> 00:11:43.779 of leaving the banking system to the chaotic 00:11:43.779 --> 00:11:47.139 whims of private financiers, the government created 00:11:47.139 --> 00:11:49.720 a central banking system to manage the money 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:52.460 supply. Yeah, to stabilize economic panics. You 00:11:52.460 --> 00:11:55.419 also get the Clayton Antitrust Act to crack down 00:11:55.419 --> 00:11:59.039 on price fixing. And crucially, you get the 16th 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.179 Amendment. Which made the federal income tax 00:12:01.179 --> 00:12:04.700 constitutional. Yes. And the mechanics of that 00:12:04.700 --> 00:12:07.840 income tax shift are vital to understand. Right. 00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:10.100 Because previously, the government funded itself 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:13.059 mostly through tariffs. tariffs on imported goods. 00:12:13.759 --> 00:12:16.440 Exactly. And tariffs are highly regressive. They 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.440 raise the price of basic goods, which disproportionately 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:22.039 hurts the poor. Whereas an income tax is progressive, 00:12:22.259 --> 00:12:24.899 it taxes the wealthy at a higher rate. Even more 00:12:24.899 --> 00:12:26.679 importantly, it gave the federal government the 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:29.700 massive stable revenue stream it needed to fund 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:32.480 all these new regulatory agencies. The political 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:34.779 drama surrounding all this reform is legendary, 00:12:34.820 --> 00:12:37.039 by the way. Oh, it's a soap opera. It really 00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:39.799 is. Roosevelt actually handpicked his successor, 00:12:40.100 --> 00:12:43.539 William Taft, but Taft turned out to be more 00:12:43.539 --> 00:12:46.240 conservative and cautious. Yeah, and Roosevelt 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:48.580 felt Taft was abandoning the progressive agenda. 00:12:48.820 --> 00:12:52.779 So in 1912, TR fiercely broke with his old friend, 00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:55.879 formed his own third party, the famous Bull Moose 00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:59.360 Progressive Party, and ran against Taft and Wilson. 00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:01.879 Which just split the Republican vote and handed 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:03.779 the presidency to Wilson. Here's where it gets 00:13:03.779 --> 00:13:06.669 really interesting though. The historical irony 00:13:06.669 --> 00:13:09.690 of that split is profound, particularly when 00:13:09.690 --> 00:13:11.909 it comes to monopolies. Oh, you mean the trust 00:13:11.909 --> 00:13:14.029 -busting numbers. Yes. This is where the history 00:13:14.029 --> 00:13:16.389 gets really counterintuitive. Theodore Roosevelt 00:13:16.389 --> 00:13:19.570 has this legendary historical reputation as the 00:13:19.570 --> 00:13:22.769 great trust buster, right? The man who fearlessly 00:13:22.769 --> 00:13:24.889 took down the monopolies. That's the myth. But 00:13:24.889 --> 00:13:27.070 if you actually look at the historical numbers, 00:13:27.549 --> 00:13:30.230 Taft pursued far more antitrust cases than Roosevelt 00:13:30.230 --> 00:13:34.250 did. It's true. We are talking 90 major antitrust 00:13:34.250 --> 00:13:37.230 suits under Taft compared to just 44 under TR. 00:13:37.789 --> 00:13:40.149 Taft's administration went after the absolute 00:13:40.149 --> 00:13:42.750 titans, American tobacco, U .S. steel, and the 00:13:42.750 --> 00:13:45.590 big one, Standard Oil. But breaking up Standard 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:47.870 Oil didn't exactly go the way the reformers planned. 00:13:47.970 --> 00:13:50.250 No, it didn't. Taft's attorney general, George 00:13:50.250 --> 00:13:53.090 Wickersham, discovered a dynamic that completely 00:13:53.090 --> 00:13:55.629 backfired on the administration. It's often called 00:13:55.629 --> 00:13:58.500 the advertising paradox. I want to break down 00:13:58.500 --> 00:14:00.600 the mechanics of this because it is such a brilliant 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:03.539 aha moment in the history of economics. Go for 00:14:03.539 --> 00:14:06.759 it. So Wickersham realized that legally shattering 00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:09.779 these giant trusts like Standard Oil actually 00:14:09.779 --> 00:14:13.279 resulted in higher prices for everyday consumers. 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:16.570 Right, which seems... Completely backward. Exactly. 00:14:16.950 --> 00:14:19.250 But let's think about how a monopoly operates. 00:14:19.769 --> 00:14:22.169 When Standard Oil controlled 90 percent of the 00:14:22.169 --> 00:14:24.610 market, they didn't need to spend a dime on marketing. 00:14:25.009 --> 00:14:26.450 Because who are they going to advertise against? 00:14:26.690 --> 00:14:29.350 They're the only game in town. Exactly. But when 00:14:29.350 --> 00:14:31.470 the government forces Standard Oil to break up 00:14:31.470 --> 00:14:34.269 into 34 separate independent regional companies, 00:14:34.889 --> 00:14:37.409 the math changes overnight. Suddenly, you have 00:14:37.409 --> 00:14:40.169 multiple oil companies sharing borders, fighting 00:14:40.169 --> 00:14:42.230 for the same customers. They have to compete. 00:14:42.379 --> 00:14:45.740 And how do you compete? You buy massive full 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:47.779 -page advertisements in national newspapers. 00:14:48.340 --> 00:14:50.360 You launch marketing campaigns. And marketing 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:53.419 costs millions of dollars. Right. So the newly 00:14:53.419 --> 00:14:56.379 shattered oil companies simply took those massive 00:14:56.379 --> 00:14:59.720 new advertising costs and baked them directly 00:14:59.720 --> 00:15:02.480 into the price of a gallon of kerosene. The progressive 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:04.720 reformers successfully destroyed the monopoly, 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:07.539 and the everyday consumer ended up paying the 00:15:07.539 --> 00:15:10.659 bill. It is a stunning example of good intentions 00:15:10.659 --> 00:15:13.559 colliding with market realities. It really is. 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:16.879 But regardless of the immediate economic hiccups, 00:15:17.559 --> 00:15:20.379 this era permanently redefined the federal government. 00:15:20.740 --> 00:15:22.919 It shifted the state from a passive observer 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:26.639 of capitalism to an active daily manager of the 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:29.330 economy. But this obsession with efficiency didn't 00:15:29.330 --> 00:15:31.429 stop at the economy. No, it didn't. Because if 00:15:31.429 --> 00:15:33.610 you truly believe you can scientifically engineer 00:15:33.610 --> 00:15:36.490 a perfect government, it's only a matter of time 00:15:36.490 --> 00:15:38.429 before you try to scientifically engineer the 00:15:38.429 --> 00:15:40.490 citizens themselves. Yeah. And that's where this 00:15:40.490 --> 00:15:43.210 era gets incredibly dark. Let's explore the human 00:15:43.210 --> 00:15:45.429 element of social engineering, starting with 00:15:45.429 --> 00:15:48.230 something called municipal housekeeping. So municipal 00:15:48.230 --> 00:15:51.190 housekeeping was a brilliant, highly effective 00:15:51.190 --> 00:15:54.309 rhetorical strategy used by middle class women 00:15:54.309 --> 00:15:56.940 to essentially weaponize traditional gender role. 00:15:57.139 --> 00:15:59.600 Okay how did that work? Well at the time society 00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:02.120 strictly dictated that a woman's sphere was the 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:05.000 home. She was responsible for keeping the home 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:08.779 clean, moral, and safe for children. The public 00:16:08.779 --> 00:16:11.679 sphere of politics was only for men. But progressive 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:14.019 women flipped that logic on its head. They did. 00:16:14.259 --> 00:16:17.019 They argued, if our divine duty is to keep our 00:16:17.019 --> 00:16:19.940 homes clean and safe, how can we do that if the 00:16:19.940 --> 00:16:22.419 city's water supply is contaminated by the political 00:16:22.419 --> 00:16:25.399 machine? How can we protect our children if they 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:27.960 are forced to work in unregulated sweatshops? 00:16:28.179 --> 00:16:30.559 Ah, so they argued the city is just a larger 00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:33.279 home and it needs a mother to clean it up. Precisely. 00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:36.639 And that logic justified a massive wave of female 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:39.120 entry into the public political sphere. Which 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:42.320 led to Jane Addams founding Whole House in Chicago, 00:16:42.620 --> 00:16:44.940 providing critical social services to exploited 00:16:44.940 --> 00:16:47.980 immigrants. Yes. It led to women lobbying fiercely 00:16:47.980 --> 00:16:50.080 for the creation of the Children's Bureau to 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:53.580 finally outlaw child labor. And ultimately, this 00:16:53.580 --> 00:16:56.500 massive organized mobilization of women resulted 00:16:56.500 --> 00:16:59.019 in the 19th Amendment. Finally guaranteeing women 00:16:59.019 --> 00:17:01.720 the right to vote. But that exact same moral 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:06.339 crusade also gave us prohibition. The 18th Amendment 00:17:06.339 --> 00:17:08.940 outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol. 00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:11.640 Now, at first glance, I have to challenge this. 00:17:11.819 --> 00:17:13.799 Okay, what's the challenge? How does banning 00:17:13.799 --> 00:17:16.140 booze fit into progressive political reform? 00:17:16.519 --> 00:17:19.380 I mean, we usually associate Prohibition with 00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:21.960 the rise of Al Capone and the mob, not the end 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:24.599 of political corruption. Right. It seems weird 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:28.180 today. But to understand Prohibition, you have 00:17:28.180 --> 00:17:30.099 to understand the architecture of the political 00:17:30.099 --> 00:17:33.480 machine. The corrupt ward bosses didn't operate 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:36.440 out of fancy office buildings. Their headquarters 00:17:36.440 --> 00:17:39.130 were the local saloons. Oh, interesting. Yeah, 00:17:39.230 --> 00:17:40.990 the saloon was where the political boss handed 00:17:40.990 --> 00:17:44.309 out patronage jobs, organized voter fraud, cashed 00:17:44.309 --> 00:17:47.089 paychecks, and bought free drinks to secure loyalty 00:17:47.089 --> 00:17:49.410 from poor immigrants. Oh, I see. The saloon was 00:17:49.410 --> 00:17:51.789 the literal engine room of the political machine. 00:17:52.109 --> 00:17:54.470 Precisely. To the progressive reformer, destroying 00:17:54.470 --> 00:17:56.849 the saloon wasn't just about moral puritanism. 00:17:56.849 --> 00:17:59.569 It was a targeted strike against the infrastructure 00:17:59.569 --> 00:18:02.170 of political corruption. If you starve the saloon, 00:18:02.210 --> 00:18:04.950 you starve the political boss. Exactly. Yeah. 00:18:04.950 --> 00:18:08.309 Of course, it also carried heavy xenophobic undertones. 00:18:08.329 --> 00:18:11.369 Right. It pitted native born rural Protestants 00:18:11.369 --> 00:18:14.289 against urban working class Catholic immigrants 00:18:14.289 --> 00:18:16.730 whose social lives revolved around those saloons. 00:18:16.990 --> 00:18:19.289 And when we talk about xenophobia and marginalized 00:18:19.289 --> 00:18:21.910 groups, we have to look directly at the apps 00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:25.359 darkest blind spots of the progressive era. We 00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:28.440 do. The historical record reveals that this massive 00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:31.660 wave of democratic reform coincided with what 00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:35.220 historians consider the nadir -like, the absolute 00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:38.240 lowest most violent point of American race relations. 00:18:38.539 --> 00:18:41.220 The contradictions are staggering. Woodrow Wilson 00:18:41.450 --> 00:18:44.829 a champion of economic reform, outright segregated 00:18:44.829 --> 00:18:46.990 the federal government. Which is wild because 00:18:46.990 --> 00:18:49.849 for decades federal offices had been somewhat 00:18:49.849 --> 00:18:53.210 integrated. Yes, but Wilson ordered workspaces, 00:18:53.549 --> 00:18:56.210 cafeterias, and restrooms to be rigidly segregated 00:18:56.210 --> 00:18:59.029 by race. His administration even hosted a screening 00:18:59.029 --> 00:19:01.349 of the wildly racist film Birth of a Nation at 00:19:01.349 --> 00:19:03.369 the White House. And Theodore Roosevelt's record 00:19:03.369 --> 00:19:05.349 is deeply unsettling as well. Yeah, it's very 00:19:05.349 --> 00:19:07.730 mixed. On one hand, he was the first president 00:19:07.730 --> 00:19:09.910 to formally invite an African -American leader, 00:19:10.069 --> 00:19:12.980 Booker T. Washington, to dine at the White House, 00:19:13.299 --> 00:19:15.619 and he defended Black federal appointees against 00:19:15.619 --> 00:19:17.940 furious Southern backlash. But then later in 00:19:17.940 --> 00:19:20.859 his presidency, Roosevelt allowed the dishonorable 00:19:20.859 --> 00:19:24.440 discharge of 167 Black soldiers stationed in 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:27.019 Brownsville, Texas. Right. They were accused 00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:30.680 of a violent riot based on entirely false fabricated 00:19:30.680 --> 00:19:33.500 evidence despite having airtight alibis. And 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:35.380 Roosevelt refused to hear their defense and ruin 00:19:35.380 --> 00:19:38.690 their lives. The historical documents also showed 00:19:38.690 --> 00:19:41.390 T .R. held deeply racist views toward indigenous 00:19:41.390 --> 00:19:44.910 populations and believed in a strict racial hierarchy. 00:19:45.170 --> 00:19:46.910 And this wasn't just personal prejudice, was 00:19:46.910 --> 00:19:49.289 it? No, it was systemic to the progressive philosophy. 00:19:49.529 --> 00:19:51.289 Remember the gospel of efficiency we talked about? 00:19:51.329 --> 00:19:53.809 Yeah. When you apply a cold engineering mindset 00:19:53.809 --> 00:19:56.569 to sociology, human beings are reduced to data 00:19:56.569 --> 00:19:59.390 points. Many prominent progressives view Jim 00:19:59.390 --> 00:20:02.490 Crow segregation laws not as an oppressive injustice, 00:20:03.130 --> 00:20:06.130 but as an orderly scientific solution to racial 00:20:06.130 --> 00:20:08.549 friction. They looked at racial tension and thought, 00:20:08.950 --> 00:20:10.910 well, the most efficient way to manage this is 00:20:10.910 --> 00:20:13.809 to keep the populations entirely separate. That 00:20:13.809 --> 00:20:16.990 is chilling. It gets worse. Take that a step 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:20.230 further and you arrive at eugenics. Oh, wow. 00:20:20.470 --> 00:20:23.470 Yeah. Some progressives. actively championed 00:20:23.470 --> 00:20:26.190 the pseudoscience of eugenics, genuinely believing 00:20:26.190 --> 00:20:28.369 that society could be scientifically optimized 00:20:28.369 --> 00:20:31.130 by literally breeding out the poor, the mentally 00:20:31.130 --> 00:20:34.470 ill, or the supposedly unfit. They applied agricultural 00:20:34.470 --> 00:20:37.349 breeding concepts to human beings. Exactly. This 00:20:37.349 --> 00:20:40.109 same logic fueled their push for the Immigration 00:20:40.109 --> 00:20:43.750 Act of 1924, which placed draconian quotas on 00:20:43.750 --> 00:20:46.390 Southern and Eastern Europeans and banned Asian 00:20:46.390 --> 00:20:48.970 immigration entirely. So what does this all mean? 00:20:49.069 --> 00:20:51.839 How do we reconcile this? We are analyzing a 00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:53.940 movement that fought tirelessly to end child 00:20:53.940 --> 00:20:56.500 labor, gave half the population the right to 00:20:56.500 --> 00:20:59.220 vote, and broke the power of tyrannical monopolies 00:20:59.220 --> 00:21:01.980 while simultaneously endorsing racial segregation, 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:05.359 passing the 1924 Immigration Act, and promoting 00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:07.480 eugenics. It's incredibly difficult. It feels 00:21:07.480 --> 00:21:09.480 impossible to hold both of those realities in 00:21:09.480 --> 00:21:11.700 your head at the same time. If we connect this 00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:15.039 to the bigger picture, it demands a very uncomfortable 00:21:15.039 --> 00:21:18.750 level of critical thinking. The fatal flaw of 00:21:18.750 --> 00:21:23.369 progressivism was its profound unchecked arrogance. 00:21:23.710 --> 00:21:26.450 The arrogance. Yes. It was the absolute certainty 00:21:26.450 --> 00:21:30.009 that there is one best scientific way to run 00:21:30.009 --> 00:21:32.910 a society and that educated experts have the 00:21:32.910 --> 00:21:35.509 moral authority to enforce it. Right. When you 00:21:35.509 --> 00:21:37.769 apply an engineering mindset to human beings 00:21:37.769 --> 00:21:40.670 and that mindset is wielded by a dominant culture 00:21:40.670 --> 00:21:44.009 with its own unchecked biases, it easily morphs 00:21:44.009 --> 00:21:46.299 into forced assimilation and oppression. Because 00:21:46.299 --> 00:21:48.720 to the progressive mind, segregation and immigration 00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:50.579 quotas weren't hateful crimes. They were just 00:21:50.579 --> 00:21:52.940 the efficient management of the population. Exactly. 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:55.099 They forgot that human beings aren't lines of 00:21:55.099 --> 00:21:57.019 code to be optimized. The line between cleaning 00:21:57.019 --> 00:21:59.180 up a corrupt system and engineering away the 00:21:59.180 --> 00:22:02.380 people you deem inefficient is terrifyingly thin. 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:05.259 It really is. The progressive era transformed 00:22:05.259 --> 00:22:07.579 America. It took the country from the chaotic, 00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:10.099 unregulated wilderness of the Gilded Age and 00:22:10.099 --> 00:22:12.099 built the massive, regulated, bureaucratic state 00:22:12.099 --> 00:22:15.180 we live in today. It was a complex, messy blend 00:22:15.180 --> 00:22:19.079 of expanding grassroots democracy while simultaneously 00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:21.799 empowering an elite class of experts. And their 00:22:21.799 --> 00:22:23.579 code is still running in the background of our 00:22:23.579 --> 00:22:26.779 lives. It is. Every single time you check the 00:22:26.779 --> 00:22:28.660 ingredients on a food label to make sure it's 00:22:28.660 --> 00:22:30.880 safe to eat, every time you file your federal 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:33.200 income tax, or every time you trust a government 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:35.200 agency to ensure your workplace won't collapse 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:38.359 on you, you are interacting directly with the 00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:40.559 ghosts of the progressive era. You are living 00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:43.279 inside the system they engineered. They built 00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:45.559 the infrastructure of our modern civic lives, 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:48.220 for better and for worse. Which brings me to 00:22:48.220 --> 00:22:50.200 a final thought I want to leave you with today. 00:22:50.819 --> 00:22:53.119 We spent this entire deep dive unpacking the 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.869 progressive obsession with efficiency. We've 00:22:55.869 --> 00:22:58.069 looked at how they relied on scientists, academics, 00:22:58.210 --> 00:23:00.529 and experts to fix the messy, corrupt elements 00:23:00.529 --> 00:23:03.109 of human society. Right. Now think about the 00:23:03.109 --> 00:23:05.589 world we live in right now. Think about the algorithms, 00:23:05.869 --> 00:23:08.809 the artificial intelligence tools, the tech billionaires, 00:23:09.109 --> 00:23:11.569 and the Silicon Valley technocrats we increasingly 00:23:11.569 --> 00:23:14.849 rely on today to efficiently manage our lives, 00:23:15.089 --> 00:23:17.430 to curate our news feeds, to drive our cars, 00:23:17.569 --> 00:23:20.210 and to run our smart cities. It's the same mindset. 00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:23.799 Are we entering a new progressive era? Are we 00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:26.259 once again making the choice to trust experts 00:23:26.259 --> 00:23:29.380 in automated systems over the messy, unpredictable, 00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:32.279 and inefficient reality of human democracy? And 00:23:32.279 --> 00:23:34.539 if we are, based on what we just learned about 00:23:34.539 --> 00:23:37.200 the dark side of the 1890s, who is at risk of 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:39.619 being quietly engineered out of the picture in 00:23:39.619 --> 00:23:42.220 our modern quest for a perfectly optimized society? 00:23:42.339 --> 00:23:44.380 That's the real question. Next time you rely 00:23:44.380 --> 00:23:46.539 on an algorithm to make a decision for you, ask 00:23:46.539 --> 00:23:47.559 yourself who wrote the code.