Influence On U.S. Government Policy
Ward had strong influence on a rising generation of progressive political leaders, such as Herbert Croly. In the book "Lester Ward and the Welfare State", Commager details Ward's influence and refers to him as the "father of the modern welfare state".
As a political approach, Ward's system became known as social liberalism, as distinguished from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which featured such thinkers as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. While classical liberalism had sought prosperity and progress through laissez-fare, Ward's "American social liberalism" sought to enhance social progress through direct government intervention. Ward believed that in large, complex and rapidly growing societies human freedom could only be achieved with the assistance of a strong democratic government acting in the interest of the individual. The characteristic element of Ward's thinking was his faith that government, acting on the empirical and scientifically based findings of the science of sociology, could be harnessed to create a near Utopian social order.
Ward's thinking had a profound impact on the administrations of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt and on the modern Democratic Party. The "liberalism" of the Democrats today is not that of Smith and Mill, which stressed non-interference from the government in economic issues, but of Ward, which stressed the unique position of government to effect positive change. While Roosevelt's experiments in social engineering were popular and effective, the full effect of the forces Ward set in motion came to bear half a century after his death, in the Great Society programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam war.
Ward realized that the path to human progress was not easy or smooth. His hope was that the science of sociology, which was but in its infancy, would allow government officials to learn from their past mistakes.
Ward died in Washington, D.C.. He is buried in Watertown, New York.
Read more about this topic: Lester Frank Ward
Famous quotes containing the words government policy, influence on, influence, government and/or policy:
“You are, I am sure, aware that genuine popular support in the United States is required to carry out any Government policy, foreign or domestic. The American people make up their own minds and no governmental action can change it.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The example of America must be the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because it is the healing and elevating influence of the world, and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Doctor, I want you to make it known to your government that it can trust us implicitly, for we do not want any of your territory. We only want your trade.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“If matrimony be really beneficial to society, the custom that ... married women alone are allowed any claim to place, is as useful a piece of policy as ever was invented.... The ridicule fixed on the appellation of old maid hath, I doubt not, frightened a very large number into the bonds of wedlock.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)