Progressivism

Progressivism, the most wholesome ideology.

Proponents and subideologies

Note: People marked with an asterisk are their countries' starting leaders.

Subideology	Description	Adherents
Left Wing Populism	Plenty of men on the campaign trail will tell you they are "for the people." Sometimes, even when not in front of a microphone, it will be true. Yet the hopes of many reformers have been dashed by "politics as usual," as compromise and corruption inevitably sully hands and swallow ambition. As the grievances of the common man grow and a system interested in its maintenance alone proves unable to respond to them, someone and their movement may step into the political arena to harness the public will. Where their program and rhetoric bears a resemblance to socialism or progressivism, it can be categorized as a form of Left Wing Populism. Populism as a label is unfathomably vague, but in this context, some traits are common. The populist movement can begin outside of a conventional political party, starting as a protest or other public campaign, before it forms a party of its own or becomes an internal faction of an existing one. When they are described as left-wing, it tends to be because of an economically redistributionist agenda or an advocacy for egalitarian social reforms. Often started behind a charismatic leader or specific grievances, this tends to produce a less doctrinaire, even syncretic, political program than ones that would normally be categorized as socialist. Left Wing Populist movements, for all they might swim upstream against entrenched political interests, have a number of innate advantages. An energetic and authentic leader can have a broader audience than established candidates, being able to make appeals across party lines and to the politically-apathetic. Furthermore, a personality with a lack of scruples or investment in the status quo can be as forceful as they wish against their political obstacles. Never predictable, it remains to be seen whether the contradictions of a populist movement will be its undoing, whether it will be co-opted by the establishment it criticizes, or whether it will prove democracy still has the capacity to renew itself.	Ali Sulayman al-Assad* Cheng Qian* Aleksandr Kerensky* Pavel Ksenofontov Nicolae Lupu
Liberal Socialism	A deep divide looms between the heirs of 1789 and those of 1918, the scions of the liberal individualistic tradition and the collectivist socialists. Yet the victorious German Social Democrats worked within the parliamentary system until it became impossible for them. Eduard Bernstein, the head of the SPD's right, would even define socialism as a form of organized liberalism. The task of reconciliation between the two sides' ambitions may fall to the theoreticians of Liberal Socialism. The foundations of the tendency generally begin with English reformists, though not entirely. John Stuart Mill, ostensibly the leading light of British liberalism in the nineteenth century, wrote on the ideal of democracy as the principle of social organization, but also held that means such as economic redistribution and worker-owned cooperatives would be required to realize this. Later on, the Fabians would expound on a moral economy, committed to social justice, that cuts out the exploitative rentier class. Proudhon's extolling of worker self-management and Sombart's writing on mixed economies would also sow the seeds on the European continent. Immanent political concerns saw the ideology expand further, as those who joined the German and Hungarian revolutions adapted to their new reality, in the case of the liberals, or chafed under the mobilization and state terror required to secure their gains, in the case of some of the socialists. Thus was realized the present state of Liberal Socialism. In practice, it generally seeks an order of decentralized power, principles of egalitarianism and voluntarism, and a mixed private-public economy. Whether to secure the allegiance of a revolutionary middle class or to achieve the ambitions of freedom that the bourgeoisie frustrate at every turn, it has thus remained a dissident current in some parts of the world despite political polarization. In the name of justice and liberty, socialism!	Fan Noli Karl Popper Mohammad Hatta Carlo Rosselli
Progressive Corporatism	The lightning unleashed by the French Revolution in 1789 proved alarmingly difficult to put back in the bottle. Though it was far from a linear or universal process around the world, and though many would try to reverse it, throne and altar lost much of their temporal authority in the age to follow. Obvious critique of the new liberal state of affairs came from the traditionalists, but they were not the only ones. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a new alternative had emerged, that of Progressive Corporatism. The concept of corporate organization of mankind is an ancient one. Even Plato and Aristotle could envision a model where people were sorted into bodies according to their role in society. The great guilds of feudal Europe that organized themselves by profession are an example of this in practice — but they would not remain an ideal for the traditionalists alone. As industrialization and class tensions intensified, and the breakdown of traditional social relations like the family and guild led to alienation, sociologists and philosophers would begin to advocate for new organizations to rebuild solidarity between people. Into this world of Saint-Simon and Durkheim stepped Catholic social teaching. Pope Leo XIII commissioned studies of corporatism, and in 1891 published the encyclical "Rerum novarum," which stressed the need for an economy based on justice and dignity, blessed the trade unions, and empathetically called for collaboration between capital and labour. While not every successor to the Throne of St. Peter was of the same mind, the Vatican's search for a course between capitalism and socialism — without rejecting the Enlightenment itself — inspired many. Whether anchored in religious distributism or guild socialism, Progressive Corporatism still navigates between the anomie of liberalism, the dehumanization of militant modern politics, and reactionary atavism. The state, having granted rights to collective organizations and classes as a whole, pushes them to collaborate for broader societal betterment and harmony. In a world riven with conflict, it stresses there is still time for devotion to one another.	Germán Busch* Getúlio Vargas Vasily Boldyrev Alberto Adriani
Progressive Democracy	As the machinery of industry grew at the turn of the century and reshaped life around it, the issues that social reformers had been pointing to for decades became impossible to ignore for most of the general population. Unsanitary living conditions and the spread of disease; labour abuses and the militancy they engendered; all of this demanded action, even by those who were reluctant to upend the whole of society in bloody revolution. With the growth of government administrative capacity, and with new tools of statistical measurement and scientific study, the question was asked: Can we not apply these to improving the state of our people? The resulting tendency has been identified as that of Progressive Democracy. Even when it is simply identified as "Progressivism," the ideology represents a root belief in the cause of bettering man and society. As the empiricism of the Enlightenment discovered the causes of disease, or its debates upheld the value of education and inalienable rights, a broad sense emerged that there was a universal ideal to strive for, opposed to barbarism. Obstacles to progress toward this ideal were identified in issues such as poverty, poor public health, and illiteracy — and as awareness of them grew, would-be reformers took their causes to the world of mass politics. Progressive Democracy, therefore, tends to uphold the value of progress and use the means of the democratic state to pursue it. Of course, progress itself has contested definitions, much like liberalism and conservatism do, and these have historically evolved over time to meet the issues of the day. On one hand, the value of public health has led to the application of germ theory to urban sanitation, and on the other, the application of heritability to eugenics programs. Values of education and secularism have justified public schools and the colonial civilizing mission. But above all else, as a political phenomenon, it holds that the state, when faced with these great societal ills, can and should ameliorate them through a national effort.	Thomas Joseph Ryan* Manuel María Orellana Contreras* Peter Munch Ignacy Daszyński
Social Nationalism	The rote Marxist approach views the nation as a bourgeois construction, opposed to worker solidarity transcending such borders. Others may see the dangers inherent in harnessing nationalism, where demagogues wave the flag to gin up attacks on enemies both foreign and domestic. And yet, despite these caveats, there are places where left wing politics, representative democracy, and nationalism work in tandem, where progressivism and nationalism are deliberately united in a political movement. Especially as countries have achieved national independence since the Great War, this tendency has been formally described as Social Nationalism. It cannot be forgotten that the ideal of the nation was once directly opposed to tradition and reaction. Republican nationalism tore down the vestiges of feudalism in much of Europe, from the privileged position of clergy to the demenses of minor nobility that divided the fatherland. Furthermore, while the revolutions of 1789 and 1848 are primarily considered liberal in character, a number of participants were recognizably from the political left, from the Conspiracy of Equals to the founders of communism itself. In countries where mass political mobilization is made more difficult by the aftermath of an independence struggle, a still-entrenched feudal power system, or a period of domination by another nationality, national identity is still a powerful tool to build collectivity across the country. Lest we forget the aftermath of Italian unification: "we have made Italy, now we must make Italians." Social Nationalism by definition is a progressive ideology, with all that entails for the improvement of the people's material and social conditions. It differs from its contemporaries in its preoccupation with inculcating a national identity through the population. The conditions that give rise to it — newly won independence, or feudal backwardness — tend to lead to its growth outside of the established world powers, especially in their imperial possessions. With the global balance of power shifting, and political consciousness growing on the global periphery, the Phrygian caps of yore may be donned by men once more.	Subhas Chandra Bose* Nazi Boni* Wang Jingwei Alejandro Lerroux Symon Petliura