Maggie's Farm

We have often wondered here what the end point of Progressivism is. It often seems to us to be the point at which the State controls most everything and provides all the things people minimally need - except for individual freedom.

Given history, and everyday experience, this sort of childlike trust in the wisdom, efficacy, and altruism of the State seems deeply misguided, and the endpoint usually consists of a sort of serfdom of the people and a sort of monarchy of the State. Eventually, people with backbones and spirit rebel against it if they are able. (However, since fully-developed State utopias are usually, necessarily, oppressive police states, and the rebellious people are disarmed and lacking in funds, it's difficult.)

Sultan highlights one aspect of State utopianism: its resistance to change, in Progressives Without Progress:

Visions lead to utopias, but once utopia is achieved, there is no more room for vision. Visions, like viruses, are competitive creatures. When a Vision achieves a static order by killing all other visions, then vision dies, but that Vision remains with its dead hand on the wheel of history.