Progressives blamed corporations and bosses rather than structural economic forces

Evidence

An outgrowth of the agrarian Populist crusade of the 1880’s and 1890’s, the Progressive movement had been swelled before the turn of the century by the enrollment of America’s urban middle class, its conscience awakened by Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis and other muckrakers who dramatized the poverty of the slums, and by the testimony of its own eyes, which could see all too well—in the horrors of child labor and the sweatshop—the problems that flowed from the new industrial order. In searching for the causes of these problems, Progressives settled on the most easily identifiable—the giant corporations and corrupt political bosses who they felt had stolen mythical America away from its people. To exorcise these demons—to force a return to the political democracy and economic individualism that Americans were fond of believing had once existed in their country—they advocated reforms equally simplistic, so simplistic, in fact, that they proved primarily that the old American impulse to do good was still intact. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 251

Categorization

• XREF: Caro’s diagnosis of Progressives scapegoating identifiable demons echoes the pattern of crisis bigotry elsewhere in the library — naming an out-group as the cause of diffuse economic harm. — connects to: Progressive muckraking saw conspiracy in monopolies and party bosses — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 215; Blame on individual bankers and government deflects from capitalism’s systemic causes — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 130; Capitalism shifts blame between individuals and structure to deflect accountability — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 145 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Blame on individual bankers and government deflects from capitalism’s systemic causes #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 130
• Left narratives blame past bad actors rather than present policy design #corroborates (0.85) — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 61
• The bad-apples framing deflects blame from systemic causes #expands (0.82)
• Capitalism shifts blame between individuals and structure to deflect accountability #expands (0.80) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 145