The Wisconsin Idea by Charles McCarthy (review)

This classic statement from 1912 on Progressivism and American-style liberalism received a facelift in 2018 in the wake of Scott Walker's eight tumultuous years of austerity and reactionary politics. While the book's opening "Note on the Text," authored by Ross Tangedal and Jeff Snowbarger, claims that the edition's "primary purpose . . . is to bring McCarthy's work back into print, primarily as an . . . historical document," there can be little doubt, given the publication's timing and the content of Nicholas Fleisher's brief afterword, that it represents a desire for renewal of the Wisconsin Idea. But what aspects of it might the editors and publisher hope to see implemented today? Certainly not all of Charles McCarthy's original policy descriptions, details on bills, and contextual solutions documented in the original work.

McCarthy's authority on the Wisconsin Idea derived from his position as chief of Wisconsin's Legislative Reference Department. Commissioned in 1901, the department housed and systematized "the products of democracy" (that is, the history of legislation) for the state's legislators (166). Intimately aware of the details of the legislative process, McCarthy also possessed an extraordinary sense of political philosophy and contextual factors; this sense broadly shaped the Wisconsin Idea. He was sensitive to ethics, the problems of force, the distorting effects of money and capitalism, the wants of everyday people, the importance of deliberation, the problem of expertise, the drive for efficiency, and the concerns of justice. For today, the editors recognize that the Wisconsin Idea would become something bigger concerning "kleptocratic and oligarchic tyranny" and for the "public good" generally (xiii). Regarding that good, Theodore Roosevelt's introduction focused readers on how Wisconsin became, in the Progressive Era, a literal "laboratory for wise experimental legislation" (xxiii). The state was the place where calls by "the average public man" and agitators to abolish injustice were redeemed by "promises" of performance (xxiii). The Wisconsin Idea, Roosevelt continued, promoted "educational institutions and the commonwealth" while also avoiding "plutocracy and government by mob" (xxv–xxvi).

The heart of the book is chapter seven, on administration. Given the historical context—"great monopolies" and wealth inequality had captured state power—the need for a "limit to free play" and "might" (that is, force) had become clear to Wisconsin Idea proponents (2–3, 6–7). The counterforce to these examples of Social Darwinism would be "the state," where "all men combined." Its main power was in taxation, which restricted businesses to "reasonable gain" (2, 6, 7, 11). With the use of "trained experts" who would help "relentlessly administer and enforce" laws, the legislature and state would better serve the public good (11–12). McCarthy argued that "expert help in administration should be freely recognized and [people] trained for it in our colleges should be used in our government" (150). Appointments for special commissions should be "non-partisan," be made "for long periods of time, receive good salaries and [be] given expert help" (136). In this context, McCarthy reminds present-day readers that bureaucracy need not be a dirty word. This is meaningful for those who have lived in the shadow of Ronald Reagan's famous "nine most terrifying words," uttered at a 1986 press conference: "'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" (Washington Post, 13 Aug. 1986).

While education and the university are not the focus of McCarthy's text on the Wisconsin Idea, he did not neglect them. Quoting from the then-esteemed historian Frederick Jackson Turner, McCarthy reminded readers of the ongoing pressure on universities to adapt to the "requirements of all people," and to serve "democracy rather than . . . individual advancement" (99). Experts, wrote Turner, must be "recruited broadly from the democratic masses" and funneled through state universities (100). The University of Wisconsin, in particular, McCarthy continued, "has been noted . . . for [its] philosophy of service to the state" (100). As such, its professors were called on by the legislature for expert advice, which resulted in "safe and...