Since the beginning of the Progressive Era (1900-1920) the dominate ideology or world view of the professional managerial class of court intellectuals, opinion leaders and editorial directors of the elite mainstream regime media, bureaucratic functionaries and staff of the administrative state, the federal judiciary, members of Congress, and those persons who comprise the top echelon of the military industrial complex and the deep state, has been a synthesis of what has been described as corporate liberalism or proponents of the welfare-warfare state.
The outstanding economist/historian Murray N. Rothbard used the term “corporate liberalism” in his works, particularly in his historical analyses of the Progressive Era and the New Deal, to describe a political-economic system involving a collusive partnership between Big Business and Big Government.
A key source for this concept in Rothbard’s work is his posthumously published book The Progressive Era (2017), and the idea is also discussed in The Betrayal of the American Right and his essay “Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty”.
Key Points of Rothbard’s View on Corporate Liberalism:
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- Definition: Rothbard defined “corporate liberalism” as an ideology and movement, championed by certain big business leaders, to establish a strong, centralized state that would regulate the economy in a manner that served their interests, in contrast to a genuine free market.
- Historical Context: He argued that during the Progressive Era and the New Deal, corporate elites, in the name of “reform” and “anti-corruption,” sought to cartelize industries and gain state power and perquisites.
- Mechanism: This was achieved through government regulations, appointed committees, and centralization of power, which restricted competition and increased the power of insulated bureaucrats and special interests allied with big business.
- Ideological Deception: Rothbard contended that this system was deceptively presented under the ideology of “free enterprise,” while in reality, it was a form of state capitalism.
- The “Establishment” Consensus: He viewed the post-WWII consensus, including Cold War interventionism, as the triumph of “corporate liberalism”.
The Progressive Era saw the birth of the cult of efficiency, with the new administrative state’s apolitical credentialed experts gingerly guiding public-policy instead of the archaic rule of political bosses and their ethnic urban political machines. Or, at least that was what was supposed to happen according to Progressives such as Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, Robert LaFollette, Jane Addams, Richard Ely, Lincoln Steffens, Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson.
The insightful attorney and political analyst Robert Barnes in a recent “daily brief” at VivaBarnesLaw.Locals.com brilliantly encapsulated this reality of elite rule in America.
“Charles Murray’s Coming Apart was like a sequel to the brilliant book The Big Sort. Lived experience now varies as widely and wildly as ever: working class Americans see, feel, and remember a very different narrative of life than the professional-managerial upper middle class who govern us. Who is this class? Those with certifications or licensures, college or more degrees, in a job that manages others. They dominate those with a post-college degree especially. They claim the right to govern others due to those degrees and certifications and licenses, as the credentialed class claims credibility from those credentials.
“Consider what is typical or atypical of this professional managerial class. Most spent their lives amongst other upper middle-class professionals. Quite literally. Their neighborhoods were professional class dominated neighborhoods. No risk of a Mr. Rogers’ or Mr. Robinson’s neighbor. Their schools were professional class dominated institutions. Their churches or organizations are professional class dominated. Their cultural outings are usually professional class dominated. Their parents and siblings and cousins were professional class dominant. They often never lived in a small town. They often never employed in a working-class occupation involving physical labor. They often never served in the grunt units of the military. They know few firemen, cops, or frontline workers. They never experienced poverty or dramatic loss of status. They don’t own guns, smoke or dip tobacco, or even ever walked on a factory floor or construction site. Evangelicals are freaks to them. Swamp people means neither DC nor the excellent reality series; it’s those folks who live in the scary backwoods.
“They see their status as deserved, as they define deserts by professional class standards: approval from teachers in school, and approval from authority figures in life, measured by grades, degrees, credentials, licenses, and public acclaim from approved authority figures. Their over-achieving, teacher-pet mindset surrounded themselves often with like-minded individuals, often not even knowing the kids for whom school was not a match.
“Now, add to that surrounding themselves with other professional class sources of information: medical “experts” approved by the state, judges in courts of law, professional politicians in representative government, professionalized credentialed journalists in big institutional media, and teachers of themselves and their children. Of the professional class, by the professional class, for the professional class. Then add to that censorship of dissident opinions, deplatforming dissidents, taking away their licenses, removing their credentials, defaming their reputation, and picking friends by political alliance and allegiance.
“Middle America ain’t like these folks. For many in the professional class, all of the following is absent: Pickup trucks, cheap beer, old school action films, proud patriotism, all kinds of fishing and hunting, chain restaurants, the local Kiwanis or Awanas more than art galleries and lefty parades, riding the dog, dream vacations to Dollyworld or Branson still await, folks smoke (and not just weed), work that might require a uniform, friends and family in protective services at the grunt level of police, fire, medical, or military.
“In other words, we are governed by an insular elite acculturated and educated to intellectually incestuous intersectionalism at the moral and practical effect of disastrous public policy. Any platform of change must do all it can to reallocate political capital from the professional managerial class to the people as broadly as achievable. Populism provides part of that answer to any problem: reallocate power to the people whenever and wherever you can.
4:57 am on November 5, 2025
