And tomorrow’s center will be today’s extreme.
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In the 1950s US, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent. In 1925, the idea of such a rate was an extreme position. Today, it is an extreme position.
In 1935, the US had a small standing army and believed that was the way to be. After WWI, it had demobilized a huge army, but after WWII it chose to keep a large standing army.
Segregation was the normal position for much of the country before the 1960s; today it is theoretically illegal.
Women could not, effectively, hold most jobs in the 1950s; today they can. Married women couldn’t even have their own bank accounts without permission from their husbands; today they can.
Before the 1940s, almost no countries had universal health care, now virtually all developed countries (except the US) do.
Limited liability corporations didn’t exist throughout most of the history of capitalism, and were opposed by many capitalists when introduced; now they are the norm.
Most land was owned and managed by the commons for most of history; now, most of it is private land or government-owned. The idea that every local shouldn’t have access to local land and resources was EXTREME for almost all of human existence.
(Capitalism, generally speaking, is an extremely radical ideology when viewed through the lens of human history and pre-history.)
The center, of any period, is the extreme of a previous period. Truly, new ideas start from the extremes, then, when radicals win, they become centrist ideas. Adam Smith did not agree with the orthodoxy of his day, any more than Karl Marx did (though he had the advantage that he was championing a wealthy minority, not a poor one ,and thus didn’t live his life in poverty and misery like Marx.)
Confucius was an extremist who could not get hired by those in power. Jesus was an extremist. Muhammed was an extremist. Thomas Paine was an extremist. Luther was an extremist, and so was MLK.
The center does maintainance and refinement of ideas, but they have few if any truly new ideas. It is radicals who create new ideas, and centrists support them only afterwards.