This was far from the first time this year the phrase “one size fits all” has been used as a cudgel against government-mandated public goods and programs. In February 2021, for example, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) argued against Biden’s proposed $15 hourly minimum wage by declaring, “We should not have a one-size-fits-all policy set by Washington politicians.”
But uses of the phrase have a longer history dating back to 1980s critiques of public goods. In particular, over the last few decades, “one size fits all” has become a cliché political talking point, a conservative rhetorical flourish meant to put the kibosh on any and all government social welfare policies.
In our current moment, however, the “one-size-fits-all” charge is confusing, if not incoherent. After all, if they are to prevent the worsening of a deadly epidemic, public health measures must apply to everyone. To call a vaccine mandate a constraint on an “intensely personal decision” is to obfuscate the fundamental reality that pandemics are intensely social.
Moreover, what Senator Ernst calls a “policy set by Washington politicians” is, by its proper name, a federal law, the making of which is the primary job of our legislators. To gain legitimacy, laws are generally expected to “fit all.” Everyone who exceeds the speed limit can expect to be fined. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr., described “just law” as “a code that a majority compels a minority to follow, and that it is willing to follow itself.” He called this principle “sameness made legal,” which sounds quite a lot like “one size fits all.”
Political uses of the phrase “one size fits all” date back to 1980s critiques of public goods.
Before it became an epithet, “one size fits all” appeared in advertising as a symbol of U.S. technological ingenuity. The age of mass production saw the innovation of new stretchable materials, which became integral to garments such as the one-size-fits-all “kimono-style robes of polyester-acetate-nylon velour” advertised by Bradlees department store in 1985. Companies sold a wide range of products—hats, gloves, robes, “motor seats covers,” “bath kilts,” and so on—that they proudly advertised to customers as “one size fits all.” This flexibility was something to be celebrated, as in a 1937 ad for a women’s bathing suit made of “two-way stretch latex” that “fits all figures from 12 to 20.”