I'm not at all sold on Mamdani's commitment to an abundance agenda. I will admit that he stands out from other progressive "superstars" of the past few years in that he is incredibly charismatic and capable of reading rooms. But if the mayoralty of someone like Brandon Johnson is any indication, Mamdani may be so beholden to his base that genuinely good ideas (upzoning of high-density neighborhoods, say) die on the vine. It takes a lot of courage to willingly invite the rancor of New York's leftist voting bloc; I will be very happy if he does so, but I won't hold my breath.
Adversarial legalism is a big roadblock to abundance, as detailed in the book’s retelling of Nader and the modern environmental movement. Has Derek or anyone else written in detail on how this political system works? I’m curious how it sustains itself, whether it’s an inevitable (but unpredicted) consequence of the US legal system, and how much the prevalence of lawyers in US politics contributes to it, either by direct alignment of interests or shared training and a common style of thinking.
There's Public Citizens by Paul Sabin, which arrived a few years too early to catch the wave of Abundance-thought (along with Why Nothing Works, Stuck, Marketcrafters, and so forth).
I think Mark Dunkelman's book "Why Nothing Works" gets into the history of how the political movement against consolidations of power (due to abuses) led to many new laws that allowed individuals to sue and a new philosophy on the left that it is better to empower individuals at the expense of institutions, that individual rights trumped policy progress.
“To see these abuses clearly requires a particular way of looking at the world. It demands an ideological flexibility that does not pre-determine that certain groups are intrinsically innocent or guilty.”
This really stands out to me as the opportunity and the hurdle. Getting people to think openly, critically, and less reflexively about what is “good” or “bad” and with more imagination about problem solving and coalition building.
As a long-time reader, I very much looking forward to your future work on this front, Derek.
A good book on unions is "Not Accountable" by Philip K Howard.
He really digs in on how union contracts and rules make it almost impossible to hold public employees to account or to make things run more efficiently.
It always seems funny to me on how clearly liberals can see the conflicts of interest or corruption between government and big business, but how blind they are too the same (or often worse) between public unions and government.
But given how much political power unions wield in the Democratic party, I don't have much hope this will change.
I think generally the general American political shift has been from left/right to progressive/regressive, with its conservatives and liberals contained within. This framing allows for just the dialogue you seek, with the focus on outcomes. With the outdated left/right framing stubborn clinging to past identifiers loosens its grip and leads to productive, new and way more interesting conversations all around, on both sides.
First and (possibly) most importantly: progressives ≠ “the left.” They are especially not the online left. The average person who calls themselves a progressive is someone form whom “liberal” doesn’t go far enough. That’s why you see elected officials being more open to “Abundance.” It’s not just that they’ve seen govt up close, they’re also closer to you politically than leftists are.
I follow you on Twitter and my view is that most of the criticism you’re receiving on that platform is not from progressives but people who never describe themselves as progressives: leftists.
Richie Torres is not who you want to use as some kind of bastion progressiveness. He’s one of the most craven politicians of this era. IMO of course. LOL.
You described ZM as “far left.” I just listened to your conversation with him and I’m curious how you square the man you conversed with there as someone you describe as “far left” here. I am a full throated supporter of Mamdani and his focus on “outcomes” is what will set him apart from a lot of other failed politicians from the left and arguably why I like most about him. The only thing that truly matters is did we make people’s lives better.
I think your focus on public sector unions, specifically as it relates to the subway suffers from a bit of tunnel vision (pun intended). This is from the article you cited: In Paris, which has famously powerful unions, the review found the lower costs were the result of efficient staffing, fierce vendor competition and scant use of consultants. The main problem here is not with unions but cowardly politicians who need/want to raise money from them. While ZM’s response is not great, the solution here is campaign finance reform not pointing to unions as the issue because this is a problem across govt. Especially at the municipal and state levels and of course is a problem not unique to unions but car dealerships and construction companies. Again from the same article:
“Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say.
Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of M.T.A. employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate.”
Yet you seem to dismiss the idea of reigning in consultants and you and ZM didn’t discuss campaign donations at all.
Since I plan on commenting here a fair amount I should add where I’m coming from politically: I used to describe myself as “liberal” but to be brutally honest I’ve come to view that moniker as something for white people (I’m Black). I don’t believe the term liberal encompasses what it means to be Black and “liberal” in this country. Our lives have been shaped by very differing experiences.
While I’m generally to the left of you and Ezra (who I’ve been reading since before he was part of the “juice box mafia”). I’d describe myself as much further to the left than someone like Yglesias (I rolled my eyes when I saw you went live with him) who I’ve blocked on Twitter for his incessant left baiting, punching and trolling.
All that said, I would never describe myself as “far left” or a leftist (monikers I also believe are for white people in today’s world).
I’ve (very recently) taken to calling myself a radical progressive. What does that mean? To me, it means I have some radical ideas (I’m a big Zohran supporter) but it also means I mostly care about figuring out how to help the most people, especially the poorest amongst us. As someone who grew up in poverty in NYC, I hate that these conversations solely revolve around the so-called working and middle classes. I also actually care about doing what it takes to gain power. Which, in my view, most leftists aren’t very interested in and for some who are interested in it, it seems to be a vision of leftism that’s just a mirror image of Trumpism. Autocracy but for “good.”
As a Black person in America, I’m highly skeptical of ANY vision of power that’s concentrated in the hands of the few.
Anywho. Sorry for the long comment. Look forward to engaging with you, your work and your ideas.
"You described ZM as “far left.” I just listened to your conversation with him and I’m curious how you square the man you conversed with there as someone you describe as “far left”"
He supports price controls (freeze the rent) and government run grocery stores. That's pretty far left. Also bad policy.
For example, when you are trying to convince developers to come and and build, if they think that later the government will come in and institute price controls they are just a lot less likely to build in the first place.
The private sector will provide plenty of housing and groceries if government puts in place the policies to let them (or stops interfering with them).
Provide safe neighborhoods and reasonable taxes, without so much red tape. Then companies will be happy to come in and build/sell stuff. That's how they make money.
In today’s world, I wouldn’t categorize “price controls” as far left.
Also, we have to consider what is actually realistic here. This is NYC. In NY state. We haven’t had an expansion of any form of rent control in a very long time.
The real estate industry is very powerful. The only thing Mamdani can do on his own is freeze rent for the currently rent stabilized which BdB did 3 times. There’s zero chance of rent control, in any form, being expanded. So what’s ZM doing? He’s signaling what and who he stands for. Which is important as a politician. I think he made it clear in that interview that he’s going to be pretty pragmatic. Not something we would describe the “far left” as.
But only time well tell and only if he ultimately becomes mayor.
I'm just not convinced that the left is yet sufficiently pragmatic to hear your pleas, though I deeply hope that I'm wrong. As a graduate student at Columbia, my impression has increasingly been that the left is so intensely ideologically driven that they aren't interested even in learning from the unintended consequences of their actions. What, for instance, have the protests at Columbia achieved except to paint a giant target on the institution's back, to help elect Donald Trump, and to reinforce mainstream American support for Israel? These protests seem to have been entirely counterproductive, but I don't sense much soul-searching amongst my peers. My sense is that the only hope we have is to convince many that support leftist movements and candidates to moderate their views and dial back their ideological zealotry, and I hope that your and Ezra's efforts to engage in good faith with the left wing of the party will lead to some of this de-radicalization. As for leftist publications and thought leaders, however, my sense is that huge swathes of them are just true believers and will sooner go down with the ship than moderate or compromise. Our only hope is that their followers see the writing on the wall and deploy the lifeboats rather than going down with them.
As someone who comes at this from the left, I can offer the following thoughts.
First, Abundance is at least three things:
* A book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein
* A cohering political/intellectual movement among center/left Democrats
* A label that can be applied to various supply-side policies.
I think most of the conflict you'll encounter with leftists is from the first two, rather than the latter.
On the first one: I think from a left POV a big failing of the book is that it doesn't much engage in any discussion of political economy. It (correctly) observes the dismal current state of affairs with regards to restrictive regulation, sclerotic government, and etc while not really considering how we got there. To wit: that this is how government behaves isn't an accident, it's the outcome of the political economy that has dominated for the past half-century. It's all well and good to say that we should *change* this state of affairs, but doing so without engaging in the political economy side of things is likely a doomed effort.
On the second: from the left POV, many people who are taking upon themselves the mantle of Abundance are people who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, at best. For most of my life--and I think I'm about your age--the Democratic party has been all too willing to sell itself out to wealthy donors at the expense of those it purports to represent. And in doing so, it's been instrumental in getting us to where we are today: governed by a fascist movement that is trying--if incompetently--to institute an single-party authoritarian regime.
From that point of view, Abundance is just the latest One Weird Trick that Democratic officials and intellectuals are using to avoid grappling with the complete failure of their project. Like the Joe Rogan of the Left and Popularism and Hope and Change and etc etc it's just another slogan being slapped onto a failed ideology. Or at least it often comes across that way, and it doesn't help that many of the people who are today espousing Abundance are the standard bearers for that failed ideology.
Finally, with regards to Abundance as a label for a policy: many of the specific policy proposals advocated for are uncontroversial among swathes of the left (I won't say the left more broadly because in a weird way the left is more diverse than centrists). You'll leftist NIMBYs advocating for dense urbanism, you'll find leftists advocating for buillding modern energy infrastructure, and all of that good stuff. Of course there's an interesting interaction with the previous form of Abundance, because many who are using Abundance to advance their interests in a coalitional fight. "What, you're suspicious of Abundance? You mean you're in favor of xyz bullshit regulation?" It's that slippage between these two modes that makes leftists even *more* inclined toward suspicion.
With all that said, my thinking is that insofar as adherents of Abundance want to advance it among the left, I'd suggest the following:
* Engage more seriously with the political economy side of the argument. You don't necessarily have to *solve* the distortion of our politics brought about by neoliberal capitalism because hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. But you could start by acknowledging that it's a problem.
* Accept that many of your fellow travelers are irredeemable in the eyes of the left. Sorry but when you lie down with dogs you're gonna wake up with flees.
* Just go ahead and build some credibility. If Abundance wants to be a movement, let its success speak for itself. Pass good legislation/regulation/etc, with the support with the left when possible. Show the positive impact. You won't get the support of the left overnight, but you can at least get some credibility here because right now your movement simply does not have many.
I think your second point gets at the crux of why "Abundance liberals" -- and generally other left-of-center policy thinkers -- struggle to engage with progressive thought on this (and other) issues: just because certain politicians have been bad in the past doesn't necessarily mean they NEED to be bad going forward. For better or worse, the nature of being a politician is changing your mind! That's not spinelessness -- it's a willingness to grow and change for the better over time.
If you want to toss out every politician who's run afoul of some progressive shibboleth at some point in time, that's your prerogative... but that makes the tent smaller, not bigger.
I'm all for politicians changing their minds. And when they show that they have I'll support them.
But credibility is a thing, and in many cases the politicians and people wrapping themselves in Abundance flags are simply not credible. There's a Lucy with the football dynamic at play, and you shouldn't expect the left to just gamely line up to kick the ball *yet again.*
I think it would help if you specify who you're talking about -- in the absence of names, the brush is simply too broad. As Derek wrote in the piece, Ro Khanna has voiced support for abundance, and by all metrics, he's quite progressive!
"I think it would help if you specify who you're talking about" In general I feel the same way about Abundists!
Khanna is... meh. He's yet to meet a Silicon Valley company to whom he won't sell out. So if he wants to wrap himself in the Abundance flag that's fine; I don't much care. Like I said, let's let the rubber hit the road when it comes to specific policies. If he's going to sponsor some policy in the name of Abundance that isn't just mostly a bunch of giveaways to his wealthy donors? Then I'll start taking him seriously.
This kind of goes to what I said in my third bullet point: go build some credibility! Propose some bills and let us judge them on their merits! But the centrist faction that's dominated Democratic politics for fifty years and has spent most of those years selling itself out to wealthy interests should not expect the left to believe that this time they're going to behave differently.
"For most of my life--and I think I'm about your age--the Democratic party has been all too willing to sell itself out to wealthy donors at the expense of those it purports to represent."
What's been interfering with a pro abundance agenda isn't a bunch of billionaires. It's lots of little local NIMYB's combined with lots of unions that want cushy government jobs and don't want to work too hard.
That's combined to make blue states really expensive, and the government to cost more and deliver less than it should.
At what point do Abundance democrats concede that maybe it’s more logical to vote for republicans at the local level? I read Noah Smith and Yglasias and Klein and Barro and everyone consistently points out that labor unions and left wing interest groups are bankrupting blue cities and states and making building impossible. Meanwhile red states are seeing better education outcomes, more affordable housing, and not surprisingly, significantly higher population growth. Texas has a $20B surplus! It’s starting to feel obvious to me that the reason these places are successful is because unions and Dems aren’t in power.
One very minor hope/suggestion/personal preference:
Like Yglesias, I hope there's a consistent publication schedule: a few hours before work starts on the east coast. Much easier to read with my coffee and breakfast than on mobile in a government office at work.
I am a little too close to Mamdani and NYC politics, so take this for what it is worth. I have serious issues with his campaign because he doesn't care about housing details. I have seen many previous mayors and governors who care about the political win and don't give a crap about the details. I suspect he is the same way.
For example, there are serious academics who are sounding the alarm that about 1/3 of rent-stabilized housing is bankrupt and he is calling for a rent freeze. He repeatedly says landlords are doing great and cites data that says free-market landlords are doing great to justify a rent freeze on buildings that are bankrupt and have growing physical distress.
Ultimately, he has shown no willingness to change his view on this issue. So I suspect 300,000 apartments will probably just deteriorate and possibly be lost forever under his four year administration and he will continue to just talk about how landlords are rich so f* them.
On issues I am less versed in, I think he says the right things and has good vibes. I think he communicates clearly to young voters and his hopeful message is appealing. But I suspect he hasn't done any of the legwork on the details of his policies so it is hard to have faith that he will deliver.
I use policing as a good example. I generally agree with him. I think the NYPD has a broad and opaque mandate and because of that the outcomes are not great in many places. I think there needs to be reform, especially on mental health issues, and there should be some re-allocation of resources (which is technically defunding). But I don't trust him to get the details correct. I think he is always going to do what he thinks builds his political popularity.
This criticism is not unique to Mamdani. He just happens to be the subject today. Most legislators typically care little about the details of their bills and care more about the political win they can tout. The stakes are just higher when you are electing a mayor.
"When I asked Mamdani whether he was prepared to confront the role of public sector unions in raising the cost of transit construction, he told me, “I will have to work with public sector unions [but] I think I come to a different conclusion than you” on their centrality to higher construction costs. "
And this is where the rubber will hit the road. Abundance sounds great in theory (and I am all on board), but it will definitely require trade-offs, many of which leftists will not be willing to make.
Practically all of the building trades and construction unions are backing Cuomo. Hotel Trades, Building Congress, 32BJ, Carpenters.
Mamdani might just tell them to f* off. Streamline development. Throw some other unions sweetheart contracts. And call it a day. That would be the political power play move.
Totally agree that the traditional left/right framing doesn’t map well onto the abundance agenda—or honestly, onto many of the most important policy challenges today. Maybe a more useful axis is pragmatism vs. dogmatism.
The best of the abundance mindset, to me, isn’t just about “building more stuff.” It’s a commitment to outcomes paired with a willingness to confront the procedural thickets (legal, policy, operational) that make those outcomes so hard to deliver. That includes recognizing that many civil servants would love to improve broken systems if they had the permission, models, and support to do so.
The real work happens in implementation: aligning rules, incentives, and workflows so that public institutions can actually function. That takes courageous leaders (usually career staff, not electeds) who are willing to pick battles, take heat, and put public results ahead of institutional interests.
Those traits aren’t partisan. I’ve seen them in people across the political spectrum.
I'm not at all sold on Mamdani's commitment to an abundance agenda. I will admit that he stands out from other progressive "superstars" of the past few years in that he is incredibly charismatic and capable of reading rooms. But if the mayoralty of someone like Brandon Johnson is any indication, Mamdani may be so beholden to his base that genuinely good ideas (upzoning of high-density neighborhoods, say) die on the vine. It takes a lot of courage to willingly invite the rancor of New York's leftist voting bloc; I will be very happy if he does so, but I won't hold my breath.
Adversarial legalism is a big roadblock to abundance, as detailed in the book’s retelling of Nader and the modern environmental movement. Has Derek or anyone else written in detail on how this political system works? I’m curious how it sustains itself, whether it’s an inevitable (but unpredicted) consequence of the US legal system, and how much the prevalence of lawyers in US politics contributes to it, either by direct alignment of interests or shared training and a common style of thinking.
Paging Nick Bagley:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3347377
There's Public Citizens by Paul Sabin, which arrived a few years too early to catch the wave of Abundance-thought (along with Why Nothing Works, Stuck, Marketcrafters, and so forth).
I like to call it the Lawyer Lobby.
They basically run everything in New York State government. Far more powerful than hospitals, unions, real estate, tech or any other lobby.
I think Mark Dunkelman's book "Why Nothing Works" gets into the history of how the political movement against consolidations of power (due to abuses) led to many new laws that allowed individuals to sue and a new philosophy on the left that it is better to empower individuals at the expense of institutions, that individual rights trumped policy progress.
“To see these abuses clearly requires a particular way of looking at the world. It demands an ideological flexibility that does not pre-determine that certain groups are intrinsically innocent or guilty.”
This really stands out to me as the opportunity and the hurdle. Getting people to think openly, critically, and less reflexively about what is “good” or “bad” and with more imagination about problem solving and coalition building.
As a long-time reader, I very much looking forward to your future work on this front, Derek.
Bringing out the superlike™️ I use on my other newsletters for this comment.
Agree, ideological flexibility is in short supply these days.
A good book on unions is "Not Accountable" by Philip K Howard.
He really digs in on how union contracts and rules make it almost impossible to hold public employees to account or to make things run more efficiently.
It always seems funny to me on how clearly liberals can see the conflicts of interest or corruption between government and big business, but how blind they are too the same (or often worse) between public unions and government.
But given how much political power unions wield in the Democratic party, I don't have much hope this will change.
I think generally the general American political shift has been from left/right to progressive/regressive, with its conservatives and liberals contained within. This framing allows for just the dialogue you seek, with the focus on outcomes. With the outdated left/right framing stubborn clinging to past identifiers loosens its grip and leads to productive, new and way more interesting conversations all around, on both sides.
Gonna jump around a bit with this long comment…
First and (possibly) most importantly: progressives ≠ “the left.” They are especially not the online left. The average person who calls themselves a progressive is someone form whom “liberal” doesn’t go far enough. That’s why you see elected officials being more open to “Abundance.” It’s not just that they’ve seen govt up close, they’re also closer to you politically than leftists are.
I follow you on Twitter and my view is that most of the criticism you’re receiving on that platform is not from progressives but people who never describe themselves as progressives: leftists.
Richie Torres is not who you want to use as some kind of bastion progressiveness. He’s one of the most craven politicians of this era. IMO of course. LOL.
You described ZM as “far left.” I just listened to your conversation with him and I’m curious how you square the man you conversed with there as someone you describe as “far left” here. I am a full throated supporter of Mamdani and his focus on “outcomes” is what will set him apart from a lot of other failed politicians from the left and arguably why I like most about him. The only thing that truly matters is did we make people’s lives better.
I think your focus on public sector unions, specifically as it relates to the subway suffers from a bit of tunnel vision (pun intended). This is from the article you cited: In Paris, which has famously powerful unions, the review found the lower costs were the result of efficient staffing, fierce vendor competition and scant use of consultants. The main problem here is not with unions but cowardly politicians who need/want to raise money from them. While ZM’s response is not great, the solution here is campaign finance reform not pointing to unions as the issue because this is a problem across govt. Especially at the municipal and state levels and of course is a problem not unique to unions but car dealerships and construction companies. Again from the same article:
“Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say.
Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of M.T.A. employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate.”
Yet you seem to dismiss the idea of reigning in consultants and you and ZM didn’t discuss campaign donations at all.
Since I plan on commenting here a fair amount I should add where I’m coming from politically: I used to describe myself as “liberal” but to be brutally honest I’ve come to view that moniker as something for white people (I’m Black). I don’t believe the term liberal encompasses what it means to be Black and “liberal” in this country. Our lives have been shaped by very differing experiences.
While I’m generally to the left of you and Ezra (who I’ve been reading since before he was part of the “juice box mafia”). I’d describe myself as much further to the left than someone like Yglesias (I rolled my eyes when I saw you went live with him) who I’ve blocked on Twitter for his incessant left baiting, punching and trolling.
All that said, I would never describe myself as “far left” or a leftist (monikers I also believe are for white people in today’s world).
I’ve (very recently) taken to calling myself a radical progressive. What does that mean? To me, it means I have some radical ideas (I’m a big Zohran supporter) but it also means I mostly care about figuring out how to help the most people, especially the poorest amongst us. As someone who grew up in poverty in NYC, I hate that these conversations solely revolve around the so-called working and middle classes. I also actually care about doing what it takes to gain power. Which, in my view, most leftists aren’t very interested in and for some who are interested in it, it seems to be a vision of leftism that’s just a mirror image of Trumpism. Autocracy but for “good.”
As a Black person in America, I’m highly skeptical of ANY vision of power that’s concentrated in the hands of the few.
Anywho. Sorry for the long comment. Look forward to engaging with you, your work and your ideas.
Agreed it was a good interview with ZM.
"You described ZM as “far left.” I just listened to your conversation with him and I’m curious how you square the man you conversed with there as someone you describe as “far left”"
He supports price controls (freeze the rent) and government run grocery stores. That's pretty far left. Also bad policy.
For example, when you are trying to convince developers to come and and build, if they think that later the government will come in and institute price controls they are just a lot less likely to build in the first place.
The private sector will provide plenty of housing and groceries if government puts in place the policies to let them (or stops interfering with them).
Provide safe neighborhoods and reasonable taxes, without so much red tape. Then companies will be happy to come in and build/sell stuff. That's how they make money.
In today’s world, I wouldn’t categorize “price controls” as far left.
Also, we have to consider what is actually realistic here. This is NYC. In NY state. We haven’t had an expansion of any form of rent control in a very long time.
The real estate industry is very powerful. The only thing Mamdani can do on his own is freeze rent for the currently rent stabilized which BdB did 3 times. There’s zero chance of rent control, in any form, being expanded. So what’s ZM doing? He’s signaling what and who he stands for. Which is important as a politician. I think he made it clear in that interview that he’s going to be pretty pragmatic. Not something we would describe the “far left” as.
But only time well tell and only if he ultimately becomes mayor.
I'm just not convinced that the left is yet sufficiently pragmatic to hear your pleas, though I deeply hope that I'm wrong. As a graduate student at Columbia, my impression has increasingly been that the left is so intensely ideologically driven that they aren't interested even in learning from the unintended consequences of their actions. What, for instance, have the protests at Columbia achieved except to paint a giant target on the institution's back, to help elect Donald Trump, and to reinforce mainstream American support for Israel? These protests seem to have been entirely counterproductive, but I don't sense much soul-searching amongst my peers. My sense is that the only hope we have is to convince many that support leftist movements and candidates to moderate their views and dial back their ideological zealotry, and I hope that your and Ezra's efforts to engage in good faith with the left wing of the party will lead to some of this de-radicalization. As for leftist publications and thought leaders, however, my sense is that huge swathes of them are just true believers and will sooner go down with the ship than moderate or compromise. Our only hope is that their followers see the writing on the wall and deploy the lifeboats rather than going down with them.
As someone who comes at this from the left, I can offer the following thoughts.
First, Abundance is at least three things:
* A book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein
* A cohering political/intellectual movement among center/left Democrats
* A label that can be applied to various supply-side policies.
I think most of the conflict you'll encounter with leftists is from the first two, rather than the latter.
On the first one: I think from a left POV a big failing of the book is that it doesn't much engage in any discussion of political economy. It (correctly) observes the dismal current state of affairs with regards to restrictive regulation, sclerotic government, and etc while not really considering how we got there. To wit: that this is how government behaves isn't an accident, it's the outcome of the political economy that has dominated for the past half-century. It's all well and good to say that we should *change* this state of affairs, but doing so without engaging in the political economy side of things is likely a doomed effort.
On the second: from the left POV, many people who are taking upon themselves the mantle of Abundance are people who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, at best. For most of my life--and I think I'm about your age--the Democratic party has been all too willing to sell itself out to wealthy donors at the expense of those it purports to represent. And in doing so, it's been instrumental in getting us to where we are today: governed by a fascist movement that is trying--if incompetently--to institute an single-party authoritarian regime.
From that point of view, Abundance is just the latest One Weird Trick that Democratic officials and intellectuals are using to avoid grappling with the complete failure of their project. Like the Joe Rogan of the Left and Popularism and Hope and Change and etc etc it's just another slogan being slapped onto a failed ideology. Or at least it often comes across that way, and it doesn't help that many of the people who are today espousing Abundance are the standard bearers for that failed ideology.
Finally, with regards to Abundance as a label for a policy: many of the specific policy proposals advocated for are uncontroversial among swathes of the left (I won't say the left more broadly because in a weird way the left is more diverse than centrists). You'll leftist NIMBYs advocating for dense urbanism, you'll find leftists advocating for buillding modern energy infrastructure, and all of that good stuff. Of course there's an interesting interaction with the previous form of Abundance, because many who are using Abundance to advance their interests in a coalitional fight. "What, you're suspicious of Abundance? You mean you're in favor of xyz bullshit regulation?" It's that slippage between these two modes that makes leftists even *more* inclined toward suspicion.
With all that said, my thinking is that insofar as adherents of Abundance want to advance it among the left, I'd suggest the following:
* Engage more seriously with the political economy side of the argument. You don't necessarily have to *solve* the distortion of our politics brought about by neoliberal capitalism because hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. But you could start by acknowledging that it's a problem.
* Accept that many of your fellow travelers are irredeemable in the eyes of the left. Sorry but when you lie down with dogs you're gonna wake up with flees.
* Just go ahead and build some credibility. If Abundance wants to be a movement, let its success speak for itself. Pass good legislation/regulation/etc, with the support with the left when possible. Show the positive impact. You won't get the support of the left overnight, but you can at least get some credibility here because right now your movement simply does not have many.
I think your second point gets at the crux of why "Abundance liberals" -- and generally other left-of-center policy thinkers -- struggle to engage with progressive thought on this (and other) issues: just because certain politicians have been bad in the past doesn't necessarily mean they NEED to be bad going forward. For better or worse, the nature of being a politician is changing your mind! That's not spinelessness -- it's a willingness to grow and change for the better over time.
If you want to toss out every politician who's run afoul of some progressive shibboleth at some point in time, that's your prerogative... but that makes the tent smaller, not bigger.
I'm all for politicians changing their minds. And when they show that they have I'll support them.
But credibility is a thing, and in many cases the politicians and people wrapping themselves in Abundance flags are simply not credible. There's a Lucy with the football dynamic at play, and you shouldn't expect the left to just gamely line up to kick the ball *yet again.*
I think it would help if you specify who you're talking about -- in the absence of names, the brush is simply too broad. As Derek wrote in the piece, Ro Khanna has voiced support for abundance, and by all metrics, he's quite progressive!
"I think it would help if you specify who you're talking about" In general I feel the same way about Abundists!
Khanna is... meh. He's yet to meet a Silicon Valley company to whom he won't sell out. So if he wants to wrap himself in the Abundance flag that's fine; I don't much care. Like I said, let's let the rubber hit the road when it comes to specific policies. If he's going to sponsor some policy in the name of Abundance that isn't just mostly a bunch of giveaways to his wealthy donors? Then I'll start taking him seriously.
This kind of goes to what I said in my third bullet point: go build some credibility! Propose some bills and let us judge them on their merits! But the centrist faction that's dominated Democratic politics for fifty years and has spent most of those years selling itself out to wealthy interests should not expect the left to believe that this time they're going to behave differently.
"For most of my life--and I think I'm about your age--the Democratic party has been all too willing to sell itself out to wealthy donors at the expense of those it purports to represent."
What's been interfering with a pro abundance agenda isn't a bunch of billionaires. It's lots of little local NIMYB's combined with lots of unions that want cushy government jobs and don't want to work too hard.
That's combined to make blue states really expensive, and the government to cost more and deliver less than it should.
(and the wealthy donors have often aligned themselves with the NIMBYs and public sector unions)
At what point do Abundance democrats concede that maybe it’s more logical to vote for republicans at the local level? I read Noah Smith and Yglasias and Klein and Barro and everyone consistently points out that labor unions and left wing interest groups are bankrupting blue cities and states and making building impossible. Meanwhile red states are seeing better education outcomes, more affordable housing, and not surprisingly, significantly higher population growth. Texas has a $20B surplus! It’s starting to feel obvious to me that the reason these places are successful is because unions and Dems aren’t in power.
“Meanwhile red states are seeing better…”
You gotta cite those states. Because there’s a lot of awful outcomes in red states. Education, health etc.
I’d also remind everyone that Curtis Sliwa is the Republican running mayor in NYC…
Admittedly not deeply researched but going off this blog post https://x.com/noahpinion/status/1928859285959880774?s=46
One very minor hope/suggestion/personal preference:
Like Yglesias, I hope there's a consistent publication schedule: a few hours before work starts on the east coast. Much easier to read with my coffee and breakfast than on mobile in a government office at work.
Second this -- SB is the first thing I read every morning entirely because it arrives first.
Thirded
I am a little too close to Mamdani and NYC politics, so take this for what it is worth. I have serious issues with his campaign because he doesn't care about housing details. I have seen many previous mayors and governors who care about the political win and don't give a crap about the details. I suspect he is the same way.
For example, there are serious academics who are sounding the alarm that about 1/3 of rent-stabilized housing is bankrupt and he is calling for a rent freeze. He repeatedly says landlords are doing great and cites data that says free-market landlords are doing great to justify a rent freeze on buildings that are bankrupt and have growing physical distress.
Ultimately, he has shown no willingness to change his view on this issue. So I suspect 300,000 apartments will probably just deteriorate and possibly be lost forever under his four year administration and he will continue to just talk about how landlords are rich so f* them.
On issues I am less versed in, I think he says the right things and has good vibes. I think he communicates clearly to young voters and his hopeful message is appealing. But I suspect he hasn't done any of the legwork on the details of his policies so it is hard to have faith that he will deliver.
I use policing as a good example. I generally agree with him. I think the NYPD has a broad and opaque mandate and because of that the outcomes are not great in many places. I think there needs to be reform, especially on mental health issues, and there should be some re-allocation of resources (which is technically defunding). But I don't trust him to get the details correct. I think he is always going to do what he thinks builds his political popularity.
This criticism is not unique to Mamdani. He just happens to be the subject today. Most legislators typically care little about the details of their bills and care more about the political win they can tout. The stakes are just higher when you are electing a mayor.
"When I asked Mamdani whether he was prepared to confront the role of public sector unions in raising the cost of transit construction, he told me, “I will have to work with public sector unions [but] I think I come to a different conclusion than you” on their centrality to higher construction costs. "
And this is where the rubber will hit the road. Abundance sounds great in theory (and I am all on board), but it will definitely require trade-offs, many of which leftists will not be willing to make.
Practically all of the building trades and construction unions are backing Cuomo. Hotel Trades, Building Congress, 32BJ, Carpenters.
Mamdani might just tell them to f* off. Streamline development. Throw some other unions sweetheart contracts. And call it a day. That would be the political power play move.
Was hoping for a Life of Brian link when I clicked on "popular front."
Totally agree that the traditional left/right framing doesn’t map well onto the abundance agenda—or honestly, onto many of the most important policy challenges today. Maybe a more useful axis is pragmatism vs. dogmatism.
The best of the abundance mindset, to me, isn’t just about “building more stuff.” It’s a commitment to outcomes paired with a willingness to confront the procedural thickets (legal, policy, operational) that make those outcomes so hard to deliver. That includes recognizing that many civil servants would love to improve broken systems if they had the permission, models, and support to do so.
The real work happens in implementation: aligning rules, incentives, and workflows so that public institutions can actually function. That takes courageous leaders (usually career staff, not electeds) who are willing to pick battles, take heat, and put public results ahead of institutional interests.
Those traits aren’t partisan. I’ve seen them in people across the political spectrum.