I've felt for a couple of decades that my left Democrat party was so poorly focused that, as we say (said ie old school) they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag.
Focus means understanding, the proper and powerful end goal.
Goals are scores. Scores count. Playing well does not mean winning.
Outcome thinking is awesome = increase things you can actually see, hold, buy.
This is a great beginning game plan.
But.
We will need such a strong charismatic, simple but elegant speaking leader. A person to first gently and persuasive get the Dems in and on board. Putting all the mangled many tongued narcissists aside, inside or smash them outside.
Focus is needed. Consistent hammering of Abundance OUTCOME benefits. Again and again
He was secretary of transportation for 4 years, can you name one successfully completed infrastructure project he piloted? The only one that comes to mind is the Baltimore bridge repair, but that was mostly Maryland and Hogan’s work.
AI also tells me this, but it apparently wasn’t well known or had any impact:
(RAISE) Grants
• Overview: In June 2024, Buttigieg announced $1.8 billion in RAISE grants for 148 projects, focusing on sustainability and equity.
• Successes:
• Durham, North Carolina: A $12 million grant improved safety and accessibility on Holloway Street, the city’s busiest bus route, with new sidewalks, curb ramps, and pedestrian trails.
• Menominee, Michigan: A $21 million investment upgraded a port’s dock wall and rail infrastructure, reducing truck traffic and supporting local businesses.
• Impact: These projects enhanced community-level infrastructure, often in smaller or underserved areas, demonstrating the DOT’s commitment to equitable development.
Abundance won’t be achieved by building a few equitable sidewalks with wheelchair ramps.
The roadblocks to completing projects discussed in the book and article are real, and I believe he is actually well-placed to explain them to the public. No one right now is accomplishing much of anything, that’s the point.
Elon's seems to be accomplishing a lot. Building the worlds most valuable car company, building the worlds most advance rockets, building 10's of thousands of satellites, building the worlds largest AI supercomputer in Memphis.
Yes, but those accomplishments are in fields that aren’t particularly jammed up by things like permitting. The most interaction they have with the bureaucracy is Starship and the FAA. (I don’t think CA will be win their case over more launches from Vandenberg.).
When I said no one is accomplishing anything, I was speaking particularly in reference to transportation projects.
The abundance agenda seems like a great breeding ground for capitalistic Bonapartism, where oligarchs get rich by capturing part of the abundance pipeline and then turnaround and crush democracy. Seems we have several in play right now.
Excellent -- especially the part about the tendency to bring a gavel to a knife fight, not understanding that the people are going to notice who is holding the gavel (the elites). Indeed there are deep class resentments involved. But I think the resentments are less about money than power. Who has the power to hold the gavel actually matters: voters wouldn't mind more abundance of power to decide how a town is managed and which small towns matter -- where are the big high rises going to be built, and the factory, and who will get a voice. There was a reason union bosses had power back in the day. That's the language that works.
And yet we still encounter the tension of what power it makes sense to bestow to the voters, and which power to reserve for a hopefully competent + well-intentioned administrative state. The proposition system here in California always reminds me of how to incorrectly solve this tension :)
A new gloss on early twentieth-century Progressivism. Not too bad, although I think you underrate the importance of "zero-sum status struggles" in shaping broader political movements. The modern MAGA movement (and the Tea Party movement that preceded it) is powered by a combination of petty capitalists (Main Street, not Wall Street) and small business owners left behind by globalization, with an added layer of working-class types frustrated by the limits of Bidenomics. Given the impending damage that MAGAnomics is likely to have on the global economy, one underestimates class struggle at their peril. It may not be as wonky or positive-sum as you would want it to be, but it's a crucial aspect of modern politics. Another reason to read Marx, if only to get your feet wet when it comes to thinking about social class and its relationship to politics.
IMO, the left's "original sin" is its contempt for Mom & Pop -- for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie (to which workers themselves often aspire), which it thereby drives into the waiting arms of fascism. Of course, for the left to abandon that attitude, it would need to forego running the protection racket by which it pursues power.
So much for Marx (and especially, Engels).
(FWIW, as a gay male, I've fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing "queer" about same-sex attraction. I never signed up to "smash cisheteropatrarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.)
Meanwhile, as we pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege," the oligarchs (now playing both ends against the middle) keep laughing all the way to the bank.
And you can expect those mom-and-pop strivers (of all ethnicities and orientations) to pull the ladder up behind them -- justifiably -- when the apparatchiks of the left start clutching at their heels, trying to drag them back down (while, in turn, keeping the oligarchs entertained).
<IMO, the left's "original sin" is its contempt for Mom & Pop -- for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie (to which workers themselves often aspire), which it thereby drives into the waiting arms of fascism.>
Which Left? The old Progressive/New Deal coalition had a major fetish for small businesses and their role in a market economy (think Brandeis and antitrust action against "Monopoly Power"). You're probably thinking of the Marxist Left, which never really had a strong mass presence here in the United States (for various reasons) but played a role in building up the Progressive/New Deal state.
In any case, the petty bourgeoisie are driven by their nationalistic pride and their class interests, or some combination thereof. They hate Big Government, Big Labor, Big Business, basically any institution big enough to have a bureaucracy. They generally want two things: national pride and autonomy to manage their own affairs. In Europe, that meant classic fascism and the destruction of the (socialist) labor movement. In America, fascism tends to adopt a libertarian veneer due to the absence of a strong labor movement and existing political constraints in national politics: think Barry Goldwater, Lyndon LaRouche, and present-day MAGA.
<And you can expect those mom-and-pop strivers (of all ethnicities and orientations) to pull the ladder up behind them -- justifiably -- when the apparatchiks of the left start clutching at their heels, trying to drag them back down (while, in turn, keeping the oligarchs entertained).>
See, it's the striving that's the problem. The PMC got its stranglehold on the national consciousness BECAUSE they are vicious meritocrats with no sense of obligation or duty other than pure self-interest. The petty-bourgeois strivers are well and good when they fight Big Business, but they will fight tooth and nail against even the basic building blocks of social democracy (organized labor). I'm not saying they can't be useful for building electoral coalitions, but they aren't the moralistic salt-of-the-earth commonfolk people think they are.
1) I was (explicitly) referring to the Marxist left. As you yourself acknowledge, the New Deal coalition had a major fetish for small businesses (along with organized labor), and FDR is famously considered to have saved capitalism (with that brand of social democracy, which included labor protections).
2) You consider the petty-bourgeoisie "useful" for building electoral coalitions? Useful to whom? Marxists, willing to tolerate them temporarily in their "popular front" -- knowing full well they'll betray them when they're no longer useful to their pursuit of power?
3) FWIW, I have a dog in this fight. It's a classic American story.
My dad came to NY from Lodz, Poland, in 1934; after the War, he got a messenger job at an engraving shop, becoming a highly-skilled craftsman (the best in his trade) and, eventually, President of his union local. In the mid-1950s, he learned of an engraving company that was for sale, and he (with a partner) went into business for themselves. His mom remained an (also highly-skilled) employee in the garment industry, fiercely loyal to the ILGWU. Both remained New Deal/ADA-style liberals until their (respective) dying days.
4) Also FWIW, I voted for Bernie (as a California write-in, in preference to Nurse Ratched) in the 2016 general election. I had many an argument with Marxist friends as to whether Sanders was fully a socialist, or a New Deal-style social democrat. (Obviously, I preferred to believe the latter.) In that regard, it's worth remembering that in the dying days of the Weimar Republic, the Communists turned against the Social Democrats (labeling them "social fascists") -- famously declaring, "after Hitler, our turn!"
5) Every one of those Marxists I argued with was (I came to realize, predictably) from a wealthier background than myself, and they used their resources (and greater leisure-time) to advance their organizational agendas and standing. After all, as my grandmother (the seamstress) told me when I was a little boy, "A Communist is someone who believes 'What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.'"
So when you tell me that petty-bourgeois strivers are "useful... but they aren't the moralistic salt-of-the-earth commonfolk people think they are," I take it personally -- and I'm on-guard, knowing that (left to their own devices) the Communists will eventually come for me.
Indeed, that's how the Marxist left creates fascists. It's a filthy, symbiotic relationship, and frightening as it is, I won't stand by helplessly as I watch it happen again.
1) FDR "saved" capitalism, sure, but not because he was some benevolent philosopher-king issuing edicts from on high. He had a rich background of thoughtful types (the famous "Brain Trust") staffing his bureaucracy, and even then, it took the organized power of farmers and labor unions to turn his mushy, do-gooder instincts into a literal state-building machine. Many of those labor unions were staffed and run by, you guessed it, Marxist leftists.
2) Useful in getting legislation passed in key areas: antitrust reform, putting controls on the financial industry, and basic stuff like that. Politics is about means and ends: we're all "useful" to somebody's project.
3) You're not the only one with a dog in this fight. I'd rather not bore you with my family's crybaby immigrant backstory; just remember that not every immigrant gets that classic American happy ending.
4) I voted third-party too. It wouldn't have mattered to me if Bernie Sanders was an actual socialist or a run-of-the-mill social democrat: either one is lightyears ahead of where we are now. And if I remember my European history correctly, it was the Social Democrats who laid the seeds of fascism by voting to join that catastrophe that was World War I, and then again when they partnered up with the Freikorps when the war went south 5 years later.
5) If you want to make it personal, that's up to you. But you're not the only one who's been radicalized by overeducated slobs on the Internet. Nor will you be the last.
True, but my political fetish for labor unionism outweighs any interest I may have in supporting the principles of private property and/or free enterprise. As with all political fetishes, your mileage may vary.
Perhaps you should see someone about that. They might be able to help. My city, Chicago, is cursed with its teachers union and its police union and the politicians who keep creating ever more unfunded benefits for them.
I’d argue that zero sum status struggles are directly down stream of constraint supply. When there isn’t enough university seats at good schools, enough housing in great school districts etc, people feel the pie is fixed and become incredibly zero sum.
It’s interesting to think of what would have happened if Obama had the political capital or will to tackle outstanding issues that continues to plague the US today, if his response to the Great Recession wasn’t just quantitative easy and mild tax cuts, but a robust policy platform to rebuild America (powered by dirt cheap debt). Would many of the Americans still have felt the rage of being left behind?
<It’s interesting to think of what would have happened if Obama had the political capital or will to tackle outstanding issues that continue to plague the US today if his response to the Great Recession wasn’t just quantitative easy and mild tax cuts, but a robust policy platform to rebuild America (powered by dirt cheap debt). Would many of the Americans still have felt the rage of being left behind?>
Zero-sum status struggles are a primary reason why Obama lacked the urgency to reform society. Systematic political change requires a mandate from the masses, which can only be secured with the constant prodding and cajoling of a well-organized social base. MAGA and the Tea Party had small businesses and petty capitalists to back their crazy antics. In contrast, Obama had nobody but the PMC and the more accommodationist elements of Big Business. Neither wanted systematic change on the scale needed to tackle the post-2008 world; therefore, nobody was there to hold Obama's feet to the fire when he failed to deliver on his progressive rhetoric.
Liberals have this strange West Wing notion that if we elect the right people to power, we can solve national problems and build a long-term governing coalition. Unfortunately, this is a necessary but insufficient condition: You need an organized social base to elect those politicians and hold them accountable to make the magic work.
Unfortunately, zero-sum status struggles will not end with larger supply or Abundance. Status is inherently about how one ranks socially versus others. I think that it will always be part of the human condition, particularly among those who have more than others.
Who are the other voices for 'Abundance' within the current democratic party? Is there any chance of this agenda actually making headway in today's falrsctured landscape? There seems to be too much pervasive dogmatism in certain sectors of the party which is likely to make such an agenda hard to enact practically
Seconding this. I was intrigued by his comments about using the Fort Devens site to build housing in a site that doesn't have a legacy of local zoning regulations. As a fellow Massh...achusetts person I'm curious what could be done to help.
(Side note re abundance: Devens is also the site of Commonweatlh Fusion's demonstration reactor. For the confused, no, it doesn't need to be kept far from people.)
Progressives would prefer a guy in a tent on the streets of San Francisco than seeing an accomplished young white guy in a suit. As long as they are not the guy in the tent.
Yeah, like the young Marxists who imagine after the revolution they will be writing poetry in a cafe instead of grinding out a bare subsistence as dirt farmers or slaving away in a tank factory.
I'm a Warrenite progressive and a pro-abundance YIMBY who wants outcome-based approaches, and I really don't see the conflict. Yes, an obsession with distribution outcomes and class conflict can hobble actually getting shit done.
But also, every billionaire is *also* a policy failure. Elon Musk is a danger to democracy and to society not just because of his ideology but also his wealth. We just need to bring the same "go big or go home" energy to solving that problem, too. Massively reform CEQA and housing construction, and *also* put in place high marginal taxes on incomes over $1 million and on stock dividends. Build out rail networks and solar firms, *and* strangle the crypto scam industry.
We can do it all as long as we aren't obsessed with the procedure.
"every billionaire is *also* a policy failure" <-- I just don't think that makes any sense, man. I can't think of any good policy that would get rid of billionaires. All the best countries in the world have billionaires. Hell, Sweden has more billionaires per capita than we do!
A true abundance agenda would seek more billionaires and the emergence of trillionaires. Failure to acknowledge this is probably related to as seeing economics as a zero rather than positive sum system.
You don't have to strangle the abundance agenda just to stop billionaires from being created. You attack the billionaire problem from other angles. But yeah--billionaires are a problem. The outsized power of Musk, Bezos, Thiel and Zuckerberg to define the national agenda is a very serious for democracy and the economy.
Would you still be this concerned about their wealth per se if we had an effective means of ensuring that all citizens had equal influence over electoral outcomes and policy decisions (e.g., real campaign finance limits including on "independent" expenditures, ironclad anti-gerrymandering and one-person-one-vote laws everywhere, etc.)? Not trying to challenge, just to understand where you think the social problems with wealth accumulation begin.
And fuck the Swedish ones too! No one needs or has any right to a billion plus dollars, not while there are people that have nothing. No one has contributed that much value to society.
This attitude is why the far left doesn’t get the abundance agenda. If an entrepreneur creates something that enriches billions of people, then it is awesome that these people also reward the entrepreneur for their contributions. Profit is a signal and incentive in the complex adaptive system known as the economy.
Doesn't it depend on what "creation" you're describing? Does Bitcoin count and is it "awesome"? Does the attainment of so much wealth that one could effectively buy a political party, the entire Supreme Court and rule as a dictator not matter (the "trillionaire" scenario)?
I don’t think billionaires are a policy failure. Some people will get rich. Say what you want about Google/Microsoft, but the founders did revolutionize the internet. I think it’s fine for people who innovate and create value to be rich. Just tax them and erect guardrails on money in politics (the second one will be admittedly a decades long slog).
Where warrantite progressives really can aid in abundance is using antitrust to crack down on rent seekers that stifle competition and innovation (a great example is the meat packing industry)
Building on this, I’m more worried about billionaires being able to erect a class among their progeny who stay rich and influential despite themselves having had nothing to do with building the companies that created this value for everyone.
I’d rather let billionaires emerge through building something than via inheritance. And I’d have no qualms shifting the tax burden away from working individuals and toward mediocre heirs and heiresses who will never want for anything whether their fortunes are measured in the millions or billions.
The estate tax now kicks in at 40% of inheritances over $28 million, and unless Republicans can extend the TCJA the exclusion will drop to $5 million next year. The biggest social harms are more from billionaires ex-wives like Laurene Powell (Jobs) and Mackenzie Scott (Bezos) using their unearned wealth on harmful political NGOs. There isn’t a divorce settlement tax, and I assume Powell’s estate fell under the spousal exception. I don’t know what kind of trusts are setup for Musk’s many offspring, but there are probably many lawyers involved. Instead of estate taxes, it would be better to tax the heirs instead and count inheritance as regular income and tax that.
Ah yes the horrible social harms of giving money to promote healthcare and education and other terrible things like that. So much worse than those other billionaires who give their money to fine causes such as lobbying against environmental regulations, or lobbying against gun control, or lobbying against the provision of social security and healthcare for the people they themselves employ at wages so low they need three jobs to survive.
I agree with you about counting inheritance as regular income. It’s absurd that tax is assessed on the value of the estate, you should be able to reduce inheritance taxes by dividing your estate among lots of heirs.
Yeah they did contribute to improving things, the problem being that they earn money not just on their marginal contribution, but also in forms of rent on the existence of other websites, the technology of the internet itself (financed mostly by the government) and the entire fucking infrastructure, due to their positions of power as platform companies. That's why their margins have been so high. A very reasonable reason to tax them more, so that governments can keep investing in infrastructure development and maintenance, healthcare for all and other useful stuff like fundamental scientific research that might bring about new cool stuff that will improve our lives, as the internet does. And, also tax them to reduce their status from billionaire oligarch power-players to reasonably respected millionaire geniuses, that would be good for democracy and the people.
The internet is not mostly financed by the government. The sole government support was in funding research in ArpaNet which was the predecessor of today’s internet, by DARPA which connected a few universities and government labs. Sure Marc Andreesen worked at NCSA in Urbana, but Mosaic was a side project and Netscape was privately funded. The majority of the internet, including the backbone are run by private communications companies, as are all the hardware devices and application that use the internet. Even the organizations that established the names and rules for internet protocols (ICANN and IETF) are non governmental organizations. Even Al Gore doesn’t claim the government built the internet, just funded that initial small network.
Okay you're probably right that this phrase was a bit exaggerated, as there has always been a combination of private and public money, especially in US research centers and universities. And I probably shouldn't use 'the' government anyway considering the complexity of legal/institutional setups and origins. Also not for the fact that early research on computer networks was also in collaboration with French and UK public universities, and probably also done elsewhere, and fibre optics were originally invented by an Indian at Imperial College in London, so it wasn't just one government to begin with. Oh, and since you're talking about Netscape, the WWW came out of CERN, of course.
And sure the infrastructure and telecommunications networks, even in most European countries, are now technically privately owned since the 80s and 90s waves of privatization. Although most did build it with public money in the first place. And there's debates to be had about the large amounts of public money going into these companies because governments have become 'customers'.
But none of this really matters of course, as it doesn't really change my point that they have managed to get into monopolistic positions where they capture excessive rents and profits far beyond their contribution, as is reflected in their operational margins & profits, which reasonably should be taxed more to make the larger public benefit from public contributions, and to avoid such accumulation of capital and power as has now happened.
I don't think these taxes will make a dent given that most billionaires make their money through asset appreciation. The problem I have with Warren, etc. is they get Democrats chasing these net worths as though they represent billions of dollars worth of goods and services being withheld from the public and if that's true, who needs abundance? Just redistribute the money and everybody gets to buy things with it.
Right. If Warren succeeded in taking all of Musks net worth over $1 million (or even $1 billion) then Tesla and SpaceX would go out of business because their stock would collapse. So the biggest EV maker and the superchargers network would be gone,StarLink would stop working and end US military needs, and more astronauts would be stranded in space. She would probably count this as success, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one of the ones painting swastikas on and fire bombing superchargers and Model Ys in Massachusetts.
No, if the billion and first dollar was taxed at 100%, and there were the appropriate capital controls to prevent him taking the money out of the country, Musk (and other billionaires) would end up paying his workers a lot more out of his stock (starting with his executives, but tesla etc is or was so valuable that it would trickle down to the other employees as the executives became billionaires too).
Since you mentioned CEQA, I assume you are in California, where the top federal tax rate for a person earning $1 million is 54%, how high do you think this should be?
You want to get back at Musk, but his wealth is not from income, and neither Tesla or SpaceX pay dividends. Tesla is responsible for the most people switching to electric cars, and StarLink provides the broadband in rural areas that Biden’s failed plan never did.
How do you strangle a crypto industry, and how will that result in railroads being built?
<Since you mentioned CEQA, I assume you are in California, where the top federal tax rate for a person earning $1 million is 54%, how high do you think this should be?>
Are we talking about effective or marginal tax rates? If it were up to me, income taxes would be exclusively levied at the federal level to minimize this problem with tax arbitrage.
<How do you strangle a crypto industry, and how will that result in railroads being built?>
Crypto is a BS scam industry and a waste of financial resources that could be better used elsewhere.
Billionaires should be heavily taxed, including wealth transferred to their family. Yet the immediate problem is that billionaires wield far too much political power. That can be addressed separately, and is badly needed. Americans like the idea of getting rich, they don’t like the idea of rich unelected people yielding power over them.
I think we need to start explaining to people that every time housing prices go up at a rate faster than incomes, it's effectively a tax. A tax that redistributes income away from young people and the poor to current property owners. The greater the value of property you own, the greater the redistribution of working class people's money you get. That is the outcome of these NIMBY policies.
This is true, I'm one of them! But I also have kids, and I don't want them to grow up into a world where they can't take advantage of agglomeration effects of living in a place that has dynamism, because we just didn't build enough.
Sure, but NIMBYs are mostly home owners, so when the housing prices go up, it’s hard for them to understand something that makes them feel like they are losing out.
A riff on resentment: If Peter Turchin is correct, substantially all of the elites will need to benefit from abundance in order to reduce the intra-elite conflict we are living through today. Saving our nation requires that Republicans and Democrats all get richer.
This is why I also am a huge advocate of building more universities, cities, think tanks etc as it would be a release valve for elites fighting over ossified institutions that haven’t grown to accommodate the demand for status
You are missing the point. Status is a zero sum game. When you build enough universities for everyone to get a degree, it ceases to convey status, and then the conflict over status moves somewhere else. Or the new universities aren't considered to have the same status as the old ones, and you have just wasted a lot of money.
Relative to other primates we're supposed to be good at multiplying the arenas in which we compete for status. People channel their competitive energies into competitive knitting or being the guy that maintains their lawn better than that guy down the street (seriously, check out r/lawncare), instead of fighting the silverback the moment they think they can take him.
A serious proposal to make new universities would think about how to redistribute some sliver of status to them at creation. Anthropic is new but what tech employee would consider it low status to work for them vs Microsoft? And existing universities have in the past done things like poach researchers to target an area where they can become more prestigous than they were. Examples personally familiar to me are Rutgers hiring up in anthropology/philosophy/cogsci in the 80s-90s [*] and Boston University (a commuter school not that long ago) hiring star faculty in liberal arts and humanities in the same time frame under John Silber.
Related comment I don't have time to expand on: look up Marc Andereesen talking about universities in his post-inauguration appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast. He seems to think existing universities should go away because they maintain a cartel via accreditation rules and ossified in the absence of competition (demosclerosis at work?). But for a VC whose job is supposedly about creating new institutions he says says frustratingly little about how to actually make new universities.
[*] Apropos, actual license plate from a BMW that regularly parked outside the Rutgers anthropology department in the late 90s: SLVRBACK
I don’t think that’s true. The US has a major expansion of colleges, cities and goods, and that didn’t stop people from going to them. Hell UCs are a relatively new invention and people like them a lot. Status isn’t a zero sum game
I think you are making a mistake to assume that everyone covets status in the same one. Most Americans don’t go to college. And in the complexities of life, there are infinite dimensions for one to seek status
That’s a good idea, keep them from causing societal problems by locking them in their own self-reeducation camps where they can just yell at and cancel each other.
The Green New Deal was about Social Justice, not really about solar farms. That is the problem with Progressives. They always want to fundamentally change America when all they do is screw it up.
I’m not sure if one mile of a rural internet line has been laid. We may have crossed the 20 charging stations. So you’re a cable company in Salina, KS, and you really want to get broadband to your residents, but you have to hire a minority firm, and there is not one to be had. So, nothing happens.
I had clients who wanted to build a new car dealership, but in order to do so, they would be required to build a park or, in one place, replace an entire fire hydrant system.
Economics is about filling needs and someone being able to do so. Making it more complicated by fundamentally changing America or social justice is why you can’t build anything anywhere anymore.
There’s not really a problem with rural broadband anymore. I know folks in *really* remote parts of Arkansas and Mississippi that all have affordable gigabit fiber. Whether that’s a success of any administration’s politics or inevitable private sector last mile buildout, well, I suspect the latter, since the marginal cost is basically nothing. Even though the fixed costs are real, the marginal subscription revenue of even a few internet customers makes most rural projects pencil out when those fixed costs are amortized over the life of the infrastructure. I mean, I guess there are storms that take out lines from time to time, but for the most part a line of fiber optic just sits there generating revenue.
These guys seem to have their hearts in the right place, but I find it hard to believe leftist states like California will ever switch to an outcome based approach. The whole purpose of the labyrinth that the left has created is about power and control- the ability to micromanage what can get done, what cannot, to allow various special interests to have their say and of course to ensure that only the right people get to build our overpriced “affordable” housing. Those who control have power and leverage and access to graft. The NGOs and groups and the pols they back are like fattened turkeys- they are not going to be voting for Christmas.
Leftist enclaves in red states, in theory, could be laboratories for innovative and efficient government because red states allow more freedom of action. I’ve lived in a few of these enclaves. It is not what happens. Leftists want virtue signaling, control, veto power, futile projects. Being seen to care is more popular than doing. It is not just the pols and the groups but also the voters.
My local town council (packed with expat Californians though we’re in a red state) just announced taxes will be going up to help them develop a big parcel the town owns. The town wants some commercial development for tax purposes and the residents say they want restaurants and a supermarket. The town owns the land free and clear. If they can’t offer a ground lease attractive enough (even free) to attract a developer to build the commercial space, what does it say about the “ideas” the town and residents have for what should go in there? I note we have two large supermarkets, one medium sized market and two higher end specialty supermarkets within 10-15 minute drives in larger adjoining towns. I am not shocked to hear no developer feels they can lease a large supermarket space there. We could use a gas station (or hey maybe charging stations, too) but of course the idea of a gas station and minimart is anathema. We’d be a food desert- twinkies and slim Jim’s don’t count. So we will end up spending tax money to build uneconomic, restricted commercial development that won’t generate the projected tax revenue. For the Californians, that’s a win-win (note I am one of the CA transplants and still spend a few months a year back there). Maybe the failed space can eventually be used for homeless services and NGO HQs (tax free)
Another thoughtful piece, my question is how does the Abundance Agenda deal with the Elon Musk problem?
Personally, I dismissed Bernie’s contempt for billionaires in 2016 and 2020, and even now I don’t have issues with normal billionaires (although I do favor substantial wealth taxes).
But the mega-billionaires are definitely a problem, and perhaps the leading problem of our age, because they have so much power that normal people are kind of screwed unless they happen to really like whatever the MBs are doing.
Also, this problem seems bound to get worse as AI continues to advance.
I mean, Elon building an AI powered army of fascism inclined robots and drones, taking over America, and then using America as a platform to take over the world, is a scenario that should sound absurd, but also seems like it’s maybe 10-20 years away.
And that’s just Elon, if Abundance really happens there will be a bunch of these dudes.
I wouldn’t worry. 230 billionaires supported Biden in 2020 and Pritzker seems himself as a viable candidate in 2028. In the billionaire arms race the Dems have the lead (for now, at least) and they won in 2024 with voters making more than $100k. I don’t see a plutocrat shortage disadvantaging the Dems (not anytime soon, at least).
What problem? The whole Elon Musk problem comes from Democrats resentment of billionaires and their political moves against him. Elon Musk was politically neutral and would have stayed that way if he didn't see the Democrats as a threat to his businesses. If the Democrats had an agenda of making government efficient and getting things done on infrastructure, Elon Musk benefits from that. They would be natural allies.
You tax them and redistribute the wealth while combining it with policies to try to reduce money’s salience in politics. How to deal with wealthy people is not a hard problem. It’s a matter of political will
Wealth taxes don’t work. France and other European countries tried them and they all failed when the targets escaped capture. Arnault in France is still the world’s second richest person, and there are dozens more multi billionaires in Europe.
Capital gains are already taxed, I assume you mean raising the rates.
Interest is not a deductible expense except for mortgages (and maybe car loans if Trump gets his idiotic tax plans to pass) but only for a primary residence. I don’t think there’s any single house with a billion dollar mortgage.
Billionaires have income from dividends (but not Musk) and they pay capital gains taxes if they sell parts of their stock. Some get around having to sell stock by using it as collateral for personal loans, but the interest on that loan is not deductible.
It’s not realistic to tax wealth as it just causes evasions and distortions. You can tax consumption, which the rich can’t avoid, but that won’t reduce their wealth, if that is your actual goal.
If you believe, as so many people do, that humans are bad and ruin everything we touch, it follows "logically" that a good way to stop us from building bad things is to make it as difficult as possible to build anything.
Noah writes, "Those arguments are out there.... They include the idea that abundance is a form of freedom, and that all Americans deserve that freedom."
They DON'T include taking individuals out of the driver's seat and putting them on a bus -- packing them into high-density cubby-holes (rather than offering them a house with a yard) -- and trying to pass that off as "abundance." Those promising genuine abundance would do well to follow in the footsteps of Pat (more than Jerry) Brown (and antithetical to Scott Wiener's) -- to offer a vision of abundance whereby infrastructure and growth are focused on empowering the individual. That's the American Dream -- and it's the key to beating MAGA.
As for "agglomeration effects"? Remember, Silicon Valley was born in suburbia, not on a poodle-walk in an urbanist theme park. It's precisely here that class resentment comes to the fore: It's only "sprawl" when you're looking down on it. "Monoculture"? To the rest of us, that's about the vast array of mom-and-pop eateries on those much-maligned "stroads "
Abundance? A(n electric) car in every garage!
PS: Sorry, Noah, but I'm not convinced that most Americans -- especially immigrants -- would prefer to live in Tokyo. Take a look around Milpitas -- and I'll be sure to check out Japan. :-)
Idk, given the demands for people living in big cities, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would live in high density cities powered by transit. If you truly care about individual freedom, then you understand that we should provide the individual with abundance of options, whether it’s cars or trains
That's fine with me -- as long as urbanists lay off all their (acknowledged) machinations to "get people out of their cars."
If you truly care about individual freedom, you'd want to put individuals in the driver's seat, empowered to improvise their own routes and schedules -- while, yes, allowing for those who might choose otherwise.
In fact, you can even allow for people living in fully-pedestrianized, urbanist theme parks -- as long as (like the "Old Towns" in many mid-sized European cities) there's parking for visitors underground! ;-)
Truly caring about the individual isn’t putting them in the driver seat but letting them make their own decision.
I personally think it’s 100% OK for drivers to drive where they want to, but they should pay for the infrastructure they use instead of having it be subsidized by every single taxpayer. You wanna drive into the city? fine pay the tolls and pay for parking.
And we will be, for things that we prioritize! Considering that the US already massively subsidizes car ownerships and spends $5 on car infrastructure for every $1 on public infrastructure, I think it’s reasonable that car owners pay more!
You're welcome to live in an urbanist theme park if you wish -- but I think you can expect to go down to the mat with lots of others over what sort of abundance we prioritize.
I think you're confused between freedom and privilege. Being able to live where you want is freedom. Being able to live in a SFH in a low density suburb is a privilege. The reason it is a privilege is because it's clearly not a scalable or affordable option for every family in the US unless there's some magic trick to keep the population constant without any adverse effects.
I'm an immigrant and the reason I would not like to live in Tokyo is because of language and cultural barriers rather than the size of homes. The fact that US is a more prosperous country is also a huge factor. Life in the suburbs is boring as hell but we still chose it over living in the city because of how poorly run American cities are.
An electric car is the opposite of freedom. Which is why we kept our gas car for road trips.
"Being able to live in a SFH in a low density suburb is a privilege. The reason it is a privilege is because it's clearly not a scalable or affordable option for every family in the US unless there's some magic trick to keep the population constant without any adverse effects."
In other words, there's not enough room? Have you ever been to Nebraska? Or the Dakotas... There's plenty of space to work from home. (Also see my earlier comment on "agglomeration effects.")
"Life in the suburbs is boring as hell "? After you finish that latte, meet me in Milpitas, or in Houston's (very suburban) Chinatown, or on Buford Highway in Atlanta. I promise, dinner will be cheaper (and more interesting) at a genuine mom-and-pop, but you'll need to forego the poodle-walk on the way there.
You have a point about the current limitations of electric cars. But that's where a true abundance agenda (and building out a robust network of fast charging stations) comes in. :-)
There is a reason most people don’t move to Nebraska or the Dakotas unless they grew up there. Sorry, I don’t consider owning a mansion in those places to be a privilege. Full remote had its moment during Covid but it seems to be trending down. Edit: I should have qualified my original comment with "in a desirable location". You're right that there are lots of undesirable places in the US where land is not an issue.
The issue with electric cars is not just the availability of chargers but that even the fast charger takes 30 mins compared to 5 mins at the gas station. We use electric cars for our daily commute but it’s not a like for like replacement for every use case.
"There is a reason most people don’t move to Nebraska or the Dakotas unless they grew up there"?...
Or maybe there's a reason Warren Buffett doesn't need to live in a Brooklyn brownstone (or) to prove how sophisticated he is. Maybe he knows something that pretentious hipsters don't (including where to get a decent meal in Omaha these days).
Besides, we're not talking about living in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. For that matter, we're not necessarily talking about Omaha. We're talking about whether there's enough space for "sprawl."
We're talking about places like Milpitas, or Houston's (very suburban) Chinatown, or Buford Highway in Atlanta-- where you can get dinner at a genuine mom-and-pop if you're willing to forego the poodle-walk along the way -- about the incredible diversity you can access in your car.
Indeed, maybe urbsnists should lay off the inevitable word "vibrant" -- which was never so magical in the first place for people who simply don't like crowds.
We could let market demand make these choices. Some may wish to live near public transit, choose not to have kids and so on and would be just fine with ownership in a dense city, sans yard. Others might wish for the opposite.
To start, I have not read the two books yet. However, listening to them and the emerging abundance agenda I am reminded of Virginia Postrel’s book “The Future and its Enemies.” A book that I think contemporary progressives would do well to read or re-read in light of the last 25 years. So many themes in it are echoed in this current debate, and it shows there are allies to be had.
Agreed - liberals need to learn how to build things successfully, rather than letter them get burdened with other goals unrelated to building. If i was running against, say, Gavin Newsom for president, i'd hang the High Speed Rail project like an albatross around his neck.
Interesting observation about how progressives have focused on the ideology and forgot to measure the effectiveness of the outcome. I dare say Republicans may now be going down the same road.
The quote from Deng Xiaoping “it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” is interesting. Today in China political leaders, particularly mayors, are evaluated by the economic prosperity and growth (think abundance) in their respective areas. If you want to move up the political hierarchy, you have to deliver abundance. Here's a great YouTube presentation by Professor Keyu Jin a Chinese economist who taught at the London School of Economics that explains the way it works in China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCyOoXEXfuU
I've felt for a couple of decades that my left Democrat party was so poorly focused that, as we say (said ie old school) they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag.
Focus means understanding, the proper and powerful end goal.
Goals are scores. Scores count. Playing well does not mean winning.
Outcome thinking is awesome = increase things you can actually see, hold, buy.
This is a great beginning game plan.
But.
We will need such a strong charismatic, simple but elegant speaking leader. A person to first gently and persuasive get the Dems in and on board. Putting all the mangled many tongued narcissists aside, inside or smash them outside.
Focus is needed. Consistent hammering of Abundance OUTCOME benefits. Again and again
Pete Buttigieg!
He was secretary of transportation for 4 years, can you name one successfully completed infrastructure project he piloted? The only one that comes to mind is the Baltimore bridge repair, but that was mostly Maryland and Hogan’s work.
AI also tells me this, but it apparently wasn’t well known or had any impact:
(RAISE) Grants
• Overview: In June 2024, Buttigieg announced $1.8 billion in RAISE grants for 148 projects, focusing on sustainability and equity.
• Successes:
• Durham, North Carolina: A $12 million grant improved safety and accessibility on Holloway Street, the city’s busiest bus route, with new sidewalks, curb ramps, and pedestrian trails.
• Menominee, Michigan: A $21 million investment upgraded a port’s dock wall and rail infrastructure, reducing truck traffic and supporting local businesses.
• Impact: These projects enhanced community-level infrastructure, often in smaller or underserved areas, demonstrating the DOT’s commitment to equitable development.
Abundance won’t be achieved by building a few equitable sidewalks with wheelchair ramps.
The roadblocks to completing projects discussed in the book and article are real, and I believe he is actually well-placed to explain them to the public. No one right now is accomplishing much of anything, that’s the point.
Elon's seems to be accomplishing a lot. Building the worlds most valuable car company, building the worlds most advance rockets, building 10's of thousands of satellites, building the worlds largest AI supercomputer in Memphis.
Yes, but those accomplishments are in fields that aren’t particularly jammed up by things like permitting. The most interaction they have with the bureaucracy is Starship and the FAA. (I don’t think CA will be win their case over more launches from Vandenberg.).
When I said no one is accomplishing anything, I was speaking particularly in reference to transportation projects.
The abundance agenda seems like a great breeding ground for capitalistic Bonapartism, where oligarchs get rich by capturing part of the abundance pipeline and then turnaround and crush democracy. Seems we have several in play right now.
Did you read the article? Noah anticipates and counters this exact take.
He doesn't exactly "counter" it, he embraces it, accepting the trade-off.
But wait! We have Chuck Schumer!
I like to think he and Durbin will be gone by Sept.
Excellent -- especially the part about the tendency to bring a gavel to a knife fight, not understanding that the people are going to notice who is holding the gavel (the elites). Indeed there are deep class resentments involved. But I think the resentments are less about money than power. Who has the power to hold the gavel actually matters: voters wouldn't mind more abundance of power to decide how a town is managed and which small towns matter -- where are the big high rises going to be built, and the factory, and who will get a voice. There was a reason union bosses had power back in the day. That's the language that works.
And yet we still encounter the tension of what power it makes sense to bestow to the voters, and which power to reserve for a hopefully competent + well-intentioned administrative state. The proposition system here in California always reminds me of how to incorrectly solve this tension :)
A new gloss on early twentieth-century Progressivism. Not too bad, although I think you underrate the importance of "zero-sum status struggles" in shaping broader political movements. The modern MAGA movement (and the Tea Party movement that preceded it) is powered by a combination of petty capitalists (Main Street, not Wall Street) and small business owners left behind by globalization, with an added layer of working-class types frustrated by the limits of Bidenomics. Given the impending damage that MAGAnomics is likely to have on the global economy, one underestimates class struggle at their peril. It may not be as wonky or positive-sum as you would want it to be, but it's a crucial aspect of modern politics. Another reason to read Marx, if only to get your feet wet when it comes to thinking about social class and its relationship to politics.
IMO, the left's "original sin" is its contempt for Mom & Pop -- for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie (to which workers themselves often aspire), which it thereby drives into the waiting arms of fascism. Of course, for the left to abandon that attitude, it would need to forego running the protection racket by which it pursues power.
So much for Marx (and especially, Engels).
(FWIW, as a gay male, I've fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing "queer" about same-sex attraction. I never signed up to "smash cisheteropatrarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.)
Meanwhile, as we pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege," the oligarchs (now playing both ends against the middle) keep laughing all the way to the bank.
And you can expect those mom-and-pop strivers (of all ethnicities and orientations) to pull the ladder up behind them -- justifiably -- when the apparatchiks of the left start clutching at their heels, trying to drag them back down (while, in turn, keeping the oligarchs entertained).
Amen to Strivers. I love the term, it doesn't focus on identity but much more on action.
I would love to see Dems really embrace small business people, the petty bourgeoisie as you note. I really don't understand why we don't.
<IMO, the left's "original sin" is its contempt for Mom & Pop -- for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie (to which workers themselves often aspire), which it thereby drives into the waiting arms of fascism.>
Which Left? The old Progressive/New Deal coalition had a major fetish for small businesses and their role in a market economy (think Brandeis and antitrust action against "Monopoly Power"). You're probably thinking of the Marxist Left, which never really had a strong mass presence here in the United States (for various reasons) but played a role in building up the Progressive/New Deal state.
In any case, the petty bourgeoisie are driven by their nationalistic pride and their class interests, or some combination thereof. They hate Big Government, Big Labor, Big Business, basically any institution big enough to have a bureaucracy. They generally want two things: national pride and autonomy to manage their own affairs. In Europe, that meant classic fascism and the destruction of the (socialist) labor movement. In America, fascism tends to adopt a libertarian veneer due to the absence of a strong labor movement and existing political constraints in national politics: think Barry Goldwater, Lyndon LaRouche, and present-day MAGA.
<And you can expect those mom-and-pop strivers (of all ethnicities and orientations) to pull the ladder up behind them -- justifiably -- when the apparatchiks of the left start clutching at their heels, trying to drag them back down (while, in turn, keeping the oligarchs entertained).>
See, it's the striving that's the problem. The PMC got its stranglehold on the national consciousness BECAUSE they are vicious meritocrats with no sense of obligation or duty other than pure self-interest. The petty-bourgeois strivers are well and good when they fight Big Business, but they will fight tooth and nail against even the basic building blocks of social democracy (organized labor). I'm not saying they can't be useful for building electoral coalitions, but they aren't the moralistic salt-of-the-earth commonfolk people think they are.
1) I was (explicitly) referring to the Marxist left. As you yourself acknowledge, the New Deal coalition had a major fetish for small businesses (along with organized labor), and FDR is famously considered to have saved capitalism (with that brand of social democracy, which included labor protections).
2) You consider the petty-bourgeoisie "useful" for building electoral coalitions? Useful to whom? Marxists, willing to tolerate them temporarily in their "popular front" -- knowing full well they'll betray them when they're no longer useful to their pursuit of power?
3) FWIW, I have a dog in this fight. It's a classic American story.
My dad came to NY from Lodz, Poland, in 1934; after the War, he got a messenger job at an engraving shop, becoming a highly-skilled craftsman (the best in his trade) and, eventually, President of his union local. In the mid-1950s, he learned of an engraving company that was for sale, and he (with a partner) went into business for themselves. His mom remained an (also highly-skilled) employee in the garment industry, fiercely loyal to the ILGWU. Both remained New Deal/ADA-style liberals until their (respective) dying days.
4) Also FWIW, I voted for Bernie (as a California write-in, in preference to Nurse Ratched) in the 2016 general election. I had many an argument with Marxist friends as to whether Sanders was fully a socialist, or a New Deal-style social democrat. (Obviously, I preferred to believe the latter.) In that regard, it's worth remembering that in the dying days of the Weimar Republic, the Communists turned against the Social Democrats (labeling them "social fascists") -- famously declaring, "after Hitler, our turn!"
5) Every one of those Marxists I argued with was (I came to realize, predictably) from a wealthier background than myself, and they used their resources (and greater leisure-time) to advance their organizational agendas and standing. After all, as my grandmother (the seamstress) told me when I was a little boy, "A Communist is someone who believes 'What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.'"
So when you tell me that petty-bourgeois strivers are "useful... but they aren't the moralistic salt-of-the-earth commonfolk people think they are," I take it personally -- and I'm on-guard, knowing that (left to their own devices) the Communists will eventually come for me.
Indeed, that's how the Marxist left creates fascists. It's a filthy, symbiotic relationship, and frightening as it is, I won't stand by helplessly as I watch it happen again.
1) FDR "saved" capitalism, sure, but not because he was some benevolent philosopher-king issuing edicts from on high. He had a rich background of thoughtful types (the famous "Brain Trust") staffing his bureaucracy, and even then, it took the organized power of farmers and labor unions to turn his mushy, do-gooder instincts into a literal state-building machine. Many of those labor unions were staffed and run by, you guessed it, Marxist leftists.
2) Useful in getting legislation passed in key areas: antitrust reform, putting controls on the financial industry, and basic stuff like that. Politics is about means and ends: we're all "useful" to somebody's project.
3) You're not the only one with a dog in this fight. I'd rather not bore you with my family's crybaby immigrant backstory; just remember that not every immigrant gets that classic American happy ending.
4) I voted third-party too. It wouldn't have mattered to me if Bernie Sanders was an actual socialist or a run-of-the-mill social democrat: either one is lightyears ahead of where we are now. And if I remember my European history correctly, it was the Social Democrats who laid the seeds of fascism by voting to join that catastrophe that was World War I, and then again when they partnered up with the Freikorps when the war went south 5 years later.
5) If you want to make it personal, that's up to you. But you're not the only one who's been radicalized by overeducated slobs on the Internet. Nor will you be the last.
Neither is organized labor.
True, but my political fetish for labor unionism outweighs any interest I may have in supporting the principles of private property and/or free enterprise. As with all political fetishes, your mileage may vary.
Perhaps you should see someone about that. They might be able to help. My city, Chicago, is cursed with its teachers union and its police union and the politicians who keep creating ever more unfunded benefits for them.
I’d argue that zero sum status struggles are directly down stream of constraint supply. When there isn’t enough university seats at good schools, enough housing in great school districts etc, people feel the pie is fixed and become incredibly zero sum.
It’s interesting to think of what would have happened if Obama had the political capital or will to tackle outstanding issues that continues to plague the US today, if his response to the Great Recession wasn’t just quantitative easy and mild tax cuts, but a robust policy platform to rebuild America (powered by dirt cheap debt). Would many of the Americans still have felt the rage of being left behind?
<It’s interesting to think of what would have happened if Obama had the political capital or will to tackle outstanding issues that continue to plague the US today if his response to the Great Recession wasn’t just quantitative easy and mild tax cuts, but a robust policy platform to rebuild America (powered by dirt cheap debt). Would many of the Americans still have felt the rage of being left behind?>
Zero-sum status struggles are a primary reason why Obama lacked the urgency to reform society. Systematic political change requires a mandate from the masses, which can only be secured with the constant prodding and cajoling of a well-organized social base. MAGA and the Tea Party had small businesses and petty capitalists to back their crazy antics. In contrast, Obama had nobody but the PMC and the more accommodationist elements of Big Business. Neither wanted systematic change on the scale needed to tackle the post-2008 world; therefore, nobody was there to hold Obama's feet to the fire when he failed to deliver on his progressive rhetoric.
Liberals have this strange West Wing notion that if we elect the right people to power, we can solve national problems and build a long-term governing coalition. Unfortunately, this is a necessary but insufficient condition: You need an organized social base to elect those politicians and hold them accountable to make the magic work.
The only people who truly think of themselves as "masses" are the apparatchiks who purport to advocate on their behalf.
If you think Obama was progressive I got news to tell you.
It is a mistake to believe that any politician can “ make the magic work” regardless of how organized their social base is.
Unfortunately, zero-sum status struggles will not end with larger supply or Abundance. Status is inherently about how one ranks socially versus others. I think that it will always be part of the human condition, particularly among those who have more than others.
💯
Who are the other voices for 'Abundance' within the current democratic party? Is there any chance of this agenda actually making headway in today's falrsctured landscape? There seems to be too much pervasive dogmatism in certain sectors of the party which is likely to make such an agenda hard to enact practically
Josh Shapiro?
Have you read Matt Yglesias’s Common Sense Democratic Manifesto? He’s definitely in favor of abundance, especially housing abundance.
Oh of course! I was trying to think of politicians. Lots of commentators love the idea.
https://x.com/EmmaVigeland/status/1902856428575957038
Pete Buttigieg probably too.
That's good to know. I guess I hadn't paid enough attention to his politics since the VP pick
Probably Jared polis is the closest thing atm
Jake Auchincloss
https://auchincloss.house.gov/media/press-releases/us-representative-jake-auchincloss-announces-launch-of-pro-housing-yimby-caucus-to-tackle-affordable-housing-shortage
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jake-auchincloss.html
Seconding this. I was intrigued by his comments about using the Fort Devens site to build housing in a site that doesn't have a legacy of local zoning regulations. As a fellow Massh...achusetts person I'm curious what could be done to help.
(Side note re abundance: Devens is also the site of Commonweatlh Fusion's demonstration reactor. For the confused, no, it doesn't need to be kept far from people.)
Progressives would prefer a guy in a tent on the streets of San Francisco than seeing an accomplished young white guy in a suit. As long as they are not the guy in the tent.
Yeah, like the young Marxists who imagine after the revolution they will be writing poetry in a cafe instead of grinding out a bare subsistence as dirt farmers or slaving away in a tank factory.
I'm a Warrenite progressive and a pro-abundance YIMBY who wants outcome-based approaches, and I really don't see the conflict. Yes, an obsession with distribution outcomes and class conflict can hobble actually getting shit done.
But also, every billionaire is *also* a policy failure. Elon Musk is a danger to democracy and to society not just because of his ideology but also his wealth. We just need to bring the same "go big or go home" energy to solving that problem, too. Massively reform CEQA and housing construction, and *also* put in place high marginal taxes on incomes over $1 million and on stock dividends. Build out rail networks and solar firms, *and* strangle the crypto scam industry.
We can do it all as long as we aren't obsessed with the procedure.
"every billionaire is *also* a policy failure" <-- I just don't think that makes any sense, man. I can't think of any good policy that would get rid of billionaires. All the best countries in the world have billionaires. Hell, Sweden has more billionaires per capita than we do!
A true abundance agenda would seek more billionaires and the emergence of trillionaires. Failure to acknowledge this is probably related to as seeing economics as a zero rather than positive sum system.
You don't have to strangle the abundance agenda just to stop billionaires from being created. You attack the billionaire problem from other angles. But yeah--billionaires are a problem. The outsized power of Musk, Bezos, Thiel and Zuckerberg to define the national agenda is a very serious for democracy and the economy.
Would you still be this concerned about their wealth per se if we had an effective means of ensuring that all citizens had equal influence over electoral outcomes and policy decisions (e.g., real campaign finance limits including on "independent" expenditures, ironclad anti-gerrymandering and one-person-one-vote laws everywhere, etc.)? Not trying to challenge, just to understand where you think the social problems with wealth accumulation begin.
The concentration of power -- and the danger -- is not confined to the political system.
And fuck the Swedish ones too! No one needs or has any right to a billion plus dollars, not while there are people that have nothing. No one has contributed that much value to society.
This attitude is why the far left doesn’t get the abundance agenda. If an entrepreneur creates something that enriches billions of people, then it is awesome that these people also reward the entrepreneur for their contributions. Profit is a signal and incentive in the complex adaptive system known as the economy.
Doesn't it depend on what "creation" you're describing? Does Bitcoin count and is it "awesome"? Does the attainment of so much wealth that one could effectively buy a political party, the entire Supreme Court and rule as a dictator not matter (the "trillionaire" scenario)?
Reward them with hundreds of millions but not billions
I don’t think billionaires are a policy failure. Some people will get rich. Say what you want about Google/Microsoft, but the founders did revolutionize the internet. I think it’s fine for people who innovate and create value to be rich. Just tax them and erect guardrails on money in politics (the second one will be admittedly a decades long slog).
Where warrantite progressives really can aid in abundance is using antitrust to crack down on rent seekers that stifle competition and innovation (a great example is the meat packing industry)
Building on this, I’m more worried about billionaires being able to erect a class among their progeny who stay rich and influential despite themselves having had nothing to do with building the companies that created this value for everyone.
I’d rather let billionaires emerge through building something than via inheritance. And I’d have no qualms shifting the tax burden away from working individuals and toward mediocre heirs and heiresses who will never want for anything whether their fortunes are measured in the millions or billions.
Their nepo baby progeny work for NGOs funded with mommy and daddy’s money and sustained with help from government grants.
The Dem party is the billionaire and millionaire industrial complex, and they are buried in so deep people seem to forget they are there.
The estate tax now kicks in at 40% of inheritances over $28 million, and unless Republicans can extend the TCJA the exclusion will drop to $5 million next year. The biggest social harms are more from billionaires ex-wives like Laurene Powell (Jobs) and Mackenzie Scott (Bezos) using their unearned wealth on harmful political NGOs. There isn’t a divorce settlement tax, and I assume Powell’s estate fell under the spousal exception. I don’t know what kind of trusts are setup for Musk’s many offspring, but there are probably many lawyers involved. Instead of estate taxes, it would be better to tax the heirs instead and count inheritance as regular income and tax that.
Ah yes the horrible social harms of giving money to promote healthcare and education and other terrible things like that. So much worse than those other billionaires who give their money to fine causes such as lobbying against environmental regulations, or lobbying against gun control, or lobbying against the provision of social security and healthcare for the people they themselves employ at wages so low they need three jobs to survive.
I agree with you about counting inheritance as regular income. It’s absurd that tax is assessed on the value of the estate, you should be able to reduce inheritance taxes by dividing your estate among lots of heirs.
Yeah they did contribute to improving things, the problem being that they earn money not just on their marginal contribution, but also in forms of rent on the existence of other websites, the technology of the internet itself (financed mostly by the government) and the entire fucking infrastructure, due to their positions of power as platform companies. That's why their margins have been so high. A very reasonable reason to tax them more, so that governments can keep investing in infrastructure development and maintenance, healthcare for all and other useful stuff like fundamental scientific research that might bring about new cool stuff that will improve our lives, as the internet does. And, also tax them to reduce their status from billionaire oligarch power-players to reasonably respected millionaire geniuses, that would be good for democracy and the people.
The internet is not mostly financed by the government. The sole government support was in funding research in ArpaNet which was the predecessor of today’s internet, by DARPA which connected a few universities and government labs. Sure Marc Andreesen worked at NCSA in Urbana, but Mosaic was a side project and Netscape was privately funded. The majority of the internet, including the backbone are run by private communications companies, as are all the hardware devices and application that use the internet. Even the organizations that established the names and rules for internet protocols (ICANN and IETF) are non governmental organizations. Even Al Gore doesn’t claim the government built the internet, just funded that initial small network.
Okay you're probably right that this phrase was a bit exaggerated, as there has always been a combination of private and public money, especially in US research centers and universities. And I probably shouldn't use 'the' government anyway considering the complexity of legal/institutional setups and origins. Also not for the fact that early research on computer networks was also in collaboration with French and UK public universities, and probably also done elsewhere, and fibre optics were originally invented by an Indian at Imperial College in London, so it wasn't just one government to begin with. Oh, and since you're talking about Netscape, the WWW came out of CERN, of course.
And sure the infrastructure and telecommunications networks, even in most European countries, are now technically privately owned since the 80s and 90s waves of privatization. Although most did build it with public money in the first place. And there's debates to be had about the large amounts of public money going into these companies because governments have become 'customers'.
But none of this really matters of course, as it doesn't really change my point that they have managed to get into monopolistic positions where they capture excessive rents and profits far beyond their contribution, as is reflected in their operational margins & profits, which reasonably should be taxed more to make the larger public benefit from public contributions, and to avoid such accumulation of capital and power as has now happened.
All money is ultimately owned by the government
Ironically, government is the most dangerous rent seeker stifling competition and innovation. What Pogo said.
Thankfully there are these things called elections
They can't give up their Everyman aesthetic it's all they have to back up their (incorrect and bad) beliefs about anti trust
Great comment.
And the internet is what, 98% bad, and entirely incompatible with self-government
> Just tax them
Yes, tax their wealth, at 100% of every marginal dollar over $1bn. Or just burn it and print the money we need to do other shit
I don't think these taxes will make a dent given that most billionaires make their money through asset appreciation. The problem I have with Warren, etc. is they get Democrats chasing these net worths as though they represent billions of dollars worth of goods and services being withheld from the public and if that's true, who needs abundance? Just redistribute the money and everybody gets to buy things with it.
The Buy Borrow Die loophole can be closed as can the stepped up basis for inheritance.
Right. If Warren succeeded in taking all of Musks net worth over $1 million (or even $1 billion) then Tesla and SpaceX would go out of business because their stock would collapse. So the biggest EV maker and the superchargers network would be gone,StarLink would stop working and end US military needs, and more astronauts would be stranded in space. She would probably count this as success, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one of the ones painting swastikas on and fire bombing superchargers and Model Ys in Massachusetts.
No, if the billion and first dollar was taxed at 100%, and there were the appropriate capital controls to prevent him taking the money out of the country, Musk (and other billionaires) would end up paying his workers a lot more out of his stock (starting with his executives, but tesla etc is or was so valuable that it would trickle down to the other employees as the executives became billionaires too).
And this is entirely good.
Warrenite ideology is bad and wrong.
Nothing will get built if we are unwilling to mint new billionaires.
Since you mentioned CEQA, I assume you are in California, where the top federal tax rate for a person earning $1 million is 54%, how high do you think this should be?
You want to get back at Musk, but his wealth is not from income, and neither Tesla or SpaceX pay dividends. Tesla is responsible for the most people switching to electric cars, and StarLink provides the broadband in rural areas that Biden’s failed plan never did.
How do you strangle a crypto industry, and how will that result in railroads being built?
<Since you mentioned CEQA, I assume you are in California, where the top federal tax rate for a person earning $1 million is 54%, how high do you think this should be?>
Are we talking about effective or marginal tax rates? If it were up to me, income taxes would be exclusively levied at the federal level to minimize this problem with tax arbitrage.
<How do you strangle a crypto industry, and how will that result in railroads being built?>
Crypto is a BS scam industry and a waste of financial resources that could be better used elsewhere.
And everyone who bought crypto should be punished
Close to 90%
Billionaires should be heavily taxed, including wealth transferred to their family. Yet the immediate problem is that billionaires wield far too much political power. That can be addressed separately, and is badly needed. Americans like the idea of getting rich, they don’t like the idea of rich unelected people yielding power over them.
Yeah but rich is a few million. No one earns a billion but by sucking up too much money out of the economy
Your agenda would likely either create different billionaires or If not, then it would be a complete failure.
Agree 100%
I think we need to start explaining to people that every time housing prices go up at a rate faster than incomes, it's effectively a tax. A tax that redistributes income away from young people and the poor to current property owners. The greater the value of property you own, the greater the redistribution of working class people's money you get. That is the outcome of these NIMBY policies.
66% of American households own the house they live in. So good luck with that.
This is true, I'm one of them! But I also have kids, and I don't want them to grow up into a world where they can't take advantage of agglomeration effects of living in a place that has dynamism, because we just didn't build enough.
Sure, but NIMBYs are mostly home owners, so when the housing prices go up, it’s hard for them to understand something that makes them feel like they are losing out.
A riff on resentment: If Peter Turchin is correct, substantially all of the elites will need to benefit from abundance in order to reduce the intra-elite conflict we are living through today. Saving our nation requires that Republicans and Democrats all get richer.
This is why I also am a huge advocate of building more universities, cities, think tanks etc as it would be a release valve for elites fighting over ossified institutions that haven’t grown to accommodate the demand for status
You are missing the point. Status is a zero sum game. When you build enough universities for everyone to get a degree, it ceases to convey status, and then the conflict over status moves somewhere else. Or the new universities aren't considered to have the same status as the old ones, and you have just wasted a lot of money.
Relative to other primates we're supposed to be good at multiplying the arenas in which we compete for status. People channel their competitive energies into competitive knitting or being the guy that maintains their lawn better than that guy down the street (seriously, check out r/lawncare), instead of fighting the silverback the moment they think they can take him.
A serious proposal to make new universities would think about how to redistribute some sliver of status to them at creation. Anthropic is new but what tech employee would consider it low status to work for them vs Microsoft? And existing universities have in the past done things like poach researchers to target an area where they can become more prestigous than they were. Examples personally familiar to me are Rutgers hiring up in anthropology/philosophy/cogsci in the 80s-90s [*] and Boston University (a commuter school not that long ago) hiring star faculty in liberal arts and humanities in the same time frame under John Silber.
Related comment I don't have time to expand on: look up Marc Andereesen talking about universities in his post-inauguration appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast. He seems to think existing universities should go away because they maintain a cartel via accreditation rules and ossified in the absence of competition (demosclerosis at work?). But for a VC whose job is supposedly about creating new institutions he says says frustratingly little about how to actually make new universities.
[*] Apropos, actual license plate from a BMW that regularly parked outside the Rutgers anthropology department in the late 90s: SLVRBACK
I don’t think that’s true. The US has a major expansion of colleges, cities and goods, and that didn’t stop people from going to them. Hell UCs are a relatively new invention and people like them a lot. Status isn’t a zero sum game
I think you are making a mistake to assume that everyone covets status in the same one. Most Americans don’t go to college. And in the complexities of life, there are infinite dimensions for one to seek status
That’s a good idea, keep them from causing societal problems by locking them in their own self-reeducation camps where they can just yell at and cancel each other.
The Green New Deal was about Social Justice, not really about solar farms. That is the problem with Progressives. They always want to fundamentally change America when all they do is screw it up.
I’m not sure if one mile of a rural internet line has been laid. We may have crossed the 20 charging stations. So you’re a cable company in Salina, KS, and you really want to get broadband to your residents, but you have to hire a minority firm, and there is not one to be had. So, nothing happens.
I had clients who wanted to build a new car dealership, but in order to do so, they would be required to build a park or, in one place, replace an entire fire hydrant system.
Economics is about filling needs and someone being able to do so. Making it more complicated by fundamentally changing America or social justice is why you can’t build anything anywhere anymore.
There’s not really a problem with rural broadband anymore. I know folks in *really* remote parts of Arkansas and Mississippi that all have affordable gigabit fiber. Whether that’s a success of any administration’s politics or inevitable private sector last mile buildout, well, I suspect the latter, since the marginal cost is basically nothing. Even though the fixed costs are real, the marginal subscription revenue of even a few internet customers makes most rural projects pencil out when those fixed costs are amortized over the life of the infrastructure. I mean, I guess there are storms that take out lines from time to time, but for the most part a line of fiber optic just sits there generating revenue.
These guys seem to have their hearts in the right place, but I find it hard to believe leftist states like California will ever switch to an outcome based approach. The whole purpose of the labyrinth that the left has created is about power and control- the ability to micromanage what can get done, what cannot, to allow various special interests to have their say and of course to ensure that only the right people get to build our overpriced “affordable” housing. Those who control have power and leverage and access to graft. The NGOs and groups and the pols they back are like fattened turkeys- they are not going to be voting for Christmas.
Leftist enclaves in red states, in theory, could be laboratories for innovative and efficient government because red states allow more freedom of action. I’ve lived in a few of these enclaves. It is not what happens. Leftists want virtue signaling, control, veto power, futile projects. Being seen to care is more popular than doing. It is not just the pols and the groups but also the voters.
My local town council (packed with expat Californians though we’re in a red state) just announced taxes will be going up to help them develop a big parcel the town owns. The town wants some commercial development for tax purposes and the residents say they want restaurants and a supermarket. The town owns the land free and clear. If they can’t offer a ground lease attractive enough (even free) to attract a developer to build the commercial space, what does it say about the “ideas” the town and residents have for what should go in there? I note we have two large supermarkets, one medium sized market and two higher end specialty supermarkets within 10-15 minute drives in larger adjoining towns. I am not shocked to hear no developer feels they can lease a large supermarket space there. We could use a gas station (or hey maybe charging stations, too) but of course the idea of a gas station and minimart is anathema. We’d be a food desert- twinkies and slim Jim’s don’t count. So we will end up spending tax money to build uneconomic, restricted commercial development that won’t generate the projected tax revenue. For the Californians, that’s a win-win (note I am one of the CA transplants and still spend a few months a year back there). Maybe the failed space can eventually be used for homeless services and NGO HQs (tax free)
Another thoughtful piece, my question is how does the Abundance Agenda deal with the Elon Musk problem?
Personally, I dismissed Bernie’s contempt for billionaires in 2016 and 2020, and even now I don’t have issues with normal billionaires (although I do favor substantial wealth taxes).
But the mega-billionaires are definitely a problem, and perhaps the leading problem of our age, because they have so much power that normal people are kind of screwed unless they happen to really like whatever the MBs are doing.
Also, this problem seems bound to get worse as AI continues to advance.
I mean, Elon building an AI powered army of fascism inclined robots and drones, taking over America, and then using America as a platform to take over the world, is a scenario that should sound absurd, but also seems like it’s maybe 10-20 years away.
And that’s just Elon, if Abundance really happens there will be a bunch of these dudes.
I wouldn’t worry. 230 billionaires supported Biden in 2020 and Pritzker seems himself as a viable candidate in 2028. In the billionaire arms race the Dems have the lead (for now, at least) and they won in 2024 with voters making more than $100k. I don’t see a plutocrat shortage disadvantaging the Dems (not anytime soon, at least).
What problem? The whole Elon Musk problem comes from Democrats resentment of billionaires and their political moves against him. Elon Musk was politically neutral and would have stayed that way if he didn't see the Democrats as a threat to his businesses. If the Democrats had an agenda of making government efficient and getting things done on infrastructure, Elon Musk benefits from that. They would be natural allies.
You tax them and redistribute the wealth while combining it with policies to try to reduce money’s salience in politics. How to deal with wealthy people is not a hard problem. It’s a matter of political will
Wealth taxes don’t work. France and other European countries tried them and they all failed when the targets escaped capture. Arnault in France is still the world’s second richest person, and there are dozens more multi billionaires in Europe.
No one has used sufficient imagination to make wealth taxes work. We've mostly had weak and ambivalent efforts from places like France.
You don’t have to directly tax wealth. Just tax capital gains, and get rid of interest on loan deductions and voila
Capital gains are already taxed, I assume you mean raising the rates.
Interest is not a deductible expense except for mortgages (and maybe car loans if Trump gets his idiotic tax plans to pass) but only for a primary residence. I don’t think there’s any single house with a billion dollar mortgage.
Billionaires have income from dividends (but not Musk) and they pay capital gains taxes if they sell parts of their stock. Some get around having to sell stock by using it as collateral for personal loans, but the interest on that loan is not deductible.
It’s not realistic to tax wealth as it just causes evasions and distortions. You can tax consumption, which the rich can’t avoid, but that won’t reduce their wealth, if that is your actual goal.
Yeah I mean you could raise the capital rates tax to 25/30% (any higher gets tricky)
If you believe, as so many people do, that humans are bad and ruin everything we touch, it follows "logically" that a good way to stop us from building bad things is to make it as difficult as possible to build anything.
Noah writes, "Those arguments are out there.... They include the idea that abundance is a form of freedom, and that all Americans deserve that freedom."
They DON'T include taking individuals out of the driver's seat and putting them on a bus -- packing them into high-density cubby-holes (rather than offering them a house with a yard) -- and trying to pass that off as "abundance." Those promising genuine abundance would do well to follow in the footsteps of Pat (more than Jerry) Brown (and antithetical to Scott Wiener's) -- to offer a vision of abundance whereby infrastructure and growth are focused on empowering the individual. That's the American Dream -- and it's the key to beating MAGA.
As for "agglomeration effects"? Remember, Silicon Valley was born in suburbia, not on a poodle-walk in an urbanist theme park. It's precisely here that class resentment comes to the fore: It's only "sprawl" when you're looking down on it. "Monoculture"? To the rest of us, that's about the vast array of mom-and-pop eateries on those much-maligned "stroads "
Abundance? A(n electric) car in every garage!
PS: Sorry, Noah, but I'm not convinced that most Americans -- especially immigrants -- would prefer to live in Tokyo. Take a look around Milpitas -- and I'll be sure to check out Japan. :-)
Idk, given the demands for people living in big cities, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would live in high density cities powered by transit. If you truly care about individual freedom, then you understand that we should provide the individual with abundance of options, whether it’s cars or trains
That's fine with me -- as long as urbanists lay off all their (acknowledged) machinations to "get people out of their cars."
If you truly care about individual freedom, you'd want to put individuals in the driver's seat, empowered to improvise their own routes and schedules -- while, yes, allowing for those who might choose otherwise.
In fact, you can even allow for people living in fully-pedestrianized, urbanist theme parks -- as long as (like the "Old Towns" in many mid-sized European cities) there's parking for visitors underground! ;-)
Truly caring about the individual isn’t putting them in the driver seat but letting them make their own decision.
I personally think it’s 100% OK for drivers to drive where they want to, but they should pay for the infrastructure they use instead of having it be subsidized by every single taxpayer. You wanna drive into the city? fine pay the tolls and pay for parking.
"You wanna drive into the city? fine pay the tolls and pay for parking"?
I thought we were supposed to be getting "abundance"!
And we will be, for things that we prioritize! Considering that the US already massively subsidizes car ownerships and spends $5 on car infrastructure for every $1 on public infrastructure, I think it’s reasonable that car owners pay more!
You're welcome to live in an urbanist theme park if you wish -- but I think you can expect to go down to the mat with lots of others over what sort of abundance we prioritize.
A(n electric) car in every garage!
Go to Switzerland if you want to see dense, wealthy, urbanism.
LOL! Indeed, Zurich works very well as a city -- for people as tight-assed as the Swiss. ;-)
I think you’re wrong about pretty much all of this xo
That being said, I’d take Tokyo over LA
If you find a Korean burrito in Tokyo, someone there is imitating LA. ;-)
But it will be better tasting , and served more appealingly, and cheaper in Tokyo. See also California Rolls.
I think you're confused between freedom and privilege. Being able to live where you want is freedom. Being able to live in a SFH in a low density suburb is a privilege. The reason it is a privilege is because it's clearly not a scalable or affordable option for every family in the US unless there's some magic trick to keep the population constant without any adverse effects.
I'm an immigrant and the reason I would not like to live in Tokyo is because of language and cultural barriers rather than the size of homes. The fact that US is a more prosperous country is also a huge factor. Life in the suburbs is boring as hell but we still chose it over living in the city because of how poorly run American cities are.
An electric car is the opposite of freedom. Which is why we kept our gas car for road trips.
"Being able to live in a SFH in a low density suburb is a privilege. The reason it is a privilege is because it's clearly not a scalable or affordable option for every family in the US unless there's some magic trick to keep the population constant without any adverse effects."
In other words, there's not enough room? Have you ever been to Nebraska? Or the Dakotas... There's plenty of space to work from home. (Also see my earlier comment on "agglomeration effects.")
"Life in the suburbs is boring as hell "? After you finish that latte, meet me in Milpitas, or in Houston's (very suburban) Chinatown, or on Buford Highway in Atlanta. I promise, dinner will be cheaper (and more interesting) at a genuine mom-and-pop, but you'll need to forego the poodle-walk on the way there.
You have a point about the current limitations of electric cars. But that's where a true abundance agenda (and building out a robust network of fast charging stations) comes in. :-)
There is a reason most people don’t move to Nebraska or the Dakotas unless they grew up there. Sorry, I don’t consider owning a mansion in those places to be a privilege. Full remote had its moment during Covid but it seems to be trending down. Edit: I should have qualified my original comment with "in a desirable location". You're right that there are lots of undesirable places in the US where land is not an issue.
The issue with electric cars is not just the availability of chargers but that even the fast charger takes 30 mins compared to 5 mins at the gas station. We use electric cars for our daily commute but it’s not a like for like replacement for every use case.
"There is a reason most people don’t move to Nebraska or the Dakotas unless they grew up there"?...
Or maybe there's a reason Warren Buffett doesn't need to live in a Brooklyn brownstone (or) to prove how sophisticated he is. Maybe he knows something that pretentious hipsters don't (including where to get a decent meal in Omaha these days).
Besides, we're not talking about living in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. For that matter, we're not necessarily talking about Omaha. We're talking about whether there's enough space for "sprawl."
We're talking about places like Milpitas, or Houston's (very suburban) Chinatown, or Buford Highway in Atlanta-- where you can get dinner at a genuine mom-and-pop if you're willing to forego the poodle-walk along the way -- about the incredible diversity you can access in your car.
Indeed, maybe urbsnists should lay off the inevitable word "vibrant" -- which was never so magical in the first place for people who simply don't like crowds.
We could let market demand make these choices. Some may wish to live near public transit, choose not to have kids and so on and would be just fine with ownership in a dense city, sans yard. Others might wish for the opposite.
To start, I have not read the two books yet. However, listening to them and the emerging abundance agenda I am reminded of Virginia Postrel’s book “The Future and its Enemies.” A book that I think contemporary progressives would do well to read or re-read in light of the last 25 years. So many themes in it are echoed in this current debate, and it shows there are allies to be had.
Also “Seeing like a State”
Great book. She has a SubStack now.
https://open.substack.com/pub/vpostrel
Agreed - liberals need to learn how to build things successfully, rather than letter them get burdened with other goals unrelated to building. If i was running against, say, Gavin Newsom for president, i'd hang the High Speed Rail project like an albatross around his neck.
Interesting observation about how progressives have focused on the ideology and forgot to measure the effectiveness of the outcome. I dare say Republicans may now be going down the same road.
The quote from Deng Xiaoping “it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” is interesting. Today in China political leaders, particularly mayors, are evaluated by the economic prosperity and growth (think abundance) in their respective areas. If you want to move up the political hierarchy, you have to deliver abundance. Here's a great YouTube presentation by Professor Keyu Jin a Chinese economist who taught at the London School of Economics that explains the way it works in China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCyOoXEXfuU