Wow, deregulation and austerity, what a fresh perspective on the economy!
This abundance "movement" has absolutely nothing new to offer, it is simply a rebranding of neoliberalism. It's easy to spot too, just look at who backs the movement: the same old establishment democrats and their wealthy donors. The same people who have entranched the democratic party into this technocratic blob of ineffectiveness and societal erosion. In particular, it is financially backed by, among others, Peter Thiel and Mark Andreessen. This should raise some red flags.
Also, I personally like winning. This abundance movement has exactly zero electoral hype. American voters don't care about it at all. Meanwhile, populist leftists like Mamdani are able to generate momentum for the left for the first time in decades. That Klein, Thompson and the billionaires behind them are so harshly criticizing them should raise additional red flags.
How do you get “austerity” from a movement arguing that far more things should be built?
"How do you get austerity from neoliberalism, a movement that argues that more wealth should trickle down?".
The abundance folks constantly fight the populist left on government spending. Their proposed plan for "having more things built" is to deregulate the housing market and pray that somehow, the massive land owners, who de facto control the political life of this country and have had their way for a century won't fight it.
Absolutely ridiculous claim sorry.
They want SME's running regulations.
Look you can read between whatever lines you want, but Klein specifically calls out the left getting out of their own way. That even when the left tries to do far left top-down socialism, that the regulations and special interests groups prevent them from capitalizing on their own successes.
So even if you come back with something like price controls and government building more housing, you run into the same problems, and you say something like “fuck norms, ignore the neo-libs / conservatives, housing for the people!”
Congratulations, you’ve advocated for deregulation.
Your argument boils down to "people already said some things like this in the past" (ok, and?) and "some people I don't like agree with part of it", which is very weak and doesn't address anything in substance.
You know, you can still want to be able to build housing without having to wait 1 year for permitting or not want to live in a place where making a basic train track is basically impossible because of the number of stakeholders that have to come to a consensus and still vote for Mamdani. You are allowed to have non black and white opinions.
You can even have 1% of the things you think are good in common with Peter Thiel, and that won't immediately turn you into a far right psychopath.
You can even, hear me out, be for less regulation on specific areas where there has been a massive lack of supply but not for "deregulating the economy" in it's entirety!
alas, in southern California 1 year for permitting would be a miracle.
my family has been in construction for 3 generations, and 2 years is now considered normal. plus we have to seal up everything for energy efficiency, then have to remove and add more venting for the next round of inspectors who want to ensure air quality. We stopped building in Sun City because of the $17K tax per unit to fund schools even though it's a 55+ senior community. Currently it's about $115K per house in permitting fees in rural Riverside county. Makes it difficult
Housing can either be an investment vehicle or affordable, but not both at the same time. The abundance crowd remains willfully blind to this obvious reality, and is why they will fail. They promise to make housing affordable while receiving millions from people who became rich off of housing not being affordable. It fundamentally can't deliver on its promise, because it is completely compromised from the start.
I perceive abundance as a big grift to keep the populist left out of the democratic party, which is something they spend a lot of energy doing. How else could you explain this obsession of the abundance crowd for shooting down any populist policy or messaging?
The writer of this article (Dave) publicly dislikes Derek Thompson and keeps criticizing Matt Ygelasis for his austerity fetish, along with praising Mamdani
Mamdani just seems like a typical nepo baby that had some ideas in college he wants to try out because he skipped history class.