The unions stuff is so annoying, because unionism is literally feudalism. It's a guild. If you want to get away from neo-feudalism, you need to let go of unionism. Most working class people aren't skilled workers in unions -- those people are middle class -- rather, they're unskilled workers in retail, food, and entertainment. They work as cashiers, clerks, secretaries, not as plumbers, electricians, and roofers.
The anti-abundance left seems to have this fetish for blue collar men based out of guilt or overcompensation. Blue collar men are famously right-wing, ever since truckers started listening to Rush Limbaugh. So unionism is this one neat trick where problem-glasses girl-bosses can link arms with tobacco-chewing wife-beaters to form an effective coalition to win elections.
And yes, this has actually worked for the last 50 years. However, Trump's overtures to unions may change this. In any case, it's not actually decreasing income inequality or lifting people out of poverty, because #1, wages in skilled manual labor have gone up; #2, suppressing the supply of housing actually lowers demand for skilled laborers, which also suppresses their wages; #3, most poor people aren't skilled laborers, they're unskilled laborers.
If Democrats were serious about lifting people out of poverty, they would focus on trying to raise wages and lower the cost of living for cashiers, waiters, and low-level construction workers. And because this kind of unskilled labor is so insecure (hiring and firing, season labor), it doesn't make sense to try to make the jobs themselves better. You have to focus on externalities -- education, healthcare, housing.
I think some of the obsession might be due to the fact that they are, at the moment, in terms of broad popular appeal, the most influential "public intellectual" liberals? (Which says a lot about the differences between the modern left and right nowadays.)
The guy in the picture making fun of Klein talking about zoning reform while AOC is drawing stadium-size crowds is correct, for better or for worse. As soon as I learned about this "abundance" thing I predicted it would mostly go nowhere and that Bernie-style economic leftism is the next wave of Democratic politics. The problem is that people who accuse Klein of "laundering conservative ideas" are right. He is making the same basic, obvious arguments that conservatives have made for generations. Sort of by definition, people who accept these arguments aren't really leftists. That was hammered out long before most of us were born. There was never any possibility that just slapping the name "Klein" on top of them would be the thing that finally moves the needle.
If Ezra Klein, or anyone else, is truly interested in "abundance," then their best shot is to sit this one out and start building up their connections on the right side of the aisle, so they can try and influence policy in a future Republican administration, like 10+ years down the road if they're lucky and play their cards right. "Abundance" has no home on the left, never has, probably never will. To think otherwise is to misunderstand what the left is and how people are sorted into or out of it.
It’s true that conservatives have made similar arguments. Whether that means Klein should not engage with the left at all, I’m not so sure. The left is just the place where ideological conversation usually takes place. His addressing them seems rational.
Elizabeth Warren is talking about housing supply. Tim Walz is a Yimby. Barack Obama, you guessed it, is also a Yimby.
I think these people are better barometers of inter-left priorities than most. Though they're less annoying about it on Twitter, so we think about them less.
It's all well and good that prominent dems like Warren and Obama acknowledge the fundamental supply/demand mismatch underlying housing costs, but until they actually tell a union or environmental group to shove it, it's all just words.
I can tell you're mad, but I just don't think you're familiar with the facts here. Let's do Tim Walz.
After its passage in 2018, the Minneapolis 2040 upzoning plan faced a legal challenge Smart Growth Minneapolis (the most obnoxious nimbys), Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds, and, the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis.
The lawsuit was based on the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA). The plaintiffs argued that the city had failed to conduct an adequate environmental review. Typical NIMBY stuff.
There were further injunctions against the city implementing the plan in 2022 and 2023. Walz finally had enough in 2024 and the state legislature passed HF5242 which includes provisions to say these injunctions are ridiculous, let Minneapolis build. Look up HF5242 if you're curious.
The idea that ideological conversation takes place only on the left seems like a claim that requires serious justification.
IMO it's naive for Klein to think he can get anywhere with this on the left. But that's his home, so you can't really blame him for trying. I wish him luck. But again: Naive. Perhaps I'll be wrong about this though, I've been wrong before.
I should be more direct, I think that what's happening is that Klein and Thompson believe that their readers will mostly be people on the left, partially due to the fact that lefties like to read about ideology and partially due to their reputation as being on the left. So in that sense they are just addressing the reader, which seems natural.
Then either to left is doomed or we’re all doomed.
But I don’t think you’re correct. US political parties have to appeal to half the electorate. That’s the nature of first past the post electoral politics.
You can’t have a serious political party that wants to build “affordable” housing but supports regulations that make it cost $500 a square foot and take decades to build.
Klein’s point isn’t that the goals of the left are wrong, but that they are in tension and the effort to make every project an everything bagel that both achieves its stated goals and hires small, minority-owned contractors and does no environmental damage and causes no disruption to its neighbors inevitably leads to delays and cost overruns.
There’s a huge political space between no effort to help people with housing at all, which seems to be the Republican position now, and every project must be an everything bagel. That space might once have been occupied by centrist Republicans but it certainly isn’t now
>You can’t have a serious political party that wants to build “affordable” housing but supports regulations that make it cost $500 a square foot and take decades to build.<
Except that the Democrats are that party and have been for decades, and they still win elections.
Democrat voters don't want to hear about deregulation. They want to hear what are you going to give them for free? The best strategy for implementing this "abundance" stuff through the left, if you were going to try, would be to run on giving people handouts and then once you're in power try to quietly do the deregulation on the side. This is unlikely to work for the same reason that people who think they can use Trump as a vehicle for their own agenda are consistently disappointed. Once AOC has been voted in on a platform of free shit, she's probably not going to give deregulation the time of day.
The unions stuff is so annoying, because unionism is literally feudalism. It's a guild. If you want to get away from neo-feudalism, you need to let go of unionism. Most working class people aren't skilled workers in unions -- those people are middle class -- rather, they're unskilled workers in retail, food, and entertainment. They work as cashiers, clerks, secretaries, not as plumbers, electricians, and roofers.
The anti-abundance left seems to have this fetish for blue collar men based out of guilt or overcompensation. Blue collar men are famously right-wing, ever since truckers started listening to Rush Limbaugh. So unionism is this one neat trick where problem-glasses girl-bosses can link arms with tobacco-chewing wife-beaters to form an effective coalition to win elections.
And yes, this has actually worked for the last 50 years. However, Trump's overtures to unions may change this. In any case, it's not actually decreasing income inequality or lifting people out of poverty, because #1, wages in skilled manual labor have gone up; #2, suppressing the supply of housing actually lowers demand for skilled laborers, which also suppresses their wages; #3, most poor people aren't skilled laborers, they're unskilled laborers.
If Democrats were serious about lifting people out of poverty, they would focus on trying to raise wages and lower the cost of living for cashiers, waiters, and low-level construction workers. And because this kind of unskilled labor is so insecure (hiring and firing, season labor), it doesn't make sense to try to make the jobs themselves better. You have to focus on externalities -- education, healthcare, housing.
I think some of the obsession might be due to the fact that they are, at the moment, in terms of broad popular appeal, the most influential "public intellectual" liberals? (Which says a lot about the differences between the modern left and right nowadays.)
69 articles about Matthew Yglesias are about 66 too many if you want to address his point of view.
Increasing supply is Econ 101.
Abundance is a completely milquetoast idea. Why is why it's great and should have bipartisan appeal.
If leftists oppose it, you know it's good. People who don't understand Econ 101 should not be in positions of power.
The guy in the picture making fun of Klein talking about zoning reform while AOC is drawing stadium-size crowds is correct, for better or for worse. As soon as I learned about this "abundance" thing I predicted it would mostly go nowhere and that Bernie-style economic leftism is the next wave of Democratic politics. The problem is that people who accuse Klein of "laundering conservative ideas" are right. He is making the same basic, obvious arguments that conservatives have made for generations. Sort of by definition, people who accept these arguments aren't really leftists. That was hammered out long before most of us were born. There was never any possibility that just slapping the name "Klein" on top of them would be the thing that finally moves the needle.
If Ezra Klein, or anyone else, is truly interested in "abundance," then their best shot is to sit this one out and start building up their connections on the right side of the aisle, so they can try and influence policy in a future Republican administration, like 10+ years down the road if they're lucky and play their cards right. "Abundance" has no home on the left, never has, probably never will. To think otherwise is to misunderstand what the left is and how people are sorted into or out of it.
It’s true that conservatives have made similar arguments. Whether that means Klein should not engage with the left at all, I’m not so sure. The left is just the place where ideological conversation usually takes place. His addressing them seems rational.
https://x.com/ewarren/status/1819056219622895750
Elizabeth Warren is talking about housing supply. Tim Walz is a Yimby. Barack Obama, you guessed it, is also a Yimby.
I think these people are better barometers of inter-left priorities than most. Though they're less annoying about it on Twitter, so we think about them less.
It's all well and good that prominent dems like Warren and Obama acknowledge the fundamental supply/demand mismatch underlying housing costs, but until they actually tell a union or environmental group to shove it, it's all just words.
I can tell you're mad, but I just don't think you're familiar with the facts here. Let's do Tim Walz.
After its passage in 2018, the Minneapolis 2040 upzoning plan faced a legal challenge Smart Growth Minneapolis (the most obnoxious nimbys), Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds, and, the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis.
The lawsuit was based on the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA). The plaintiffs argued that the city had failed to conduct an adequate environmental review. Typical NIMBY stuff.
There were further injunctions against the city implementing the plan in 2022 and 2023. Walz finally had enough in 2024 and the state legislature passed HF5242 which includes provisions to say these injunctions are ridiculous, let Minneapolis build. Look up HF5242 if you're curious.
https://moreneighbors.org/2024/05/21/minnesota-legislature-passes-critical-bill-on-housing-environmental-laws-cannot-be-weaponized/
To be clear, I'm think that Walz acted slowly here, and I'm annoyed by that! But your criticism of him as "all just words" isn't even true!
The idea that ideological conversation takes place only on the left seems like a claim that requires serious justification.
IMO it's naive for Klein to think he can get anywhere with this on the left. But that's his home, so you can't really blame him for trying. I wish him luck. But again: Naive. Perhaps I'll be wrong about this though, I've been wrong before.
I should be more direct, I think that what's happening is that Klein and Thompson believe that their readers will mostly be people on the left, partially due to the fact that lefties like to read about ideology and partially due to their reputation as being on the left. So in that sense they are just addressing the reader, which seems natural.
AOC expressed support for YIMBYism and Elizabeth Warren fought for national zoning reform and broke the hearing aid cartels’ regulatory capture
Then either to left is doomed or we’re all doomed.
But I don’t think you’re correct. US political parties have to appeal to half the electorate. That’s the nature of first past the post electoral politics.
You can’t have a serious political party that wants to build “affordable” housing but supports regulations that make it cost $500 a square foot and take decades to build.
Klein’s point isn’t that the goals of the left are wrong, but that they are in tension and the effort to make every project an everything bagel that both achieves its stated goals and hires small, minority-owned contractors and does no environmental damage and causes no disruption to its neighbors inevitably leads to delays and cost overruns.
There’s a huge political space between no effort to help people with housing at all, which seems to be the Republican position now, and every project must be an everything bagel. That space might once have been occupied by centrist Republicans but it certainly isn’t now
>You can’t have a serious political party that wants to build “affordable” housing but supports regulations that make it cost $500 a square foot and take decades to build.<
Except that the Democrats are that party and have been for decades, and they still win elections.
Democrat voters don't want to hear about deregulation. They want to hear what are you going to give them for free? The best strategy for implementing this "abundance" stuff through the left, if you were going to try, would be to run on giving people handouts and then once you're in power try to quietly do the deregulation on the side. This is unlikely to work for the same reason that people who think they can use Trump as a vehicle for their own agenda are consistently disappointed. Once AOC has been voted in on a platform of free shit, she's probably not going to give deregulation the time of day.