Pundits for Abundance

A critical examination of the Abundance Agenda

As Spring turns to Summer in 2025, the political airwaves echo with calls to ‘Abundance.’ The anodyne goals of the Abundance Agenda are to build more housing, produce more energy, and technologically innovate even more. How does Abundance intend to achieve these? Not through bolstering worker power, not in solidarity with unions or cooperatives, and not through robust anti-trust. Abundance comes out of big money and their groups, and has little to say about Fighting Oligarchy.

“A fetishization of procedure, a reliance on litigation as a form of regulation, extreme localism – need be abandoned.”

A chief proponent of the Abundance Agenda describes itself in this way: The Niskanen Center promotes policies that advance prosperity, opportunity, and human flourishing, guided by the belief that a free market and an effective government are mutually dependent. Of course, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson wrote the book. Therefore, they stand as mouthpieces for the movement; the ones who talk on all the podcasts, at any rate. As experienced thought leaders, they at least have the media training. The Niskanen Center backs a kind of warmed-over neoliberalism, but with some reasonable state capacity:

We advocate for a government that provides social insurance and essential public goods, fosters market competition and innovation, invests in state capacity, and does not impede productive enterprise. We are committed to the principles of liberal democracy and an open society that encourages engagement, cooperation, discussion, and learning.

One of the Niskanen Center’s Senior Fellows is Matthew Yglesias. A prolific writer of shortform policy pitches and opinions, Matthew Yglesias assured his readers in May 2022 that Sam Bankman-Fried “is for real... SBF was raised by a leading consequentialist moral theorist.” Another slightly less visible Senior Fellow, Jennifer Pahlka, formerly deputy chief technology officer for the Obama administration, founded Code for America one decade before Big Tech slaughtered the employment prospects for coders (the unemployment rate for computer science and computer engineering fields exceeds the national average at 6.1% and 7.5%). Niskanen also houses Republican intellectuals such as Never Trumper Steven Teles as well as moderate Republican whisperer Geoff Kabaservice. Google, Koch’s Stand Together, and State Farm each gave Niskanen $100,000 in 2023.

Naturally, we all want more affordable housing, as well as more energy. We may even desire technological innovation, provided it is the real kind, not the kind that serves as an empty vessel for capital accumulation. But Abundance proponents have nothing to say about worker power. The state will build railroads, expand low-rent housing, and develop renewable energy, but perhaps stop right before it confronts the over-concentration of capital in our economy.

Abundance emerges as unions resurge in popularity. Nonetheless, it remains murky how unions can help in a private economy the Abundance Agenda continues to orient primarily towards technology.

Not Wonks

Enter Jonathan Chait to opine on the controversy:

it is more than a little odd that progressive activists, columnists, and academics are now ripping one another to shreds over such seemingly arcane and technical matters as zoning rules, permitting, and the Paperwork Reduction Act.

First, the purported Abundance wonks want to remind you that they have technical fluency, even as they told you to code when those who entered computer engineering would graduate into 7.5% unemployment rates. They may convey this appearance, but actual technical mastery eludes the media pundits who opine across dozens of fields and specialties. At the heart of the Abundance narrative arises a critique of zoning regulations as inhibiting housing, particularly in states like California. As Chait tells us, Abundance centers around the “need to expand the supply of housing by removing zoning rules . . . ” and also, “. . . to cut back the web of laws and regulations that turns any attempt to build public infrastructure into an expensive, agonizing nightmare.” Nonetheless, high demand and high and rising incomes, not various supply constraints, drives the spiked housing prices in high priced areas. Further, Klein and Thompson remain blasé about the practical effect of abandoning administrative zoning and environmental review, as centuries of common law establish judicial dominion over the interlocking facets of property rights, mediating competing and shifting reliance interests. The true specialists and domain masters are more than thought leaders, like Ezra Klein or Derek Thompson, but academics and leading practitioners within each of their fields. As such, the Abundance pundits present as smart and well-informed, and smart though they certainly are, their national solutions offer simplistic and boilerplate answers to specific and multifaceted matters best subject to local and democratic decision-making. Do not cede technical proficiency to professional pundits.

Chide the Citizen-Activists, not Corporate Groups

Revealingly, Chait wants us to associate opposition to Abundance with the groups, non-profits or think tanks, not unlike the Niskanen Center. This is too bold; Abundance comes straight from the groups themselves, if perhaps not the very specific groups Chait wants us to blame.

Presumably, Chait summons ‘citizen-’ and ‘progressive-’ ahead of the term activist to distinguish these from the corporate and big money activists pushing us towards Abundance. Nonetheless, even a cursory read of David Dayen’s piece shows, for his part, that ‘the very groups that have been left out’ absolutely included unions. For Chait’s part, it might be more accurate to characterize all outside activism to be often counterproductive, as the non-profits representing big money and corporations can outspend the citizen- and progressive-activist groups (although they do overlap), and grab the lion’s share of the economic development subsidies. Rather farcically, the US allowed over $750 billion in indirect subsidies in 2022 to the fossil fuel industry (Source: IMF report, see page 27). Incumbent corporate utilities continue to slow and inflate the cost of the energy transition. Are citizen- and progressive-activist groups opposing these ‘often counterproductive’ because they have failed to bring subsidies down to zero? Progressives held some influence in the Biden administration, particularly through Warren’s camp, which fielded Bharat Ramamurti, Sasha Baker, Maggie Thomas, Wally Adeyemo, and Julie Siegel in the administration, and managed to place Rohit Chopra atop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chait would fault progressives for having had any power whatsoever, blaming the ‘progressive-activist network’ for expensive housing and the stalled unfurling of energy development. Meanwhile, the call to scapegoat litigation strategies, primarily from progressive activists but not libertarian think-tanks apparently, may bring to mind the old folly of Tort Reform; for decades Republicans attributed accelerating healthcare costs to the threat and expense of malpractice litigation, at least until healthcare costs in states which adopted Tort Reform continued to increase.

Ezra Klein’s Presentation of Factoid to Jon Stewart

Ezra Klein drew shock from Jon Stewart when he went on his podcast. He described the lengthy and byzantine processes under Build Back Better made necessary ahead of implementation of the broadband expansion and build out. The $40 billion program to expand internet had infamously connected zero people before the 2024 general election. Klein stopped and emphasized that “this is the Biden administration’s process for its own bill; they wanted this to happen.” (See below, time stamp 3:27). Jon Stewart responded: “This is something they instituted, for this bill?” Klein doubled down: “For their bill. This is a bill, passed by Democrats, with a regulatory structure written by a Democratic administration.”

Ezra Klein leans on his wonk credibility to persuade Jon that Democrats wanted to hamper their own bill

Ezra Klein was incorrect, however. The Democrats had not designed this process. The steps came from corporate groups through Republicans during negotiations. The initial Klobuchar-Clyburn bill, the Democrats’s proposal, lacked the 14 steps Ezra Klein describes, and the 14 steps arrived after Republicans began negotiations.

Bharat Ramamurti rebuts Klein’s contention that the 14-step process was anything but the GOP Senate’s preference

Individual states have had their own programs to expand broadband to rural areas. As Ramamurti explains, states have expanded broadband just to have existing providers charge $150-$200/month to those outlying customers for the expanded lines. Montana Senator Jon Tester demanded requirements to prevent against this happening again for the Federal expansion of broadband. Aside from this specific Democratic amendment, a response to real abuse states such as Montana and Maine had experienced, the remainder of the steps came into it all from the Republican side of the aisle.

Ramamurti: At the Federal level … the actor that is slowing down the government from acting is a corporate interest

When Ezra Klein appeared on Jon Stewart’s podcast, he had his selection of examples to propound his Abundance thesis. He chose to focus on Build Back Better rural broadband. Then he proceeded to misrepresent that Democrats under Biden put into place the 14-step process that will keep the broadband rollout from completion until 2030, when it was Senate Republicans who called for it on behalf of corporate interests.

Ezra Klein thus birthed a factoid. Like Al Gore claiming to invent the internet, or Napoleon as particularly short, or the Great Wall of China’s visibility from space, Ezra Klein’s proposition was untrue. Nevertheless, the contention relied on enough details, only known to a few, combined with Jon Stewart’s trust and acceptance, that it will likely take a great amount of time to disabuse those now duped. And it was no minor point, Ezra Klein’s insistence was the emotional crescendo of his episode on Stewart’s podcast.

An Abundance of Market Concentration

Why not both Abundance and anti monopolism, though, Ezra?

Abundance promoters have faced an onslaught already, but particularly from Warrenites such as David Dayen or Basel Musharbash, the former having settled on a counter-agenda of “domestic supply chains, good jobs, carbon reduction, and public input,” in the article Chait references above. The Abundance pundits seem no more opposed to these goals than Warrenites might be opposed to more housing or more energy, although the two camps might differ over ‘public input’ and ‘technological innovation,’ respectively, particularly as Warrenites seem hostile to crypto and AI generally. However, the Abundance camp conveys open contempt towards the employ of anti-trust power. David Schleicher identifies growth-and-change skeptical professionals, an even more carefully parsed descriptor than ‘citizen-’ or ‘progressive-activist,’ as the concentrated interests Abundance intends to dislodge. He goes on:

Many of these reviewers are somewhat antitrust-obsessed. It is true that abundance liberalism doesn’t answer the question of whether it’s a good idea to use antirust (sic) to try to break up Google.

Characterizing the Warrenites as ‘antitrust-obsessed’ seems fair enough. Big Tech runs rampant, degrading the internet, and hacking our very minds. Market concentration remains at an all time high, at least according to application of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to the S&P 500. As Basel Musharbash shows, the Sovietization of American business spiked the prices of eggs, not any supply shock. Nevertheless, Abundance not only has nothing to say about breaking up Google, it also refuses to acknowledge the crisis, lest it must propose some manner of solution.

For political purposes, the Abundance faction sees an alliance with the Never Trump libertarian right and Occasionally Trump Big Tech as necessary. Of course, funding purposes may also drive it in that direction. As a result, they find themselves under great constraint, unable to even acknowledge the legitimacy of anti-trust advocacy. Far from left-wing critics meeting their stumbling block, it is Abundance boosters who face real obstacles embracing the more untapped avenues for growth and change.

In response, Hannah Garden-Monheit asks ‘Por Que No Los Dos?’ Democrats don’t have to decide between the Abundance and Anti-monopoly movements:

Klein and Thompson are undoubtedly right that onerous zoning and permitting requirements are a serious obstacle to building the millions of housing units we need to fill our supply gap and lower prices. But I’m unaware of any disagreement with that from the anti-monopolist crowd (as Teachout underscores). Meanwhile, if policymakers were to focus only on solving this (undoubtedly important) aspect of our housing crisis, they will fail to build the kind of housing supply that actually benefits working Americans.

As corporate investors increase their concentration in residential housing markets, outright scorn for imposing anti-trust remedies may trouble us. Grounds for an alliance, or at least a détente, with the anti-trust ‘obsessives’ seems readily available. Therefore, it is more than simply unfortunate that Ezra Klein and David Schleicher demand that we entertain only supply-side solutions with seriousness. It is rather suspicious.

Abundance as a Mask for a Politics of Limitation

Progressives and citizen-activists have demonstrated openness to zoning reform for some time now. The will to build affordable housing generally has some momentum, and Abundance has capitalized on a trend towards rallying YIMBYism to defeat localist incumbents, at least where the latter blocks new development to preserve property values or out of fears of ‘disturbing the character of a neighborhood.’ The Abundance network, however, has refrained from adopting any meaningful opposition to oligarchy, or market concentration, or even an acceptance of worker power to demonstrate their good faith or a willingness to break bread with progressive narratives. Abundance boosters turn up their noses at anti-trust and scold left-wing critics rather than grant concessions on positions at which they posture neutrality. Chait’s most recent article in the Atlantic represents a denouement of the Abundance roll out and a drawing of battle lines. A Democratic Civil War is coming, he warns. What happened to compromise?

Abundance cannot, at least not with citizen-activists or labor. The agenda serves as much to suppress anti-trust measures against powerful concentrated firms, such as Google, as it does to develop new avenues for energy provision. Abundance works to shine a light on housing and cost-of-living concerns while keeping workplace inequities and labor struggles in the dark. It masks a politics of limitations in an optimistic projection: all shall rise, within their boundaries. Rise, except for the agenda of citizen-activist groups, or those hoping to employ strong anti-trust enforcement as the US had throughout the mid 20th Century. Forward, except for those that want to tax billionaires at any rate approaching punitive. Grow, unless it means the Democratic Party place labor unions or the working man at the forefront of their legislative priorities. As for universal healthcare, Abundance’s silence also speaks of a limit.

Abundance’s proponents consist of the usual centrist pundits who have been frequently wrong before, even recently. They are not policy wonks, and even if they were, they have failed to show how or why their mantle of expertise can displace local democratic decision-making. Abundance blasts citizen-activists as cover for corporate interests and billionaire backers, and rhetorical sleight-of-hand shifts their case from housing, where NIMBYs of modest wealth and citizen-orientation do sometimes obstruct progress, to energy development and technological innovation, where only wealthy interests have ever meaningfully dominated. Ezra Klein even erroneously attributed the stupidities of the Build Back Better bill to Biden administration and Democrats when they were Republican demands for Senate passage, pitching this viral factoid on Jon Stewart’s podshow. Most telling, however, may be the refusal of Abundance to brook an accommodation on anti-trust with potential Warren collaborators, not even the leftmost wing of the Democratic Party.

Despite its positive, lift-all-boats message, Abundance does not like to share.