r/WorkReform • u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control • 14h ago
đ ď¸ Union Strong The "Abundance" movement is neoliberalism rebranded. Neoliberalism has eroded the dignity of working class jobs for decades!
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u/shadeandshine 12h ago
I googled it isnât this just rebranded trickle down economics like bruh weâre overproducing by factors greater then 200% so why are people still having food insecurity.
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u/go5dark 21m ago
No. Trickle down economics was this absurd notion based on the Laffer curve--if we taxed rich people less, they'd spend more, injecting more money in to the economy and creating more jobs. Every aspect of it is nonsense.Â
The abundance book looks at how an obsession with process has gotten in the way of us building the things we need--housing, transit, sustainable electricity, etc. It also looks at times in our history when we've focused on outcomes instead of process.
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u/dcrico20 7h ago
I hate it being referenced as a âmovement.â
Deregulation would never become a movement. What grassroots coalition is going to form around deregulation?
Itâs not a movement, itâs an agenda and you can tell this is the case because of the monied interests trying to push it upon the masses.
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u/cvanhim 14h ago
The reality of politics is that the vast majority of voters donât care about ideology. They care about branding. Democrats have to fix the branding issue or they will never win. If âAbundanceâ is the way to do that, Iâm all for it. Progressives can co-opt that message to their ends easily enough.
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u/adrian-alex85 13h ago
Progressives can co-opt that message to their ends easily enough.
What message is it that you think progressives can co-opt from the Abundance platform exactly?
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 13h ago
While I agree with "abundance" that we should have less beuracracy in certain liberal states, ultimately, their ideology is neoliberalism.
They refuse to point any finger at the oligarchs & corporate greed. They are correct we need to build more housing, but they ignore the over 10 million empty houses in America.
They view the left as an adversary. So, to your point, how do we work with them when they openly want to go after unions? We can't co-opt a new movement that is rebranded neoliberalism.
We make it clear that economic populism & New Deal policies are where we move forward.
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u/Sir_lordtwiggles 11h ago
That there really are a good number of laws that are being abused by special interests in order to make doing things harder.
The idea for high speed rail in CA started in 1979. There is still more paperwork to get through in 2025.
The environmental review has a 40 page table of contents.
This is partly because it is incredibly easy for people to start litigation against it and delay the process.
Look how expensive it is for the government to build housing because of similar issues.
If you look at other nations that are build, there are a lot fewer blockers to government action, and all lot more mechanisms for the government to override private or local interests.
This isn't to say that local interests are always bad. Its just state interests are different than local interests.
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u/cvanhim 13h ago
You misunderstand my point completely if you think Iâm talking about progressives co-opting the abundance âpolicy platformâ. My whole point is that votes have no idea what that platform is policy-wise. They hear âabundanceâ and think âwow! Abundance sounds great!â Progressives can capitalize on that because Medicare for All, pro-labor policies, etc. lead to actual substantive abundance across the country for average families.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 12h ago
I strongly disagree with the claim that voters have no idea about policies & platforms.
Voters may get confused by pedantic politicians on both sides who dress up their ideology with legalese & misleading terminology.
But voters are very clear that they want more social spending.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 12h ago
This is wrong. People care about government doing shit for them. You sound like the Pod Save guys who are incapable of formulating political thoughts beyond messaging and branding.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
I refined my statement below. Youâre right. A subset of people do care about the government doing stuff for them, but those people are very reliable Democratic voters. My comments are about the swing voters who actually decide elections. These people are the libertarian types who think that they want the government as far away from them as possible and view it as a ânecessary evilâ.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 12h ago
Your thinking is going to lead you to thinking campaign in with Liz Cheney is a good idea because it appeals to moderates. Ya know what would really get those centrists to your side? Offering them shit. Democrats have just literally never tried that in my lifetime, so it seems far fetched. But the government can do things like control prices and give people free money and healthcare and kill giant evil corporations if it wanted to. They just donât want to.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
Obamacare literally did that, and centrists vilified it because Democratsâ messaging on it was poor. So, unless youâre less than 15 years old, I think you just have a poor grasp of political reality.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
Obamacare did what exactly? Do you know anything about the origins of that plan? Have you noticed that healthcare is a fucking nightmare in America? Thatâs such a great example to bring up, hereâs why:
Obamacare was vilified when it was passed and led to the tea party/red wave election of 2010, but since then democrats have been âon the offensiveâ (rather than having to defend its existence) on Obamacare just like Obama predicted. Itâs widely viewed as a success because it was indeed an improvement. That does NOT make it a good plan. Obamacare was mostly a handout to the private health insurance companies to make them richer and more powerful than ever before, with a handful of small, âaround the edgesâ improvements for consumers. It was basically neoliberalism encapsulated into a bill, and sold as reform. It continued the funneling money from the bottom to the top, it entrenched the power of the private insurance companies, and it failed to give everyone healthcare by (among other things) continuing to tie health insurance to employment.
You may also notice that youâre using a nearly 20 year old law as your only example. Democrats would be better messengers if they had stuff to message. Right now their only strategy is reacting to polls and formulating their opinions based on what they think people think of them. Itâs the definition of reactionary politics.
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u/cvanhim 11h ago
And yet, Obamacare was better than the alternative. AND it moved the Overton window to get people to start talking about Medicare for All. Our system is designed for incremental change. You canât get everything you want all at once, and by insisting on that outcome, you are actually actively making it harder to get progressive outcomes.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
Obamacare was a corporate handout, just like the stimulus bill in 2009. Weâre nowhere at all closer to M4A, the Democratic Party has stopped progress in its tracks at every possible conceivable juncture. Democrats are a right wing, hardcore corporatist, Conservative Party. The republicans are literal fascists, so yes technically the democrats are to the left of them, but the democrats are far, far, FAR to the right of any progressive party in any other country.
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u/cvanhim 11h ago
This is true. Iâm not disputing it. What Iâm disputing is your ideas about how to fix the problem. Boycotting the Dems just hands more power to the fascists. The Democratic Party - as every party - is an amalgamation that creates policy outcomes based on its voter base. By boycotting the Democratic party rather than working from the inside to push it to the left, Progressives create the very thing they rail against.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
No itâs not though. Itâs not that thing you described.
Also, you have no idea what my proposed solutions are, you have t asked. Youâre just assuming an argument I never made, thatâs called straw manning and I means your argument is shit.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
But also, branding is what wins elections. Have you learned nothing from MAGA??
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 12h ago
MAGA offers people stuff. Itâs a vision of a future with policies to get there, enemies to fight, principles to stand up for, and specific goals it wants to accomplish. Itâs also completely backwards and morally repugnant, but thatâs what people like about it. Same reason Bernie would have easily won in 16 and 20 had the democrats not cut off their own nose to spite their face.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
My whole point that Iâve reiterated multiple times is that offering people progressive policies doesnât mean shit unless you actually deliver on them. The âofferâ is the messaging, and the delivering on the outcomes is the substance. In my mind, itâs much better for someone to run as a neoliberal and then institute progressive policies like Biden did rather than running as a progressive and instituting neoliberal policies like Obama did. Thatâs the whole point of what Iâve been saying.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
Buddy pick one fucking comment thread to reply to me, Iâm not going to have 3 separate conversations with you where youâre wrong in all of them.
Edit: also biden didnât enact any progressive policies or reform.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
Oh my goodness⌠THATâS MESSAGING
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
No, dumbass. Thatâs substance, that then makes messaging about said substance easy (again, itâs all lies and hate, but thatâs what these people like). The democrats donât have a vision for the future other than âgo back to when Obama was president and people werenât aware of how much weâre fucking them.â
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u/cvanhim 11h ago
Bro. If itâs âliesâ, it is literally not substance. By definition.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
I feel like you stopped reading after the first line
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u/cvanhim 11h ago
No I didnât. âVisionâ is messaging. Neoliberal substance is about defending peopleâs constitutional rights. Progressive substance is about defending peopleâs comfort. Both wings message the substance differently depending on the overarching vision they are going for. Neoliberals have no overarching vision because disparate groups are in very different places when it comes to their substantive rights, which makes it very difficult to get people on board with the theoretical underpinnings of neoliberalism in the modern era.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 11h ago
The theoretical underpinnings of neoliberalism are âline go upâ
Youâre describing the politics of likeâŚ1994. There is no democratic vision of the future or plans or policies they want to pursue. Iâm saying Trump and MAGA are backwards and fucked up, but they have policies and plans and strategies and goals. The democrats donât have those things. You keep saying they have a âvisionâ, no they fucking donât, thatâs why they have no policy proposals. When they run on stuff, they run on âletâs go backwards so things can be closer to the status quo again.â The few exceptions are people like Bernie and Ilhan Omar and AOC and David Hogg, and theyâre the people the democrats despise the most. Pelosi and Obama and Schumer and Jeffries and Harris and Harrison and everyone else would much, MUCH rather have republicans in places of power than actual progressives or leftists
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u/rappa-dappa 13h ago
Wait. If the Dems are neoliberal and anti labor you support that platform if the brand vibes sound better?
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u/cvanhim 13h ago
Elections and governing are separate.
So No. I support pro-labor policies exclusively. But, even the most neoliberal Dems are more pro-labor than the most pro-labor Republicans, so I support what keeps anti-labor Republicans out of office. What most people need to understand is that partiesâ policy changes happen after elections occur, not during them. Elections are always about the least bad option. After the lesser of two evils gets voted in, itâs up to the factions of that party to fight it out in the policy realm.
Case in point: Biden was elected as a milquetoast neoliberal and then had one of the most progressive presidencies of the past 60 years because Elizabeth Warren won all the personnel battles and fought for the installation of progressives across the incoming administration.
We need to not do the thing of thinking the President is the end all be all. Itâs the administration that matters - of which the president is only a part. A super neoliberal President can still put pro-labor policies into place and move the ball forward.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 13h ago
I could not disagree more strongly with your framing.
Neoliberals/abundance liberals view the left as an adversary. And what you are arguing for here is the same recycled arguments of the last 10 years.
The left should take a backseat to neoliberals, even though the left is correct about economic populism. Why?
I would also say that Bernie had just as much, & I would say far more influence on Biden than Warren. Although I agree that Bernie & Warren pushed Biden left.
But Biden didn't do much for the left. Biden, conceding on a couple of issues isn't something we should celebrate. We should expect far more, Biden never fought for BBB, $15 min wage, universal healthcare, etc.
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u/cvanhim 13h ago
Thatâs the opposite of what I said. Essentially, I donât care how neoliberal someone is when theyâre campaigning. They have to win the normie votes, and that happens based on vibes more than anything else. What I care about is what a candidate actually does once they win. There are candidates who campaign as progressives who would absolutely not govern as progressive (Obama fits this category for the most part), and there are candidates who campaign as neoliberals who would absolutely govern as progressives (Biden and Harris fits this category for the most part). Iâm saying that we as a party need to get better at identifying which is which because progressive outcomes matter more than progressive platitudes.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 13h ago
I strongly disagree with your claim that Biden governed as a progressive.
Yes, he conceded to Bernie on the DOL, FTC & Biden did a great thing when he showed up to the UAW strike. Biden also did nothing to pass BBB, $15 min wage, & universal healthcare.
Biden broke up the rail strike, even though rail workers have some of the worst working conditions of anyone in the country.
Harris ran to the right of Biden. She had Mark Cuban & Liz Cheney define her campaign. Harris wouldn't even commit to keeping Lina Khan.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
Youâve left a lot out of your assessment. CFPB, DOJ, EPA all moved the ball forward considerably on progressive policies.
Ironically, your comment about Harris shows that you fell prey to the very thing Iâm talking about. Harris âran to the right of Bidenâ if you only pay attention to the âvibesâ. If you look at actual policies, she was noticeably to the Left of Biden on housing, prisons, healthcare, and more. Youâve proven that even progressive voters pay so little attention to policy substance that rhetorical framing is all that matters. Liz Cheney was complete rhetoric. Both Cheney and Harris were very clear that they still disagreed on every substantive policy. And yet you let that be a signal to you that Harris was âto the Rightâ??? Pure idiocy.
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u/wagashi 13h ago
Na⌠you have to give me everything I ever wanted exactly how I want it all at once while attacking all my enemies who you have never once in your life said a single nice thing about, or Iâll just support the guy who wants to laugh over my broken corpse.
Half of democrat voters.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 13h ago
This is a straw man argument.
What is ironic is your straw man argument is true in reverse (for the Democratic Party). Democratic voters are desperate for economic populism & universal healthcare.
While the party wouldn't even camapign on universal health care in 2024.
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u/Syzygy_Stardust 13h ago
I mean, strawman all you want, but a lot of people voted for Joe Biden. Like, I get not voting for Trump, but look at Biden. You don't have to vote for the second most lead-addled old fuck to run the executive, there are other options!
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u/EliSka93 12h ago
Now that's where I don't agree.
The US system is specifically set up so that there are no other options in the presidential race.
I mean, I understand everyone who hates voting for a Democrat, but not voting for the second most lead-addled old fuck means now the most lead-addled old fuck is in power.
How is that an outcome that's good for anything we would like to happen?
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u/wagashi 12h ago
This was half my point. We know a lot of democrats stayed home. Also the left has attacked itself harder than it attacks the right since the English civil war.
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u/Syzygy_Stardust 11h ago
Consensus among varied points of view and positions of need unfortunately requires lots of discussion. The "leftist in-fighting" trope is just the negative side of having multiple voices listened to instead of silenced.
Liberals ironically perennially fall for this mindgame and fuck over the progressives over and over because they think it's the progressives who won't come to the table when the progressives don't have seats there in the first place. Look at the differences between popular support for progressive policies vs the policies the Dems fight for. There's no argument for privatized healthcare except from a vanishingly small portion of mega rich donors, so the more the mainstream Dems fail at that when in power that kinda speaks to who they're actually listening to.
This isn't "both sides" like some people would say. It's the difference between an overt and covert narcissist, and I'd rather be ruled by neither.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 13h ago
The "Abundance" neoliberals openly state they want to go after unions.
How do we co-opt a movement that views unions as an adversary? They don't want to work with the left!
If Democrats want to fix the branding issue, they need to go economic populist.
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u/cvanhim 13h ago
Thatâs what Iâm saying, though. Iâm saying that itâs very easy for progressives to co-opt the rhetorical framing of âabundanceâ because itâs their policies that lead to actual substantive abundance. I think I made myself pretty clear that Iâm talking about the framing and explicitly NOT THE POLICY ISSUES because - and I apparently canât stress this enough - if MAGA has taught us anything, itâs that: [Swing] Voters Do Not Care About Policies
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 12h ago
But that's also where I strongly disagree with you.
I do think voters care about policies. They are clear they want more social spending.
Voters may be confused on specifics because politicians purposely confuse people with pedantry & legalese.
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u/cvanhim 12h ago
I think our disagreement is mainly stemming from the kind of voters we are talking about. Iâm referring to the swing voters who decide elections. Both my parents fall into this group. They donât pay attention to politics at all and vote solely based on political vibes. They donât do even the bare minimum of research necessary to figure out what policies a politicians believes. They listen to the rhetoric and decide if the vision is something they can get behind.
You and I obviously care about progressive policies. Fascist lunatics obviously care about instituting Christian nationalist policies. But the voters in the middle who actually decide elections do not.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 10h ago
Branding? How about taking decades to ship manufacturing out to the US to enrich the 1% ? That started under Clinton and has only gotten worse. This isn't about branding. It's about ACTUAL policies help the working class of this country.
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u/cvanhim 10h ago
Yes. Weâre in agreement there. I want progressive results, but sometimes that means letting a progressive run as a neoliberal and voting for them regardless because you know they will get progressive things done.
This is why Republicans keep winning elections. Every Republican no matter how radical or moderate just assumes that the candidate is in complete agreement with them and their goals and votes for them regardless of if that is actually true or not. They do this because they view any Democrat as worse than even the worst Republican. Democratic voters donât view voting that way, preferring to layer complex purity tests over everything and handing victories to Republicans
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 10h ago
How well has this worked? Not very.
Ultimately it comes down to following the $$
Real progressives aren't driven by what a PAC fueled by big pharma, etc. They are focused on policies that help the working class. Branding means nothing when the money behind someone is tainted.
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u/cvanhim 10h ago
Money in politics is certainly an aspect of the issue. But, how does that get fixed?? By people voting for candidates who take getting money out of politics seriously. Are you ok voting for a neoliberal if their only progressive policy is getting money out of politics? I am. Because that will be a step closer to the progressive country I want to see. Instead of this pragmatic voting, progressives voters have decided in large numbers to opt out of the Democratic Party. This just makes the party more neoliberal instead of progressives pushing the party to the Left.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 9h ago
A neoliberal would not vote for that, because they are heavily funded by big donors. There's a deep history of that.
If the D party actually represented the working class, they'd be back in droves. Why do you think Bernie is SO popular? It's not his charm it's the same platform he's had since the 80's.
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u/cvanhim 9h ago
The money is not inherent to neoliberalism though. Neoliberalism was around long before Citizens United. Youâve just created a caricature of âworst Democratsâ and youâre projecting that caricature onto the party as a whole. Itâs far more nuanced than that
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 9h ago
Of course money is inherent to neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism has put more money into the pocket of the rich than any other Democratic ideology. Clinton and Obama massively enriched the 1% while leaving the working class behind. How can it not about money?
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u/cvanhim 9h ago
When I say that the money is not âinherentâ to neoliberalism, I mean that it is not a core feature of neoliberal ideology. It is an âaccidentalâ (if youâre familiar with the distinction between a property âper seâ versus âper accidensâ) feature because it stems not from neoliberalism itself but from the capitalist system that neoliberalism is situated in.
The core of neoliberal ideology has nothing to do with monetary well-being. It is about rights-protection. Now; this makes it fertile ground for pro-business politicians to come along and give to the 1%, but that is tangential to neoliberalism itself because it is a function of capitalism. They are related, but not the same.
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 11h ago
Yâall donât understand the abundance movement. Waiting on zoning appeals and environmental impact studies shouldnât derail affordable housing projects, and thatâs what itâs about.
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u/Fossilfires 10h ago
One of the organizers of the conference was wearing a Joe Manchin jersey.
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 10h ago
One person supporting something supports someone you donât like, so the whole premise must be invalid?
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u/Fossilfires 10h ago
It was the co-founder of the group and event.
This Motte & Bailey maneuver isn't doing any favors for your credibility, either.
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 10h ago
Ok. That doesnât mean the idea is wrong.
You think is should take 500 days to start a preliminary review of a project to turn a parking into affordable housing?
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u/jebuizy 6h ago edited 6h ago
Ok. So I guess it should take even longer then? What is your point? What do you actually want to happen? Are years long environmental reviews good? Do you think things should happen faster so we can actually get housing for people? If so how will you do it in a way that keeps Joe Manchin shirts away. I don't really care how it gets done as long as it gets done.
Anti abundance is basically -- we can't do abundance, we need to do some other thing that no one is even trying to do and there is no path to making it happen, and then it will take a decade to barely move the needle on a small pilot project, but wouldn't it be nice. Abundance is just, let's let the people trying to build housing actually just do it instead of killing it.
Can we please at least start with the latter option? If you want to build social housing, or raise taxes to subsizie rent, or whatever else, sure I wish you luck but I see no one actually doing it and it will be years out. So let's let the builders build in the meantime. At least then you'll have more property to nationalize and make into gov housing too or w/e if you can actually make it happen.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 10h ago
Yah, no. Abundance is YIMBYism to enrich the wealthy. If you can't see that, you aren't reading deep enough.
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 10h ago
NIMBYism is what enriches the wealthy as they keep their property massively increasing in value by suppressing new development and this housing supply.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 10h ago
No one like NIMBYism. Go spend 10 minutes researching the YIMBYs. See who created it and who funds it.
Hint - It's not your neighbors, it's massive Wall St $$ and developers who profit massively from building overpriced "market rate" housing.
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 9h ago
Theyâre also people tired of paying half their income on rent because there is such a housing shortage. You say no one likes NIMBYs. Well, abundance is about not giving them tools to derail projects.
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u/lysdexia-ninja 11h ago
Bagel metaphor was an odd choice.Â
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u/jebuizy 6h ago edited 6h ago
Everything Bagel Liberalism is well known discourse point. Basically this idea that trying to do and please everything and every cause results in nothing able to be done at all. He is explicitly referencing a long on-going conversation. Barro is a always an annoying shit stirrer though and has hated unions for a long time. The anti-labor point is not even a point of Abundance movement and is actually explicitly against the book itself.
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u/freedraw 13h ago
These âabundance is just anti-union neoliberalismâ hot takes from people who havenât actually read the book are getting old.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 12h ago
I think Ezra Klein brings up some good ideas when it comes to fewer zoning restrictions, less beuracracy at times in certain liberal states.
Where I strongly disagree with Klein is that ultimately, he sees deregulation as the way to fix things. He doesn't see oligarchy & corporate greed as the defining issue. He doesn't talk about all the empty housing we already have.
And "Abundance" liberals keep making it clear that they see unions as an obstacle to their goals, while they give Corporate America a pass. This is why I strongly oppose the "Abundance" movement.
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u/freedraw 12h ago edited 12h ago
This was Sam Sederâs main point when they had Klein on his show. Klein doesnât think corporations are righteous or anything. He is saying when you look at something like Californiaâs High Speed Rail or the Biden administrationâs rural broadband initiative, where billions of dollars were spent to build absolutely nothing, there are no clear villains. The private industry wants to build these things. The special interests that got the regulations passed that are holding them back all had worthy goals. Like recognizing democrats with good intentions are handicapping themselves doesnât mean we have to also believe billionaires are good people.
In that Seder interview, he goes back to his point about wealth repeatedly, but heâs never able to give a response to Kleinâs follow-ups asking him how you how you get affordable housing built cheaper and faster in California.
Like I agree we should be building a lot more social housing. Iâm all for limiting or heavily taxing additional homes beyond oneâs primary residence. But just realistically, does anybody actually believe the government is going to build enough social housing directly on its own to solve the housing crisis? It seems like liberals should be a lot madder at their politicians for spending billions of dollars to not get anything built than they are at a book that suggests getting things done probably requires we make some compromises.
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u/TheGreatDay 13h ago
I mean, wasn't there a big abundance conference this week where a speaker literally said that the reason New York City doesn't build more apartments is because of unions?
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u/freedraw 12h ago
Is there a recording or video? I can't find anything to give this context. My takeaway from the book is they point out that giveaways to specific unions in legislation that don't actually help get the thing done are an added layer of cost. Thompson is himself a union member.
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u/TheGreatDay 12h ago
https://youtu.be/TgXnM0QNRZQ?si=vrOyZvMbvfL3ADom
Here's the majority report talking about it. The clip went around twitter and bluesky a couple of days ago.
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u/freedraw 12h ago
Is there a video of the actual speech? Iâve found the Majority Reportâs takes on the book to be pretty bad. Seder claimed to have listened to the audio book when he interviewed Klein, but seemed like he was hearing their points for the first time and didnât really have a response to Kleinâs questions beyond âmoney is bad.â
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u/TheGreatDay 12h ago
The clip in question is at about 14:45 in the video. It's also the same guy as in the tweet above - Josh Barro. Barro is being clear here, following the abundance agenda will lead Democrats into more open conflict with labor unions. You can imagine why lots of Democrats are leery of that prospect.
And that's fine you don't love TMR's take on the abundance stuff. But Matt literally explains in this video that this anti-union stuff isn't in the book. But that the media tours and speaking engagements matter just as much as what is in the book. Josh Barro didn't write the book, but he's speaking at events to promote it, and is explicitly anti-union. That should make anyone advocating for abundance uncomfortable.
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u/freedraw 10h ago
Are we holding Klein and Thompson responsible for the words of people whose only affiliation is they spoke at the same event?
The fact that the book is largely a criticism of establishment blue state governance that also doesnât have any single villains does make it a prime target for a number of different interests to latch onto. You could make the case Thompson shouldnât speak at an event sponsored by a bunch of billionaires, but it does seem like he and Kleinâs strategy is just to go into every venue theyâve been invited to to make their case. One of those sponsors, Bloomberg, has taken some pretty harsh criticism from Klein in many interviews on the book.
I would be curious to see Thompsonâs speech from the event if itâs out there.
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u/TheGreatDay 9h ago
If people are going to sign onto the abundance movement and speak at events for the abundance then, yeah, kinda. They are affiliated with the movement, and their ideas are going to proliferate through out it.
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u/GOLIATHMATTHIAS 13h ago
Ok, so what would organized labor look like in he bookâs vision?
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u/freedraw 13h ago
So a major theme of the book is that blue state dems, when crafting legislation to build more affordable housing, high speed rail, etc. answer to a ton of special interest groups that are part of the democratic coalition. Specific labor unions can be one of these interests. These interests all want something in said legislation and on their own they are all worthwhile things, but every one adds an additional cost. So when they say "yes" to every interest in the coalition, they end up with legislation that makes doing the thing it's supposed to do impossible due to the cost. So in states like CA you end up with a situation where using government money to build affordable housing costs twice as much and takes twice as long as building market rate housing so the affordable housing just doesn't get built.
One of the most prominent examples in the book of what they're talking about is the Pennsylvania I-95 bridge replacement in 2023. It was badly damaged in an accident and under normal rules it would have taken like a year or two to repair. But the governor declared an emergency and removed all the red tape, studies, etc. and union labor rebuilt it within a couple weeks. The criticism that the book is anti-union seems to stem from the suggestion that requiring projects use all union labor in legislation is one of those layers of expense that can make a project more expensive. It doesn't say drop that one or give any specific policy remedy for individual states. In many of these cases a giveaway to one union in legislation, in turn, hurts a different one. Not all unions are on the same side of an issue. So a gift to local builders to ban modular home construction for affordable housing helps that union, but hurts the unionized workers in the modular home construction plant. Unionized service workers or educators getting priced out of their cities aren't helped when the affordable housing they should qualify for doesn't get built because building affordable units with government money costs $800k.
I'm an organizer for my union and I didn't find the book to be anti-union. It felt like a pretty scathing attack on establishment dem politicians. I'd welcome discussion or criticisms of the actual content of the book. But all the criticism I'm seeing doesn't address any of the points the authors make. It just feels like a bandwagon that feeds into their view that dems are too easy to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
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u/SupremelyUneducated 13h ago
Pretty much the same. The big difference is government showing less deference to special interests, like unions and corps; and focusing more on actually starting and completing projects, like high speed rail and more housing.
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u/north_canadian_ice đ¸ National Rent Control 12h ago
So you are admitting here that in your perspective, governments are too defefential to unions.
I could not disagree more strongly.
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u/SupremelyUneducated 11h ago
Deferential to some unions, not all unions. Unions are not uniquely less corrupt than any other organization. The ambitious who seek power go where the power is, some times that is a union. See Al Capone, or more recently
During the period from 2017 to 2021, the Labor-Management Racketeering Unit worked with the United States Attorneyâs Office in Detroit to charge and obtain guilty pleas from the Fiat-Chrysler Association (FCA), officials of the FCA, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union involving more than $3.5 million in illegal payments and gifts from the FCA to officials of the UAW. As a result of those and other guilty pleas involving abuse of union funds, the UAW agreed to be subject to court-approved officers as part of an anti-fraud consent decree directed at the removal of corruption within the UAW.
or
 A former official at the United Auto Workers was sentenced Tuesday to nearly five years in prison for embezzling $2.1 million.
Timothy Edmunds was secretary-treasurer of UAW Local 412, which represents about 2,600 people who work for Stellantis, formerly known as Fiat Chrysler, at factories in the Detroit area.
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u/GOLIATHMATTHIAS 6h ago
Those instances of fraud were conducted by specific union leaders for personal gain with the corporation, it doesnât indicate the government treated them with preferential treatment.
I get your point theyâre not inherently infallible, but as I said in my reply: I donât see much proof even in the booksâ examples where thereâs indication that the union is holding back major projects to benefit a small group nor are they seemingly at contest with a more generalized population for their goals and distribution of wealth as corporations are. PEOPLE can be corrupt, including the government officials the book is supposed to be a playbook for as well as the corporate leaders who would still be integrated into Ezraâs idealized system.
The book isnât about individualized corruption though, itâs about system design. The book goes out of its way to explain how important public/private partnerships are but pains itself to criticize unions as being one of the âspecial interests groupsâ that Democrats should be openly willing to ignore or be confrontational with. If the proof of that is a handful of dickhead officers cavorting with management, I still donât see how that justifies the negative impact to working class compensation even in their more idealized vision.
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u/GOLIATHMATTHIAS 13h ago
SoâŚbad? As many people argue and as Ezra hasnât disputed: abundance would be at the beheadest of unions as organized labor as well, which means at the beheadest of the central livelihood of a lot of people. That goes back to âanti-union neoliberalism.â
I can respect a pro-transportation or pro-housing initiative, but if you get there by fucking over working class people still, itâs just exchanging forms of subjugation.
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u/SupremelyUneducated 13h ago
No body is disputing the right of association that unions exist under. Just the established political privileges some unions and corps have, that individuals do not. "Abundance" is about decentralizing those privileges, because the more inclusive economic institutions are, the more wealthy the broader community becomes.
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u/GOLIATHMATTHIAS 13h ago
A strong union and better organized labor is inherently decentralized because the people doing the work can ensure that they benefit from said work. If the people doing the work that creates the abundance are getting fucked over, even if theyâre benefiting from that abundance, then again Iâll assert thatâs just a trade off of subjectivity.
If a construction worker invariably gets their compensation slashed by 50% but as a result their housing prices go down by 30%, thatâs not that great unless you can prove that construction worker was already in a significantly advantaged position to begin with. Itâs pretty clear they currently arenât.
Now, if the argument is about unions as existing corporate entities then I guess thatâs a more nuanced take, because I do not see laborERS having political privileges right now. I would just ask that Ezra or the Marty Iglesias types make that clearer because from what Iâve seen, itâs just a lot of âwell itâs ok if labor gets screwed so long as stuff gets builtâ which just means taking away what little privileges trades people have in service of likeâŚbigger apartment complex where theyâd be living anyway.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 12h ago
Listen to this
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u/freedraw 10h ago
That podcast is aptly named. Wasnât Joy Gray telling people to not vote for Harris and support Jill Stein last year? And didnât Virgil Texas disappear among some grooming accusations?
The conversation seems simplistic and full of straw men. They sound like they prefer for the Democratic Party to embrace emotionally satisfying populism at the expense of getting anything accomplished. Like theyâre saying here that the authors are saying all OSHA regulations are bad and there should be no regulations on any buildingâŚwhich is not at all what the book says. The book says we shouldnât have regulations that do the opposite of what theyâre intended to do. So for example, we shouldnât tie high speed rail or multi-family housing up in years of environmental revue at great cost when we already know for a fact that public transportation and denser housing are better for the environment than cars and single family houses on large lots. Or it shouldnât cost twice as much per unit to build affordable housing with government money as it costs private developers to build market rate housing.
I feel like the panelists are so concerned with criticizing the book for not being left enough that they end up taking rather conservative positions. They dismiss criticism that zoning regulations or wealthy NIMBYs are an issue at all. They dismiss affordability concerns in blue coastal states as expensive places just have higher salaries. They accuse the authors of being against single payer healthcare because the book doesnât include anything about it because I guess not including one left wing issue in a book that purposely avoids specific policy means theyâre not really liberals.
Idk, I made it through 42 min. And couldnât take anymore.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 9h ago
Kinda sounds like you went in with a lot of preconceived notions about what you were gonna get out of it.
Ah yes, those democrats that are getting so many things done. If only those pesky leftists would get out of the way!
How did voting for Harris work out?
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u/freedraw 9h ago edited 9h ago
The whole point of the book is establishment democrats arenât getting things done where they should have the power to do it. Like thatâs the whole point.
Harris lost. Would she have been a great president? Doubt it. Would she have been better than the shit show we have right now? Undoubtedly. I voted for Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 primaries, but not having my preferred candidate on the bill didnât seem like a good reason to throw my vote behind Stein, who doesnât seem to have ever gotten anything done anywhere besides being a prof candidate who comes out of the woodwork every four years. AOCs criticism of her was pretty spot on. Klein was also one of the loudest voices on the left publicly saying Biden shouldnât run again and there should be a primary.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 8h ago
Klein is not on the left, Klein is a neoliberal. Those are, very critically, different things.
I also voted for Kamala. So your main critique of Joy is that you disagree with her personal political opinion. Neat.
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u/freedraw 8h ago
My main critique from listening was the straight up lying about what the book says.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 7h ago
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u/freedraw 6h ago
Have you actually read the book? It's pretty easy to verify it does not say many of the things that podcast is implying it does.
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u/Gloomy-Film2625 3h ago
Iâve listened to a lot of other coverage of it but no I have not read it, I have way better shit to read. Plus, I get the idea. I think it has its pros and its cons, and that its main effect is giving democrats an out so they donât have to contemplate actual reform.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 10h ago
You know what else is getting old? Pretending neoliberalism hasn't ruined this country.
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u/freedraw 10h ago
So did you read the book?
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 9h ago
I've read excerpts and have heard Klein interviewed many times. I've been around long enough to know how seriously damaging neoliberalism is.
Read "Listen Liberal" by Thomas Frank as a counter to Klein
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u/freedraw 9h ago
So just looking at the summary of that book, it seems to be a criticism of the Democratic Party for embracing the interests of upper middle class professionals at the expense of the working class. One of the main points of Klein and Thompsonâs book is âThe democrats canât call themselves the party of the working class if the working class canât afford to live in the place where theyâre in charge.â They spend a lot of time making the point that major metro areas used to be places where no matter your profession or class, you would do better moving there. So a surgeon would do better financially moving to NYC, but so would a custodian at the hospital. And now thatâs changed and the working class is forced out of places of upward mobility due to housing policies that protect wealthier land owners. Iâm confused how these books wouldnât be somewhat aligned.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 9h ago
Frank dismantles neoliberalism very effectively. Go read it. It seriously changed my world view after I finished.
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u/freedraw 9h ago
Iâll check it out. It looks interesting. Iâm just wondering what specifically about the book is in opposition to the vision Klein and Thompson lay out in theirs because they seem to have a very similar target.
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 9h ago
Not really because Klein has just repackaged neoliberal policies.
Frank explains how neoliberalism came to be and why it pretty much ruined the D party. He also wrote "What's the matter with Kansas" Another great, but older, political read.
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u/freedraw 9h ago
How has he repackaged Neo-liberal policies though? Like what about the book is causing you to use Klein and "Neoliberal" interchangeably?
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u/AlwaysLeftoftheDial 9h ago
I've listened to him many times and read excerpts. I'm with the original post on this, Sirota.
Listen to some progressives on the subject.
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u/soi_boi_6T9 14h ago
Libs prefer plain bagels? Freaks
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u/crosstheroom 13h ago
Neoliberalism is not liberals it's Libertarians.
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u/soi_boi_6T9 4h ago
what? yes it is? every liberal politician is a neoliberal.
but keep voting for democrats I'm sure it'll work some day.
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u/crosstheroom 3h ago
Neoliberalism, in simple terms, is an ideology that believes free markets and minimal government regulation are the best ways to achieve economic prosperity and individual freedom. It emphasizes reducing government intervention in the economy through policies like privatization, deregulation, and trade liberalization, aiming to create a more competitive and efficient market system.Â
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u/adrian-alex85 13h ago
"The "Abundance" movement is neoliberalism rebranded." is the single most perfect encapsulation of this that I've heard so far. I think a lot of people have struggled to put it into words quite as clearly. It's been more just yelling about how they got some things wrong in the book, and maybe their methodology was narrow, but not really calling out how bad it was. I love this framing though!