Richard, you have followed this more the me. Of the parts of the abundance project that are likely to work and actually bring abundance, are there interesting ideas that are not what any libertarian would tell you to do? (For instance, clinging to unions won't help, and libertarians and Klein & Thompson presumably part ways there.) I'm honestly curious. And either way, I am delighted this movement exists!
Idk about this author but the Niskanen center in general had a big influence on these ideas, and my understanding is that it’s basically a post-libertarian space. So in a way, you could say abundance is exactly those ideas a libertarian wouldn’t tell you about, but should probably hear lol
My take is that the Abundance movement is saying many of the same things that libertarians and more economics-focused conservatives have been saying for decades. The key differences are:
1) The Abundance movement is very careful not to say anything that is right-coded to avoid being attacked by the Center-Left ( they are going to be attacked by the rest of Left regardless).
2) There is more a focus on housing, urban transit construction and Green energy.
3) They focus on deregulating the public sector, rather than the public sector (I.e. building state capacity).
4) It is being done at a time when Democrats are starting to realize that their policies and argumentation are in dire need of a serious rethink.
5) Probably most important, it is being pushed by people with lots of credibility and name recognition from college-educated Democrats, so the party and its followers need to take them seriously.
I'm not sure #3 is true. Most abundance takes I've seen (to your point #1) are a BOTH approach. Especially with regards to housing: make it easy for private developers to build, make it easy for state subsidized building or non-profit builders to build. And if you are going to have regulations (limited to things like safety/code inspections, they need to be done competently, and in an efficient, timely manner. That doesn't strike me as being against improving state capacity.
I am not sure who you are referring to by “most abundance takes I’ve seen.” I am referring directly to the book itself.
The Abundance book specifically states that “Abundance is about the state building things” and they are very careful to distance themselves from conservative-style regulation.
I agree with you they contradict themselves when they discuss housing. The book specifically rejects public housing and calls for deregulation, but I think that is an exception to the rule.
Right, the movement is good because people Ds trust are pushing it and describing it in non-offensive words. Very good! Progress is good! But if you're a pure intellectual and just care about the arguments, there's nothing that would shock a moderate libertarian.
Abundance and libertarianism may have similar policies, but they seek different end goals. Libertarianism traditionally views government regulation as not just inefficient, but also an infringement of a fundamental right to autonomy, or economic liberty. It’s in the name! Abundance in contrast retains the liberal moral view of government intervention as a valid tool to promote opportunity and social justice, and just wants to deal with cases where interventions turn out to be counterproductive.
Perhaps the latter is similar to how moderate libertarians have always thought. But I think it’s reasonable for the abundance people to want to avoid the term “libertarianism” and its associations.
I think some of the arguments for stripping back laws that constrain the state to create state capacity are not libertarian, but the movement is quasi libertarian as a whole (or more: classically liberal).
There is nothing wrong with pointing out that X—which is being presented in new terminology as some new idea—is really just old familiar Y (or is very, very similar to Y, or is a corollary of the same principle that also underlies Y). Having thought long and hard about Y, we can simply transfer the results of that thinking to X.
Certainly true, but let's also note that there's lots of opportunity to do guilt-by-association stuff here and cram it into "X is like Y." If Y is ten ideas, seven of them good and three of them very bad, and if X is the seven good ideas and none of the bad ideas, it's easy to say that Y is overall bad, that X is overall good, and that X is still factually like Y in a lot of ways.
> the 2020 presidential primary, when there was a huge gap between the most prominent voices on Twitter and those of the actual Democratic base. The ultimate result was the rejection of various more “online” and left-wing candidates for the stodgy and more centrist Joe Biden
Except I also wrote a detailed followup explaining why that is not a good comparison, and showed that there is overwhelming evidence that the crazy people are in fact in control of conservatism and will remain so.
I really love 7) it is baffling and scary how often you find people in politics who are mad and also ordinary people who can't spot obvious signs that someone is mad.
P.S. Unfortunately I was in the audience for a speech by Aseem Malhotra a few days ago
Utah should be a cautionary tale for the Abundance movement, not an inspiration. Housing deregulation in Utah has lead to mass building of homes literally right on the Wasatch Fault. When the next major earthquake happens on the fault line (and it inevitably will) thousands or even tens of thousands of Utahns will die. Housing scarcity is terrible but fixing that scarcity through reckless building in natural disaster-prone areas that were previously hard to build in for a good reason is even worse.
To be a credible movement long-term Abundance needs to better differentiate between the zoning rules and housing regulations that exist for legitimate safety reasons and rules that stem from obnoxious NIMBYism. The deregulation process needs to follow a surgical approach, not a "cut all of the regulations first and ask questions later one". Keep the first category of regulations but eliminate the second.
Richard, you have followed this more the me. Of the parts of the abundance project that are likely to work and actually bring abundance, are there interesting ideas that are not what any libertarian would tell you to do? (For instance, clinging to unions won't help, and libertarians and Klein & Thompson presumably part ways there.) I'm honestly curious. And either way, I am delighted this movement exists!
Idk about this author but the Niskanen center in general had a big influence on these ideas, and my understanding is that it’s basically a post-libertarian space. So in a way, you could say abundance is exactly those ideas a libertarian wouldn’t tell you about, but should probably hear lol
My take is that the Abundance movement is saying many of the same things that libertarians and more economics-focused conservatives have been saying for decades. The key differences are:
1) The Abundance movement is very careful not to say anything that is right-coded to avoid being attacked by the Center-Left ( they are going to be attacked by the rest of Left regardless).
2) There is more a focus on housing, urban transit construction and Green energy.
3) They focus on deregulating the public sector, rather than the public sector (I.e. building state capacity).
4) It is being done at a time when Democrats are starting to realize that their policies and argumentation are in dire need of a serious rethink.
5) Probably most important, it is being pushed by people with lots of credibility and name recognition from college-educated Democrats, so the party and its followers need to take them seriously.
I'm not sure #3 is true. Most abundance takes I've seen (to your point #1) are a BOTH approach. Especially with regards to housing: make it easy for private developers to build, make it easy for state subsidized building or non-profit builders to build. And if you are going to have regulations (limited to things like safety/code inspections, they need to be done competently, and in an efficient, timely manner. That doesn't strike me as being against improving state capacity.
I am not sure who you are referring to by “most abundance takes I’ve seen.” I am referring directly to the book itself.
The Abundance book specifically states that “Abundance is about the state building things” and they are very careful to distance themselves from conservative-style regulation.
I agree with you they contradict themselves when they discuss housing. The book specifically rejects public housing and calls for deregulation, but I think that is an exception to the rule.
I write more here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/can-the-democrats-embrace-abundance
Right, the movement is good because people Ds trust are pushing it and describing it in non-offensive words. Very good! Progress is good! But if you're a pure intellectual and just care about the arguments, there's nothing that would shock a moderate libertarian.
Abundance and libertarianism may have similar policies, but they seek different end goals. Libertarianism traditionally views government regulation as not just inefficient, but also an infringement of a fundamental right to autonomy, or economic liberty. It’s in the name! Abundance in contrast retains the liberal moral view of government intervention as a valid tool to promote opportunity and social justice, and just wants to deal with cases where interventions turn out to be counterproductive.
Perhaps the latter is similar to how moderate libertarians have always thought. But I think it’s reasonable for the abundance people to want to avoid the term “libertarianism” and its associations.
I think some of the arguments for stripping back laws that constrain the state to create state capacity are not libertarian, but the movement is quasi libertarian as a whole (or more: classically liberal).
Agreed.
I think he's more pro-carceralist than the average libertarian.
There is nothing wrong with pointing out that X—which is being presented in new terminology as some new idea—is really just old familiar Y (or is very, very similar to Y, or is a corollary of the same principle that also underlies Y). Having thought long and hard about Y, we can simply transfer the results of that thinking to X.
Certainly true, but let's also note that there's lots of opportunity to do guilt-by-association stuff here and cram it into "X is like Y." If Y is ten ideas, seven of them good and three of them very bad, and if X is the seven good ideas and none of the bad ideas, it's easy to say that Y is overall bad, that X is overall good, and that X is still factually like Y in a lot of ways.
> From Twitter and right-wing media, you would think that everyone on the right is a MAGA drone, conspiracy theorist, or Groyper.
A reason to spend less time on Twitter.
On that subject, Nate Silver wrote the following at https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-is-blueskyism
> the 2020 presidential primary, when there was a huge gap between the most prominent voices on Twitter and those of the actual Democratic base. The ultimate result was the rejection of various more “online” and left-wing candidates for the stodgy and more centrist Joe Biden
A reason not to believe they will be decisive in an upcoming presidential primary, as you speculated at https://www.richardhanania.com/p/can-a-bannon-groyper-alliance-derail
Except I also wrote a detailed followup explaining why that is not a good comparison, and showed that there is overwhelming evidence that the crazy people are in fact in control of conservatism and will remain so.
This? https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-republican-normies-will-bend It's paywalled, so I haven't read the details.
Your Mate Selection Theory of Feminization post, on the other hand, wasn't paywalled, so I was able to able to investigate whether its assumptions held up via the General Social Survey https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/men-who-identify-as-feminist-are-more-rather-than-less-likely-to-say-they-have-cheated-on-their-spouse/
I really love 7) it is baffling and scary how often you find people in politics who are mad and also ordinary people who can't spot obvious signs that someone is mad.
P.S. Unfortunately I was in the audience for a speech by Aseem Malhotra a few days ago
Utah should be a cautionary tale for the Abundance movement, not an inspiration. Housing deregulation in Utah has lead to mass building of homes literally right on the Wasatch Fault. When the next major earthquake happens on the fault line (and it inevitably will) thousands or even tens of thousands of Utahns will die. Housing scarcity is terrible but fixing that scarcity through reckless building in natural disaster-prone areas that were previously hard to build in for a good reason is even worse.
To be a credible movement long-term Abundance needs to better differentiate between the zoning rules and housing regulations that exist for legitimate safety reasons and rules that stem from obnoxious NIMBYism. The deregulation process needs to follow a surgical approach, not a "cut all of the regulations first and ask questions later one". Keep the first category of regulations but eliminate the second.
Interesting observations.
“Heroes and villains.” shoutout Beach Boys