A lot of the 'abundance' discourse seems to be really trying to do that watery centrist blogger thing of not actually having any sort of politics at all. The sort of ephemerality of 'we should have things....somehow' that you note is a feature that enables them to sell books to the 'socially liberal, fiscally conservative' PMC set but doesn't really indicate who should be doing what.
There's a version of abundance that's basically 'all that New Deal infrastructure stuff seemed to work great, let's do that again' and, hell yeah. But that would entail doing the New Deal tax, regulatory, and financial stuff that had kleptocrats in the '30s planning literal coups, and again, if that's the plan is, hell yeah. But if that's the war you're prepared to fight, you need to come out and say it so people know to show up. But it's been a couple months and 'abundance' has already been completely assimilated by the usual suspects assuring you that if you just leave their giant pile of cash dressed as a picture-sharing website or a taxi service or whatever alone they'll invent a Santa Claus machine for the good of all mankind.
Which, surely we can just come out and say at this point, they won't.
When it gets reduced to that summary, most people except folks coming from really straightjacketed foundational ideological postures of some kind say, "Sure, yes: we need government to mobilize solutions, there is capacity to produce 'abundance' that is going vastly underutilized in normal market-driven systems, and that regulatory power is NOT how governments should mobilize and coordinate the expansion of capacity." It's very commonsensical.
The problem is first what you describe--it's like effective altruism, every vapid 'thought-leader' is diving into the pool headfirst, which effectively empties all the water out of it. But second it's that the originating text underimagines two key things: 1) why is there slack or capacity that is going underutilized and 2) historically, why has government 'gotten in the way' of its coordinating potential so much? The most important part of that underimagination is that they simply do not imagine that abundance as they describe it has enemies, that abundance is not in the interest of a lot of deeply emplaced institutions, many of which are not government as such, and also that there are people and institutions that are morally, intellectually, psychologically, invested in the production and maintenance of scarcity.
So the authors of Abundance walk into a familiar kill shoot here--they have a good idea! Everybody should like this good idea! It's obviously good! It's technically possible, it's turnkey-ready, let's go! And they don't imagine it as a political project that needs to mobilize supporters and needs to prepare for a fight against its enemies. And I just don't see the point of stirring ourselves up to embrace a nice-sounding idea that the primary proponents can't understand in those terms. Either they don't understand what's necessary or they don't care because they're just trying to sell a book and get a lot of invitations to speak at high rates of pay at the venues that have the money to pay for trendy conventional wisdom as the keynote.
If we're taking the position that words ought to have meanings, then I am obliged to balk at the use of "syncretic" here. Syncretism ought to mean the conjoining of two or more disparate religions, belief systems, or doctrines into a *coherent* whole. But the point of this post seems to be that "Abundance" is just a bag of random stuff with the word "Abundance" stamped on it. If we're being charitable, that is perhaps eclectic; but syncretic it ain't.
"Abundance" strikes me as old fashioned: the problem is the government and don't ask for anything from the billionaires or large corporations, so it takes a solid, obvious, if tired and demonstrably ineffective, political stance.
It fails to address the big problems which is that the government needs to raise taxes on the wealthy and powerful - good luck with that - and it needs to attack the monopolistic business structure that has eliminated competitive markets.
It would be nice if the government made it easier to build housing or perhaps built housing on its own, but there's nothing about addressing the control of housing construction by our centralized banking system preferentially providing credit to a limited number of large scale home builders. It ignores the financial sector's control of housing supply with its coordinated pricing and willingness to keep homes off the market to artificially limit supply.
The proposals offered as part of the abundance agenda seem to ignore the big problems and focus on attacking government. When they talk about increasing government capabilities, they ignore the issue of low tax rates on large profitable corporations and wealthy individuals.
There's no mention of the stagnant wage and distribution problems. Even as per capita GDP has doubled, the share an hour's work gets one has halved. We may already have abundance, but it hasn't trickled down to those working for a living. Just building new houses isn't going to provide more housing if prices are under oligopoly control and people can't afford to rent or buy.
I'm sure there are people talking about abundance who are addressing these problems, but the loud voices, the one's that resonate are the ones pushing the old neoliberal government is the problem agenda. Their solutions, such as they are, are rehashes of the tired neoliberal agenda. It's no surprise there's whole chorus there. Those folks are well paid.
I've had a post stuck in drafts for a while trying to sort through my own sense of what abundance means and on what terms it might succeed and I've been really having a tough time trying to figure out how to give it a clear shape, and this post is clarifying for why it's been a pain.
“The Abundance movement does not appear to be making any choices whatsoever. That’s the fast track to irrelevance.“
Fuck. Yes. At some point, choices (often tough ones) need to be made, and actions that try and fix problems need to be taken, otherwise, people are just going to move on. That being said, I do wish some current organizations would make the final choice to “fast track themselves into irrelevance.”
…i mean let’s be real and call abundance what it is…propoganda to disguise the replacement culture ai and robotics are building…no one will be able to afford a robot butler…i can barely buy a good sandwich anymore without giving blood…i’m sick of these a-holes using a-words like a-gency and a-bundance when they should all be chanting instead “i drank your milkshake”…that might get all the boys to the yard…and comitted to their a-genda…
If the ideas are used, they will have to be called something else, I guess. One idea that I was not sure about with Harris was that people should be able to buy a home. Owning a home involves not only high initial costs but also ongoing maintenance expenses. And do we have room for everyone to own a home? I think a more effective solution would be to build more multi-family buildings, as they often offer lower rental costs than single-family homes and eliminate the need for large down payments and extensive home maintenance. Perhaps we could also consider a two or three-tier pricing system for buildings. One building (tier) with fewer bells and whistles, with rent being less, the next building (tier) slightly more, with more bells and whistles. Rent is high in California, and while wages are generally higher than in other areas, many people still struggle with low incomes, making it difficult to afford housing. What's the point of building more homes if the very people who need housing are struggling to find a place to live?
A lot of the 'abundance' discourse seems to be really trying to do that watery centrist blogger thing of not actually having any sort of politics at all. The sort of ephemerality of 'we should have things....somehow' that you note is a feature that enables them to sell books to the 'socially liberal, fiscally conservative' PMC set but doesn't really indicate who should be doing what.
There's a version of abundance that's basically 'all that New Deal infrastructure stuff seemed to work great, let's do that again' and, hell yeah. But that would entail doing the New Deal tax, regulatory, and financial stuff that had kleptocrats in the '30s planning literal coups, and again, if that's the plan is, hell yeah. But if that's the war you're prepared to fight, you need to come out and say it so people know to show up. But it's been a couple months and 'abundance' has already been completely assimilated by the usual suspects assuring you that if you just leave their giant pile of cash dressed as a picture-sharing website or a taxi service or whatever alone they'll invent a Santa Claus machine for the good of all mankind.
Which, surely we can just come out and say at this point, they won't.
This! Oh my goodness! This! Best comment I've read in years!
When it gets reduced to that summary, most people except folks coming from really straightjacketed foundational ideological postures of some kind say, "Sure, yes: we need government to mobilize solutions, there is capacity to produce 'abundance' that is going vastly underutilized in normal market-driven systems, and that regulatory power is NOT how governments should mobilize and coordinate the expansion of capacity." It's very commonsensical.
The problem is first what you describe--it's like effective altruism, every vapid 'thought-leader' is diving into the pool headfirst, which effectively empties all the water out of it. But second it's that the originating text underimagines two key things: 1) why is there slack or capacity that is going underutilized and 2) historically, why has government 'gotten in the way' of its coordinating potential so much? The most important part of that underimagination is that they simply do not imagine that abundance as they describe it has enemies, that abundance is not in the interest of a lot of deeply emplaced institutions, many of which are not government as such, and also that there are people and institutions that are morally, intellectually, psychologically, invested in the production and maintenance of scarcity.
So the authors of Abundance walk into a familiar kill shoot here--they have a good idea! Everybody should like this good idea! It's obviously good! It's technically possible, it's turnkey-ready, let's go! And they don't imagine it as a political project that needs to mobilize supporters and needs to prepare for a fight against its enemies. And I just don't see the point of stirring ourselves up to embrace a nice-sounding idea that the primary proponents can't understand in those terms. Either they don't understand what's necessary or they don't care because they're just trying to sell a book and get a lot of invitations to speak at high rates of pay at the venues that have the money to pay for trendy conventional wisdom as the keynote.
If we're taking the position that words ought to have meanings, then I am obliged to balk at the use of "syncretic" here. Syncretism ought to mean the conjoining of two or more disparate religions, belief systems, or doctrines into a *coherent* whole. But the point of this post seems to be that "Abundance" is just a bag of random stuff with the word "Abundance" stamped on it. If we're being charitable, that is perhaps eclectic; but syncretic it ain't.
"Abundance" strikes me as old fashioned: the problem is the government and don't ask for anything from the billionaires or large corporations, so it takes a solid, obvious, if tired and demonstrably ineffective, political stance.
It fails to address the big problems which is that the government needs to raise taxes on the wealthy and powerful - good luck with that - and it needs to attack the monopolistic business structure that has eliminated competitive markets.
It would be nice if the government made it easier to build housing or perhaps built housing on its own, but there's nothing about addressing the control of housing construction by our centralized banking system preferentially providing credit to a limited number of large scale home builders. It ignores the financial sector's control of housing supply with its coordinated pricing and willingness to keep homes off the market to artificially limit supply.
The proposals offered as part of the abundance agenda seem to ignore the big problems and focus on attacking government. When they talk about increasing government capabilities, they ignore the issue of low tax rates on large profitable corporations and wealthy individuals.
There's no mention of the stagnant wage and distribution problems. Even as per capita GDP has doubled, the share an hour's work gets one has halved. We may already have abundance, but it hasn't trickled down to those working for a living. Just building new houses isn't going to provide more housing if prices are under oligopoly control and people can't afford to rent or buy.
I'm sure there are people talking about abundance who are addressing these problems, but the loud voices, the one's that resonate are the ones pushing the old neoliberal government is the problem agenda. Their solutions, such as they are, are rehashes of the tired neoliberal agenda. It's no surprise there's whole chorus there. Those folks are well paid.
I've had a post stuck in drafts for a while trying to sort through my own sense of what abundance means and on what terms it might succeed and I've been really having a tough time trying to figure out how to give it a clear shape, and this post is clarifying for why it's been a pain.
Compare also with the idea of abundance in:
- Kimmerer, Robin Wall. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Scribner, 2024.
and contrast with that in:
- Joy, Bill. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Wired, vol. 8, no. 4, 1 Apr. 2000. www.wired.com, https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/.
- Lanier, Jaron. Who Owns the Future? Simon & Schuster, 2013.
“The Abundance movement does not appear to be making any choices whatsoever. That’s the fast track to irrelevance.“
Fuck. Yes. At some point, choices (often tough ones) need to be made, and actions that try and fix problems need to be taken, otherwise, people are just going to move on. That being said, I do wish some current organizations would make the final choice to “fast track themselves into irrelevance.”
…i mean let’s be real and call abundance what it is…propoganda to disguise the replacement culture ai and robotics are building…no one will be able to afford a robot butler…i can barely buy a good sandwich anymore without giving blood…i’m sick of these a-holes using a-words like a-gency and a-bundance when they should all be chanting instead “i drank your milkshake”…that might get all the boys to the yard…and comitted to their a-genda…
If the ideas are used, they will have to be called something else, I guess. One idea that I was not sure about with Harris was that people should be able to buy a home. Owning a home involves not only high initial costs but also ongoing maintenance expenses. And do we have room for everyone to own a home? I think a more effective solution would be to build more multi-family buildings, as they often offer lower rental costs than single-family homes and eliminate the need for large down payments and extensive home maintenance. Perhaps we could also consider a two or three-tier pricing system for buildings. One building (tier) with fewer bells and whistles, with rent being less, the next building (tier) slightly more, with more bells and whistles. Rent is high in California, and while wages are generally higher than in other areas, many people still struggle with low incomes, making it difficult to afford housing. What's the point of building more homes if the very people who need housing are struggling to find a place to live?