Don’t make abundance the moderate omnicause

Abundance is an ideology, not a centrist buzzword

Illustration by Jerusalem Demsas/The Argument

Ever since Abundance dropped, half of the chattering classes have made it their mission to slot the book, its authors, and the entire movement into the familiar battle between the left and center of the Democratic Party. This effort seems to be some combination of willful misreading and tactical infighting. Whatever the reason, it misunderstands abundance and it threatens the entire project.

Abundance is a pro-growth, small-d democratic movement seeking to rip apart the corrupting processes and cultures — particularly in local government — that have stifled housing production, energy production, and good governance. In their stead, abundance seeks to create a strong but limited government where power is concentrated in the hands of democratically elected executive officials like governors and mayors.

Abundance does not need to be a lockstep movement in which every single group or thinker subscribes to the same menu of ideas (very few coalitions are). But it would be a pity if it got watered down into a sort of umbrella term used by vaguely pro-business centrists who want a new slogan but don’t want to grapple with the larger, radical vision for remaking our economy, democracy, and political culture.

If it is to succeed, abundance needs to resist the gravitational pull to turn the whole movement into a platform for moderate Democrats, an impulse that would limit its potential to persuade a much bigger group of people who have little-to-no interest in assisting them in their quest to retake the party, including the center-right, libertarians, pro-growth conservatives, socialists, and progressives.

Part of what makes success complicated is that both progressives and moderates have tried to paint abundance as a centrist counterstrike against the populist left.