Notes Toward a Unified Theory of Abundance, Part V

This is the fifth and post in a five-part series. You can read Part I here, Part II here, Part III here, and Part IV here.

In Part IV of this series, we finally landed on a working definition of abundance liberalism as a movement within liberal democracy that seeks to solve the problems of modernity through continual economic and political development. Now there’s just one step left, which is to explain why liberal democracy needs abundance liberalism to thrive in the coming decades.

The short answer is legitimacy.

Let’s start with the obvious: American democracy is at risk of imminent collapse. In 2021, the outgoing President of the United States attempted a violent putsch so that he could remain in power; it didn’t work, but now he is running for president again, and he has a decent shot at winning. Should he retake the White House, members of his second administration will immediately set about dismantling any politically independent counterweight to his power.

If Biden defeats Trump in November, that will remove the immediate threat to American democracy, but not the long-term danger. As Elias Isquith has noted, it is foolish to believe that the far right can be vanquished in a single apocalyptic election cycle. It is far more likely pro-democracy patriots can expect years or decades more of struggle against an illiberal movement that counts both prominent state and federal officeholders and freelance paramilitaries among its adherents.

So democracy needs to make the case for itself, and it needs to keep making that case.

The case for democracy rests in part on first principles, but first principles aren’t sufficient. Democracy also needs to once again prove that it works: that it can do a better job of delivering material security and personal fulfillment than any viable alternative.

American democracy faced a similar challenge in the 1930s. The Great Depression shook public confidence in the American system of government; abroad, fascists seemed to offer a more muscular and effective alternative. Seen in that context, the New Deal was not just a program to stimulate the American economy but to prove the ongoing viability of constitutional democracy. As Ira Katznelson writes in Fear Itself, “Of the New Deal’s many achievements, none was more important than the demonstration that liberal democracy, a political system with a legislature at its heart, could govern effectively in the face of great danger.”

The New Deal tried to demonstrate that by boosting employment and building housing and public works. It brought electricity to the Texas Hill Country, and it funded arts programs and laid down sidewalks. The impact of these projects was more than physical infrastructure and a higher standard of living: as Erich Rauchway put it in Why the New Deal Matters, New Dealers sought to “restore for American citizens a faith in, and a sense of connection to, their government at a time when it appeared to be in peril.”

Compare that mission statement to how Jamelle Bouie described the task of defeating 21st century authoritarianism in a recent New York Times column: “We need to fight political despair everywhere we find it, which means this country needs an overhaul of its economic system, its political institutions and its public life.”

Enacting abundance liberalism’s program is essential to that task. At the national and international level, we need abundance liberalism to prove liberal democracy can face down the civilizational threat posed by climate change: the United States cannot successfully decarbonize without a massive overhaul of its energy infrastructure, transportation systems, and land use patterns. Liberal democracy has yet to deliver this overhaul. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was a historic step in the right direction, but still only a step; political decay and NIMBYism continue to slow implementation of the green transition.

At the state and local level, we need abundance liberalism to prove that American democracy goes hand in hand with capable metropolitan governance. Right now, we’re in the middle of a nationwide housing and homelessness crisis driven largely by poor urban governance. That should alarm everyone who wants to put American democracy on sounder footing. First, because the housing crisis hinders both climate mitigation efforts1 and nationwide economic performance;2 second, because much of the most visibly disastrous urban governance is in blue cities and states, undermining the pragmatic case for the anti-authoritarian faction in American politics. Think of how Ron DeSantis and others have cited California’s homelessness crisis as evidence that Democrats are incapable of governing.

The good news is that these issues are solvable, and abundance liberalism is solving them. California has been enacting ambitious pro-housing legislation for nearly a decade, and other states have been following. The Inflation Reduction Act may have launched a new era when it comes to investments in the green transition. And federal policymakers are even taking on the pro-housing movement, with the introduction of the bipartisan YIMBY Act as a case in point.

If these programs start to yield tangible results, then it could kick off a virtuous cycle in American politics: abundance builds the political constituency for American democracy, which in turn enacts reforms that lead to greater abundance. We’re not there yet, but early empirical results have been promising: for example, research from Auckland, New Zealand suggests pro-housing reforms have been successful in reducing costs. Closer to home, the growing popularity and electoral success of the YIMBY movement provide more grounds for cautious optimism.

We’re nowhere near near declaring victory. But as I’ve said, this is going to be a long struggle. And if abundance liberalism keeps gaining ground, it could deliver truly transformational wins for American living standards and quality of life. It might even help revitalize American democracy in the process. The pro-abundance faction should keep pushing.