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Thoughts on Abundance Democrats?
(lemmygrad.ml)
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this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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No they do not want to learn from China.
They want to get rid of zoning and unleash the power of the free market.
The free market has already shown that it has no interest in creating abundance because abundance reduces the rate of profit. Developers will not create abundance, they will create more niche market segments and build artificial scarcity because that's what markets do and have always done.
From a political standpoint, it's a completely losing angle. The places where zoning exists are all dominated by home owners, so none of the abundance Democrats will win elections in those districts. The places dominated by renters, urban centers, are already voting for Democrats so essentially the abundance message will cost the Ds the exact demographic they need to win more seats to effect the change they want. It's a politically bad move.
If you “leave it to the free market”, you will just get further sprawl of single family homes; Los Angeles-ifying the rest of the country. Maybe at best sprinkle in some paper mache five-over-ones in there. The US does need more, denser housing, but will never be provided by the free market.
The actual “Chinese” solution would be to take genuinely blighted areas of a place like Detroit, build very dense, affordable public housing, provide tons of services and public transportation, and ensure local residents get priority. It would be a solution everyone would love, better than Americans could possibly imagine, but the idea that this could be done by the free market strains credulity.
Edit: kicking myself for missing the bigger point in my original comment. In China housing is largely decommodified, it’s something to ensure everyone has. Meanwhile housing in the US is a speculative asset driven by exchange values first and a use value second. Of course there is a speculative element in Chinese real estate but it is not primary. This is a direct result of socialist vs capitalist relations. Since changing THAT isn’t on the table, the US cannot do what China is doing.
You should see how much Ezra Klein has trouble keeping up with Sam Sedar's basic line of inquiry about it. It's pretty telling.