I think that the markers of success for the Klein/Thompson book are:
1. Does is cause an argument on the Left/is it a Molotov cocktail?
2. Does it propel Left/Dem-dominated states to create the best societies?—not utopias, mind you—but actual places people want to live, don’t want to leave, and feel that they are living (or struggling) well.
It seems like Goal 1 might be accomplished this year and maybe already.
While I agree with the diagnosis that active, invested minority groups capture key oversight/rule-making processes, I am DEEPLY dissatisfied with the 🤷🏼♂️ response that the [Mayor/President/Executive] is elected and therefore should have more power and more courage.
This approach clearly trends toward that Unitary Executive Theory, which I find extremely problematic for democracy. The Founders likely didn’t anticipate the expansive real-world powers of todays‘ Administrative State (in numerous ways), so I believe this is substantial gap in US democracy as-is. Executives are often elected by a mere plurality - often based on simple Party affiliation and/or name recognition. They can be persuaded or captured by campaign donors (corporations, billionaires) or other vested interests, too. And that idea of ‘courage,’ while important in public leadership, can cut both ways. Finally, I think myopic focus on technocratic solutions to improve the Administrative State misses the public’s frustration with a government that seems more responsive to an incestuous managerial elite than residents.
So, I’d advocate that making institutions more inclusive and responsive to stakeholders - finding more and better ways for multiple stakeholders to actively shape/balance public priorities/delivery/rule-making - MUST go hand-in-hand with a more powerful and efficacious government.
We'd be much better off with a proportional representation system for the legislature, and a greater role for that legislature. (If not an outright parliamentary system, at least one where the legislature was not completely supine, the way the Republican majority is in the face of the Executive doing stuff that the laws on the books plainly say he can't.)
Alas, what happens now is that Minoritarianism becomes absolutely and uniformly "bad" and must be eliminated in all cases. (Actually "deproceduralization" is indeed a better word in this regard, because it implies a process rather than some human "group"; i.e. it lacks human targets.) The Right is already ridiculing cities such as the one I live in.
Yes, it was a minority, the Portland City Council, that deemed back in the 70s that instead of another freeway for the region, we'd get light rail fifteen years later. It's still a pain to traverse the route the freeway would have covered. But in the meantime Portland established light rail as viable and effective transit for western cities.
Oregon's Urban Growth Boundary (zoning!!) was perhaps not as minoritarian, but it had unintended (perhaps not unanticipated consequences) regarding housing costs. So should we get rid of it? Lots of us wouldn't be here if Portland sprawled like Los Angeles.
The challenge is to punch back from the left in ways that acknowledge the effective tensions between minoritarian groups and the public at large. DOGE is setting a good example of the contrary. Maybe people are even appreciating the utility of public sector unions when it comes to dire circumstances. But the inherent problem of mitigating the inherent complexity and rigidity of large social systems (not to mention all the other systems) remains the predominant challenge of our century.
Highly recommend “Why Nothing Works” by Marc Dunkelman as it provides an enlightening and detailed account of the tension between the building up centralized state capacity vs regulating / encumbering the state & pushing power down and out (to unions, to citizens, etc.) across the history of American progressivism. It makes it clear that we have tied ourselves into a Gordian knot. I am hoping the abundance agenda starts to point at a way out.
I lived for 30+ years in MA and, while it’s a great state in many ways, and is one of the most reliably Blue. It also remains one of the most racially and class-segregated. And when you look at one of those Red/Blue maps, you see a good sized blue dot for Boston and a few lesser blue dots in a few of their cities. But otherwise, a sea of Red.
I myself lived in a small commuting town of 13,000 where there was very little affordable housing despite state laws that supposedly would incentivize increasing that housing. Our schools were terrific. Schools in majority black and rural areas? Not so much. Income disparities, health disparities, you name it. All amply represented.
This is the problem we mostly highly educated, white liberals have. In the face of and with the opportunities for personal wealth-building of Trickle-down economics, and neoliberal globalization, we greatly consolidated our own privilege and relative prosperity. The data on this is overwhelming and undeniable. And paid little more than lip-service to the wellbeing of racial minorities and what we call ‘working families,’ whether urban or rural. And then we became so comfortable with our privilege and our self-segregation that we then turned our efforts to exquisitely and obsessively elaborating and fine-tuning a extremely elaborate and exclusive framework of elite uber-identitarianism that nearly rivals the caste systems in India.
The bottom line is that we liberals have been in cahoots with the ultra-rich and the oligarchs for 40+ years. We happily became the managerial and intellectual elite that is the ‘administrative state’ that supports our entire inequitable system. And we still refuse to acknowledge this reality, let alone take any responsibility for it — or to commit to or make any serious attempts to remedy and reconcile this. As a result, most of the people voting for Trump/autocracy are voting against us — against the privilege we locked-in and against the indifference we developed to the general welfare.
Until we correct our elite political and policy posture, and meaningfully and for the long term pivot to ‘share the wealth’ and to an egalitarianism that embraces our fellow citizens and non-citizens, we will simply be continuing to be the stasis, the status quo, that is holding back the well-being of the majority of our people. Our demonstrations and ‘resistance’ will be confused and shallow because much of what we need to be challenging is our own complacency and privileged self-dealing.
Trump and his Muskreants are getting so far in destroying the institutions that provide ‘public goods’ to the vast majority of people in large part because we and the Democratic Party have neglected those institutions and those obligations to society for so long that tens of millions of voters and therefore HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of our fellow Americans have so little connection with these things that they hardly know what is happening.
So we have to realize that what is before us is much more than the one-dimensional (dare I say myopic) ‘resistance’ that most on ‘our side’ are building. Before us is the imperative to wage at least a three-front effort:
1. Loudly, prominently, and unceasingly acknowledge our own role(s) in this current disastrous moment in our history — this may be the hardest struggle of all;
2. Make rapid commitments and meaningful efforts to get with the vast majority of Americans who are NOT part of our privileged elite and to devote ourselves to the creation of an egalitarianism that ‘centers’ THEIR wellbeing;
3. Fight and defeat the authoritarian and reactionary ‘solutions’ that Trump, Musk, and the other lunatics have sold to so many Americans as the best way forward to ‘Make America Great Again.’
One of our most revered modern leaders described this mission almost 100 years ago:
“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
I do think our slow processes gave some ammunition to DOGE.
And adding thousands of homes to expensive areas with a housing shortage would help everyone in every way.
" In other words, decisions that should be made in the broad public interest are captured by a minority."
Yes, but is is a minority that asserts it represents the majority. [If there were only a _procedure_ to prevent that! :)]
I think that the markers of success for the Klein/Thompson book are:
1. Does is cause an argument on the Left/is it a Molotov cocktail?
2. Does it propel Left/Dem-dominated states to create the best societies?—not utopias, mind you—but actual places people want to live, don’t want to leave, and feel that they are living (or struggling) well.
It seems like Goal 1 might be accomplished this year and maybe already.
While I agree with the diagnosis that active, invested minority groups capture key oversight/rule-making processes, I am DEEPLY dissatisfied with the 🤷🏼♂️ response that the [Mayor/President/Executive] is elected and therefore should have more power and more courage.
This approach clearly trends toward that Unitary Executive Theory, which I find extremely problematic for democracy. The Founders likely didn’t anticipate the expansive real-world powers of todays‘ Administrative State (in numerous ways), so I believe this is substantial gap in US democracy as-is. Executives are often elected by a mere plurality - often based on simple Party affiliation and/or name recognition. They can be persuaded or captured by campaign donors (corporations, billionaires) or other vested interests, too. And that idea of ‘courage,’ while important in public leadership, can cut both ways. Finally, I think myopic focus on technocratic solutions to improve the Administrative State misses the public’s frustration with a government that seems more responsive to an incestuous managerial elite than residents.
So, I’d advocate that making institutions more inclusive and responsive to stakeholders - finding more and better ways for multiple stakeholders to actively shape/balance public priorities/delivery/rule-making - MUST go hand-in-hand with a more powerful and efficacious government.
The executive must be in charge of the executive branch
Otherwise, there is no way for voters to be able to hold the administrative state accountable
Which is unacceptable. And which results in things like Trump being elected and DOGE
We'd be much better off with a proportional representation system for the legislature, and a greater role for that legislature. (If not an outright parliamentary system, at least one where the legislature was not completely supine, the way the Republican majority is in the face of the Executive doing stuff that the laws on the books plainly say he can't.)
Alas, what happens now is that Minoritarianism becomes absolutely and uniformly "bad" and must be eliminated in all cases. (Actually "deproceduralization" is indeed a better word in this regard, because it implies a process rather than some human "group"; i.e. it lacks human targets.) The Right is already ridiculing cities such as the one I live in.
Yes, it was a minority, the Portland City Council, that deemed back in the 70s that instead of another freeway for the region, we'd get light rail fifteen years later. It's still a pain to traverse the route the freeway would have covered. But in the meantime Portland established light rail as viable and effective transit for western cities.
Oregon's Urban Growth Boundary (zoning!!) was perhaps not as minoritarian, but it had unintended (perhaps not unanticipated consequences) regarding housing costs. So should we get rid of it? Lots of us wouldn't be here if Portland sprawled like Los Angeles.
The challenge is to punch back from the left in ways that acknowledge the effective tensions between minoritarian groups and the public at large. DOGE is setting a good example of the contrary. Maybe people are even appreciating the utility of public sector unions when it comes to dire circumstances. But the inherent problem of mitigating the inherent complexity and rigidity of large social systems (not to mention all the other systems) remains the predominant challenge of our century.
“Lots of us wouldn’t be here”… the right to housing meets the right to be in a nice place.
As I recall, now was also "not the time" in 2023 and 2024.
Highly recommend “Why Nothing Works” by Marc Dunkelman as it provides an enlightening and detailed account of the tension between the building up centralized state capacity vs regulating / encumbering the state & pushing power down and out (to unions, to citizens, etc.) across the history of American progressivism. It makes it clear that we have tied ourselves into a Gordian knot. I am hoping the abundance agenda starts to point at a way out.
I lived for 30+ years in MA and, while it’s a great state in many ways, and is one of the most reliably Blue. It also remains one of the most racially and class-segregated. And when you look at one of those Red/Blue maps, you see a good sized blue dot for Boston and a few lesser blue dots in a few of their cities. But otherwise, a sea of Red.
I myself lived in a small commuting town of 13,000 where there was very little affordable housing despite state laws that supposedly would incentivize increasing that housing. Our schools were terrific. Schools in majority black and rural areas? Not so much. Income disparities, health disparities, you name it. All amply represented.
This is the problem we mostly highly educated, white liberals have. In the face of and with the opportunities for personal wealth-building of Trickle-down economics, and neoliberal globalization, we greatly consolidated our own privilege and relative prosperity. The data on this is overwhelming and undeniable. And paid little more than lip-service to the wellbeing of racial minorities and what we call ‘working families,’ whether urban or rural. And then we became so comfortable with our privilege and our self-segregation that we then turned our efforts to exquisitely and obsessively elaborating and fine-tuning a extremely elaborate and exclusive framework of elite uber-identitarianism that nearly rivals the caste systems in India.
The bottom line is that we liberals have been in cahoots with the ultra-rich and the oligarchs for 40+ years. We happily became the managerial and intellectual elite that is the ‘administrative state’ that supports our entire inequitable system. And we still refuse to acknowledge this reality, let alone take any responsibility for it — or to commit to or make any serious attempts to remedy and reconcile this. As a result, most of the people voting for Trump/autocracy are voting against us — against the privilege we locked-in and against the indifference we developed to the general welfare.
Until we correct our elite political and policy posture, and meaningfully and for the long term pivot to ‘share the wealth’ and to an egalitarianism that embraces our fellow citizens and non-citizens, we will simply be continuing to be the stasis, the status quo, that is holding back the well-being of the majority of our people. Our demonstrations and ‘resistance’ will be confused and shallow because much of what we need to be challenging is our own complacency and privileged self-dealing.
Trump and his Muskreants are getting so far in destroying the institutions that provide ‘public goods’ to the vast majority of people in large part because we and the Democratic Party have neglected those institutions and those obligations to society for so long that tens of millions of voters and therefore HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of our fellow Americans have so little connection with these things that they hardly know what is happening.
So we have to realize that what is before us is much more than the one-dimensional (dare I say myopic) ‘resistance’ that most on ‘our side’ are building. Before us is the imperative to wage at least a three-front effort:
1. Loudly, prominently, and unceasingly acknowledge our own role(s) in this current disastrous moment in our history — this may be the hardest struggle of all;
2. Make rapid commitments and meaningful efforts to get with the vast majority of Americans who are NOT part of our privileged elite and to devote ourselves to the creation of an egalitarianism that ‘centers’ THEIR wellbeing;
3. Fight and defeat the authoritarian and reactionary ‘solutions’ that Trump, Musk, and the other lunatics have sold to so many Americans as the best way forward to ‘Make America Great Again.’
One of our most revered modern leaders described this mission almost 100 years ago:
“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
A fucking men