Comment by deckar01
2 days ago
I find the term “anti-abundance left” odd. He wrote a book called “Abundance” laying out the case for deregulating zoning laws. Claiming global monopolies in aggregate seems more like a conspiracy theory. I thought the mainstream (left) opposition to deregulation was to subsidize affordable housing regardless of the cause.
Restating something I said upthread, but I think the right way to think about Thompson's rhetorical adversary here is "people on the political left who believe that antitrust is the high-order bit on housing affordability and that zoning reform shouldn't occur until after antitrust issues are addressed". He's arguing with people who are pushing back on legalizing housing density. He is not arguing broadly against the political left; in a reasonable US macro view of politics, he is part of that political left; there are people much further to his left that are nonetheless in lock step with him on housing, all of whom I believe he'd be thrilled to endorse.
Paraphrasing: along with a dozen other pressing issues, anti-trust was out of scope for this book.
> He is not arguing broadly against the political left...
Yes and: NIMBY vs YIMBY is (mostly) olds vs youngs, rather than partisanship. Witness the coalition behind the Montana Miracle (recent pro-housing legislation).
So far. As you know, most positions eventually get coded as left or right, as needed, to defend the corptacracy.
There really is an internal struggle in the Democratic party (totally natural after a major election loss!) and people are just inclined to read everything as taking one side or the other in it. Ironically, Klein and Thompson really tried to go out of their way not to take either side; in fact, most of the oxen that get gored in the book are establishment Democrats!