Abundance Progressives vs Freedom Democrats
In the wake of a decisive defeat of the Democrats by Donald Trump, with large swaths of the country moving red, the left is soul-searching while battling the blues. Amid a flood-the-zone onslaught by the Trump administration’s unitary executive thrust combined with DOGE slash-and-burn tactics, the imperative for the Democrats to get its shit together has never been greater.
The need goes beyond policy prescriptions to the very visions and worldviews from which policies are derived. For instance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance offers the left a vision of material and technological flourishing and institutional renewal to counter a sclerotic “narrative of scarcity that has taken hold” among liberals and progressives.
Their closing paragraph summarizes the vision:
Abundance contains within it a bigness that befits the American project. It is the promise of not just more, but more of what matters. It is a commitment to the endless work of institutional renewal. It is a recognition that technology is at the heart of progress, and always has been. It is a determination to align our collective genius with the needs of both the planet and each other. Abundance is liberalism, yes. But more than that, it is a liberalism that builds.
—Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance
The prospect of abundance and prosperity has been a driving force in America for centuries. It’s at the generative core of why millions have come to America from other lands. So, Klein and Thompson have tapped into a visionary vein that aligns well with American aspiration writ large. Yet, according to Danielle Allen, there are limitations to the vision of “abundance progressives.” In a long-form essay three years ago, Allen wrote:
“Abundance Progressives want abundant housing, cheap and clean energy, clean air and water, and safe streets. They think technocrats can deliver this for us. This work has been brought to us by Silicon Valley success story technologists who would like to see California achieve effective governance along these dimensions.” Although Allen, who leads the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard, was specifically referring to abundance progressivism as advocated by Misha Chellam, founder of Effective Government California, her constructive critique also applies to the approach of Klein and Thompson.
Abundance is a purely material agenda. But what is wanted and needed is as much Empowerment as Abundance. Freedom Democrats recognize this. That’s why the HOW is then different: responsive government (inclusive + effective), not just effective government. Empowerment and Abundance are important overlapping areas but also distinct. In my view, we’ve gone wrong in our politics for the last fifty years by continuously trying to collapse our overarching purpose into something material when our overarching purpose needs to be more broadly human. We can’t get to that big human goal of empowerment without the material foundations. Abundance empowers us. But none of us is living just for the material. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and Abundance gets stuck before reaching the top of the hierarchy.
Allen’s vision of human self-actualization and flourishing includes yet transcends the Abundance agenda. In her latest book, Justice by Means of Democracy, she details design and philosophical principles that not only swing upward toward abundance but human freedom and shared empowerment too. This is why in the outchorus of her essay three years ago, she wrote:
We need to make space for freedom, and this time for real freedom, which means equal freedom. This means pushing back against both right and left, and libertarian misconceptions. It is time to bring the same commitment to rebuilding our civic strength here at home as we brought to fighting totalitarianism in the 20th century.
So we need to find compass points—love of family and friends and/or faith. But also, love of country and a commitment to freedom, equality, and justice for all. Call this power-sharing liberalism. Call it, more simply, a commitment to equal freedom. Call me a Freedom Democrat.
—Danielle Allen
Allen isn’t only a professor of political philosophy with two PhDs; she’s a public intellectual and civic leader who recently ran for governor of Massachusetts. Her advocacy of what she calls “democracy renovation” and “power-sharing liberalism” seems to fit the direction Democrats need to go to appeal, once again, to most Americans. Democracy renovation is a comprehensive effort to strengthen and revitalize democratic systems to meet the needs of American citizens in the 21st century. It entails rethinking and redesigning democratic institutions because of the dysfunctions of governance, especially at the federal level, so they can serve people by being more responsive and functional; empowering citizens to actively engage in democracy; and addressing the very promise of democracy to create a just society for all.
My question is: Do Democrats have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what Danielle Allen is proposing? Will The New Yorker or The Free Press or The Dispatch or Pod Save America or The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan engage with this thought leader and her work? To his credit, Ezra Klein has featured Allen as a guest on his podcast several times. May these other important outlets from the center-left to the center-right do the same. In these perilous times, we need the best visions in the marketplace of ideas on how we as a nation can and should proceed—period.