Good Eating: Ezra Klein and Abundance libs realize that China is blowing past the United States (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by CDommunist@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ezraklein/comments/1jzozuw/why_trump_could_lose_his_trade_war_with_china/

The podcast itself is quite interesting if you can handle moments of extreme liberalism, both hosts admit that china is living in the future and that America has failed on a structural level

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[-] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 34 points 5 days ago

I never googled abundance liberalism. The definition is even worse than I expected.

What is ‘abundance’ liberalism, and why are people arguing about it?

Klein and Thompson make their case in a new book simply called, with no subtitle, Abundance. The authors put forward a positive pitch for “abundance liberalism”: a vision of the US where policymakers spend less time fighting over how to apportion scarce resources and more time making sure there’s no scarcity to start with.

Abundance has received a mostly positive reception so far, but also sparked debate, with critics arguing that the book ignores the effect of corporate power, downplays Republicans’ role in the crises that the US faces or overstates the effectiveness of its policy prescriptions. A writer in the left-leaning magazine American Prospect accused the “abundance agenda” of being “neoliberalism repackaged for a post-neoliberal world”.

[-] Ericthescruffy@hexbear.net 45 points 5 days ago

I always find it so hilarious that neoliberals will simultaneously build their lives and world views around hypothetical technological solutions that will resolve resource/logistical realities like magic and then turn around and say that the problem with Communism is that its too utopian or idealistic.

[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 31 points 5 days ago

Even Ayn Rand had to invent a magical power source for her book.

Yes let's build an ideology around that.

[-] ihaveibs@hexbear.net 38 points 5 days ago

A concept so genius it can be debunked by thinking about hunger for 5 seconds

[-] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 26 points 5 days ago

Me: "Hey, Ezra! I bet you've already heard lots of 'better than Ezra' jokes so I won't poke fun at you in that way. But I really want to know how 'abundance liberalism' deals with crises like the dire shortage of affordable housing."

Ezra Klein: "I will ignore the 'better than Ezra' joke. And I'll jump right in and answer your question about housing. But first I have a lot - a lot(!) - to explain!" And he speaks for about five minutes. Impressively he entirely ignores all issues related to housing other than to very vaguely say "A focused-goal target of abundance liberalism is the structural implementation of foundations to improve access to affordable housing."

[-] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 8 points 4 days ago

Haven't we already proved that doesn't work with things like food, where we already have more than enough but people still go hungry? I'm sure there's tons of other examples, too, that show that capitalism encourages artificial scarcity.