Abundance: Big Tech's Bid for the Democratic Party | Hacker News Reader

Abundance: Big Tech's Bid for the Democratic Party

newintermag.com

19 pointsabalone31 comments

Don't let these guys steal an entire word. It may be that some Tesla-implanted Libertarian weirdo co-hosted an "Abundance 2024 conference". That doesn't kill "abundance" as a goal. We need an abundance of housing. It is necessary and critical to our material success as a nation.

You can't let the Koch Bros. fabricate a conference called "YIMBY America 2024" or whatever and then point to it and say "see, I warned you about those YIMBYs!" You have to engage with the substance of the debate.

“Those guys” are California YIMBY. The Stripe brothers for example are major funders.[1]

One of the “California Forever” billionaires, Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, looms large in Abundance world. Along with Open Philanthropy, he donated to fund a $120 million “Abundance” grant tied to Klein’s book release. Collison is a key backer and inspiration for the Institute for Progress (IFP), a think tank which works closely with others in the Abundance network, including at the Abundance 2024 conference. Collison co-founded “Progress Studies” with economist Tyler Cowen, born from their Atlantic article, “We Need a New Science of Progress.” While IFP isn’t officially a “Progress Studies” think tank, its mission aligns closely, and it has received funding from both Collison and Emergent Ventures, Cowen’s Mercatus Center grant program established with funding from Thiel. Klein and Thompson were interviewed by Collison on their book tour.

Cowen has his own interest in Network State style projects. Balaji Srinivasan, a cryptocurrency billionaire and Próspera funder, defines a Network State as “a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world.” In this alternative governance structure, tech elites would create private, blockchain based enclaves—Srinivasan calls this “tech zionism.” Network States are founded on empty land, or by taking over an existing city—as Network State evangelists have attempted in San Francisco. Srinivasan even called for “ethnically cleansing” San Francisco of non-tech people.

Cowen is an early backer of Praxis, alongside Srinivasan and Thiel. Praxis describes itself as “a grassroots movement of modern pioneers,” aiming to build an autonomous, cryptocurrency city. Initial plans proposed a Mediterranean location, but last fall, the Praxis CEO tweeted “I went to Greenland to try to buy it.” Greenland, however, reiterated that the country is not for sale.

Cowen has been a protégé and friend of Thiel’s, citing him as a major influence. He advocates a form of government called “State Capacity Libertarianism” which, unlike anarcho-capitalism, includes a strong state apparatus. In Cowen’s words: “a good strong state should see the maintenance and extension of capitalism as one of its primary duties, in many cases its #1 duty.” He explicitly credits Thiel for inspiring this idea: “You will note the influence of Peter Thiel on State Capacity Libertarianism,” Cowen writes, “though I have never heard him frame the issues in this way.”

[1] https://www.housingisahumanright.org/why-is-california-yimby...

Didn't you just fall into exactly the trap I tried to tell you about? If Donald Trump himself gives five dollars to CA YIMBY, does that poison the YIMBY agenda? What are the actual policy proposals of Abundance advocates? What is CA YIMBY's 2025 legislative agenda?

The Donald Trump in this analogy is.. Patrick Collison? And the “five dollars” is $120M?

Your premise is these right-wing anti democratic ideologues are on the fringes of the YIMBY movement. That is not supported by the facts. I quoted just one passage demonstrating the literal partnership between a major tech leader / CA YIMBY / Abundance funder and a Peter Thiel funded right wing “Libertarian” with dark visions of police city states.

They are not at the fringes, they are at the heart of it and provide the major funding for it.

You have no idea what the YIMBY legislative agenda is, do you? For example out of these hundreds of bills, which do you accuse of being the descendant of the influence of Peter Thiel et al?

https://alfredtwu.medium.com/2024-california-housing-legisla...

I do, and they are notable for their lack of advancement of social housing, the number one solution internationally for affordable housing for all people. But you’re avoiding the thesis of the article which is that the core funders of the YIMBY movement are more broadly involved in right-leaning politics — not just fringe thinkers.

>What began as the Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) project’s narrow focus on zoning reform evolved into a sweeping pro-growth, neoliberal, and socially moderate brand of politics. “Abundance!” now serves as a rallying cry for a new kind of Democrat: techno-optimistic, skeptical of government, and supportive of a welfare state only when it comes with harsh restrictions.

There was a time when progressive social housing and market rate development advocates were united against NIMBY zoning rules. But these more conservative forces have come to dominate Yimby (through enormous amounts of funding) and direct its ire more generally against progressives that see oligarchy, not just zoning, as the primary problem in our society.

Ironic because Bay Area housing socialists are just witless "useful idiots" acting on behalf of the real estate lobby. For example noted idiot and self-described socialist Dean Preston, who is himself an ultra-wealthy landlord who owns hundreds of SF apartments. Preston's former chief of staff and campaign manager Jen Snyder, and most of the rest of his campaign staff, most of whom literally use hammer-and-sickle titles on Twitter, formed a real estate consultancy called "Red Bridge Strategies" that takes contributions directly from NIMBY dipshits, for example when they sued the city of Livermore to stop two 100%-subsidized affordable apartment complexes in Livermore.

YIMBYs rightly looked at these fake socialists and said "pick up a hammer or GTFO".

That is a low quality and highly inaccurate comment that doesn’t really belong on HN, but just briefly:

- The real estate lobby funds CA YIMBY and YIMBY candidates, not socialists.

- Dean Preston was a major tenants rights attorney who authored key legislation protecting tenants from evictions, not a landlord.

See, you're a very poorly-informed person. Dean Preston's SF manse and his two gigantic North Bay estates are owned by the Goosby Family Trust, his wife's legacy real estate empire. The avowed purpose of Goosby Family LLC is "REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT" you can look it up yourself on the Sec. State's website.

Class solidarity with a guy who moved directly from undergraduate school to living in a $3 million Nob Hill apartment is, as the online socialists love to say in that incredibly irritating way, "a bad look".

Edited to add: I will be disengaging from this thread because it's so bizarre that I, advancing a Marxist materialist analysis, am being accused of aligning with fascists, while you, licking the boots of a millionaire who owns a REIT, cast yourself as a socialist. I will actually lose my mind.

This is Q-anon level conspiracy rambling. Preston has a long career as a tenants right attorney directly opposing the interests of landlords. He is landlord enemy number one. He wrote and passed a tax on the real estate industry to the tune of $350M along with several laws protecting rent control and tenants from eviction. The idea that he's secretly a landlord and that socialists are in the pocket of the real estate industry is a desperate (though well-funded) Big Lie.

But you've made the larger point of the article: The oligarchy that funds the YIMBY movement uses it as a political tool to slander and fight anti-oligarchy activists. Just moments after pointing to seemingly neutral, technical legislation on the minutiae of zoning reform, you descended into crazed mudslinging against tenants rights advocates and socialists.

Addendum:

I looked up Red Bridge Strategies and find no evidence they have opposed affordable housing developments. What I do see them supporting:[1]

* Yes on H! Rent Control for Pasadena

* Yes on M! Empty Homes Tax

* Tax on $10M Real Estate Sales to Fund Social Housing

* Gross Receipts Tax on Large Corps to Fund Homeless Services

and so on. These are all genuinely progressive/socialist positions consistent with promoting working class affordable housing and opposing landlords.

It seems like you've just been taken by this well-funded right wing disinformation campaign. I hope you can see the larger point of the article that this is indeed a coordinated political strategy designed to radicalize people like you (and tech industry professionals generally) into fighting to defend the oligarchy and undermine the kind of populist progressive movement we see Bernie/AOC trying to start up again lately, and that folks like Preston genuinely were a part of.

[1] https://www.redbridgewins.com/work

None of the things you mention support building more housing.

A few look like they might, but don’t: Increasing taxes on expensive real estate just pushes demand down the chain, reducing supply for all.

If empty houses are actually a problem, fix the root cause. I can think of two reasons a house would go empty: Speculation (betting there will not be enough houses built), or planning departments that prevent the house from being repaired.

Making it easy to build houses solves both those problems.

If you attack landlords, who do you expect to build and maintain rental housing?

The affordable housing requirements are similar nonsense: Say you have some cash to invest. If you put it into building housing, the government will require you to sell the houses at a loss. Are you really going to build houses, and not invest it in something that can at least break even?

The yimby folks in CA are useful idiots that serve people that want housing prices to stay up. If you don’t believe this, go take an introductory micro and macroeconomics course.

It might surprise people in the U.S. to know that the Abundance agenda is not at all how many other international cities solve affordable housing. Did you know that one in four Parisians live in public housing? Or that in Singapore it’s 80%?

Or did you know the National Bureau of Economic Research just published a study concluding “Supply Constraints Do Not Explain House Price and Quantity Growth Across U.S. Cities”?[1] Directly contradicting the YIMBY narrative that all we need to do is unleash market rate supply.

Simple economics tells us that when you have a boom town with strong demand from white collar professionals migrating in, driving up incomes, they will outbid lower income folks for market rate units ten out of ten times. Per the law of supply and demand, all of that demand needs to be satisfied before market prices even have a chance of declining to affordable levels - and that’s only if the real estate industry decides it is profitable to keep building. Older units get renovated into luxury units as well.

That creates a real scalability problem for cities because you get a labor shortage. That drives up the cost of everything: education, restaurants, and you guessed it, construction itself.

That’s why social housing is such an international standard. Without affordable working class housing, the local economy becomes dysfunctional. And it echoes the debate we had about socialized medicine some years ago, the solution favored by pretty much all other developed countries, but always said to be too expensive or impractical to be done here, the richest country on the planet.

But we’re beginning to see some cracks in the narrative. And it clarifies why these right wing movements find the Abundance agenda so appealing.

[1] https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/wp2025-06.pdf

Social housing is not one of the solutions the yimby movement in the US promotes. It also works because it doesn’t matter if the government or the private sector builds the houses.

Anyway, that paper concludes there is no difference in housing supply elasticity across the US (which is questionable, to put it politely) so demand elasticity doesn’t explain price differences. So, they conclude that, if you don’t build any houses at all, then demand will set prices.

That says nothing about what will happen if you do build houses, and also doesn’t contradict the basic economic finding that, if you have a glut of supply, prices go down. (Because no outbidding can occur — the losing bid still gets a house.)

> Social housing is not one of the solutions the yimby movement in the US promotes

This is not correct at least for the largest organization, California YIMBY. CA YIMBY has endorsed every social housing reform that has emerged at the state level, for example AB 309, AB 2053, etc.

What idealist socialist critics mean when they say "YIMBY doesn't support social housing" is actually "YIMBY refuses to outlaw market housing".

> Yes on M! Empty Homes Tax

San Francisco's so called "Empty Homes Tax" doesn't even tax empty homes, single family homes are exempted. It's purely performative.

San Francisco has built almost no housing for years. You want to know why housing is so expensive, that's the real reason. And NIMBYs like Dean Preston perpetuate this.

It was also struck down by a court and never collected a cent. Turns out that revsoc costume play doesn't translate to practice.

Well as much as I dislike the SF city government, at least they respected the court ruling, which is more than you can say for some people.

It's hilarious (by which I mean facepalm worthy) that people spend so much effort trying to distance YIMBY from the right and from libertarians. Their movement isn't exactly built in the image of Ron Fucking Paul and it does do a lot of steamrolling municipalities which the more socially right types don't like but despite that they've created something the rights seems able to like at least not take issue with on the principal level. And so a lot of these "righter" types do support it, despite there being some minor elements and undertones they might not like. But as soon as someone to the right of center actually tries to fan the flames or actually endorse anything, all the lefties who make up the bulk of movement get all pissed off because it's "their movement".

Any sane person would be happy they've found something that almost the entire political spectrum considers common ground. Winners like that are rare. Embrace it.

Agreed, this word needs to be claimed and defended. We need a sane politics that can win and for that we need to start with a rallying cry, in a nation where the median is poor, materialistic, and amoral.

Obviously, rallying around “diversity” or “girlboss” or “degrowth” is not a durable winner. “MAGA” unfortunately might be a durable winner. “Abundance” has a fighting chance, and it’s even morally defensible.

> We need a sane politics that can win and for that we need to start with a rallying cry

The answer is staring us right in the face.

It’s a catchy slogan and pulling tens of thousands even in deep red MAGA country.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/04/13/fighting-oli...

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-04-12/bernie-san...

"Extraordinary danger"? "Fighting the oligarchy"?

Those can certainly pull tens of thousands of people to the street. But I'm not so sure it's enough to win. See what I said above - materialistic, amoral. I'm afraid that the rallying cry we need must contain an answer to "what's in it for me?" to be a winner.

"Fighting the oligarchy" is the new slogan. "Fighting the deep state" and "Draining the swamp" are the old ones. I see no reason to believe that any of these is more truthful than the others, it's just tail chasing from both ends.

Everything that does not confront the rigid beliefs and behaviors that leads to autocracy is distracting the dying patient.

Neoliberalism => Corporatism => Autocracy

People are not thinking about improving the world, they are looking to "own" the enemy, Sado Populism.

Neoliberal policy has failed the working class. That’s what’s driven so many people toward Trump’s brand of populism. We need an alternative that actually prioritizes working people, not just the “free market” interests of a different set of billionaires. This is not a real solution.

Neoliberal policy as defined in Abundance didn't fail the working class, because those policies weren't put in place in most blue cities. Housing is expensive in San Francisco precisely because the reforms outlined in Abundance weren't made. Real estate in SF is about as far from "free market" as you can get.

The denialism of market forces is one of the worst aspects of progressives. Like it or not, the only way housing is going to become cheap is if there so much housing available that landlords actually have to compete for tenants.

You can build public housing, and have a 20 year waiting list for it. You can have rent control, but that only benefits long-time residents at the expense of newcomers. But the only thing that will make cheap housing widely available is to make it easy to build, so developers can saturate the market with housing.

Congratulations on becoming a Marxist! Please inform the other comrade in this discussion that Karl would have strangled Dean Preston with his bare hands, because Marx, the materialist, cared about the actual conditions of the people, and rejected idealism, i.e. "I am a tenants' rights advocate".

Marx was certainly smarter than many of his followers.

Now Deng Xiaoping, he was a really smart communist. "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice"

Marx was smart enough to mooch off of his friend's attic space for free.

Did you respond to the right comment? I'm not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that I have even a remotely positive view of communism or attempts by the government to replace free markets.

"What if we did _more_ neoliberalism but maybe were a bit more racist?"

If you don't do the post-mortem of "how did we end up here", no project, no plan makes a change.

* First understand every point on the curve between a healthy democratic society and autocracy is slippery, not stable.

* Next, understand how autocracy rises. If you want to look at the drivers toward autocracy, you will find them invariably in the same places.

* The US problems

  - Braunhemde, already before WOII, then imported more of them afterwards. No press coverage, they are real. Even the "Sieg Heil"s on CPAC did not draw media coverage.

  - Cultism. Serious, deep cultism.

  - As a specialization: Christian nationalism + conservatism, replay of the '30s

    - https://xcancel.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1910179753430299043
    - https://xcancel.com/sola_chad/status/1802398272293581272#m1

  - Incredible concentrations of (inherited) wealth, deformed perspectives of the other 99% cultivated over generational spans

  - No real journalism, instead, career in media house depend on commercial ownership. Narratives tailored to segment, but no deep and critical impact of analysis. 

    - "Let us talk about the tariffs today, they make zero economic sense" 
    - "I think what he meant is..." 
    - "Of course this is not entirely correct, but..." 
    - "President Trump has said.."
    - "Rubio did a press conference today"

    - Only drama, never the Big Picture.

    - Elections? According to the press, those are just
       - The latest polls!
       - Repeat marketing from spin doctors at affiliated media houses
       - "Debate" = Reality TV, scores are given on wit and emotional play
     
  - Fake news is allowed as a business model. 

  - Rigidity => distorted beliefs. See rigidity about "free speech" via decades of pushed narratives. Now look at all the book banning, canceling of research based on keyword match.

  - Rigidity about free markets. Now you pay 5 million for a dinner with The Suppreme Sovite to get your business free. Tariffs, because, you know?

  - No concept of "Paradox of Tolerance". Parties that don't want to participate in a democratic society with rule of law and separation of powers CANNOT be part of the system. Period.

  - Overall corruption by oligarchy. The GOP has been killed, but the Dems have the problems too, making it difficult to make any postmortem

  - Exceptionalism
  
  - Vast information deserts (there are states where information cannot reach people at all ), where nothing is served but right-wing reality distortion as commercial fast-food

  - Normalization of personal retaliation against political enemies (that is why everybody is obeying in advance, people are used to be abused by power). Americans are frightened.
  
  - No concept of common good, everyone hustling. Also: competition means *killing* the competitor. That playbook is deeply normalized, see Big Tech. Microsoft, Intel->AMD, Google etc

  - Regulatory capture, rules for thee, exceptions for me

  - "If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?" Deep cultural programming

  - State capture, this is reaching the critical stage now.

  - Normalisation of sado-populism. "I don't care, I want the other suffer". 

  - Class-based society

This was my TED talk.

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