4 ms·

The legitimate criticism I read against "Abundance" is that for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private captu

by pu_pe 1y ago

The legitimate criticism I read against "Abundance" is that for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture. In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. One of the reasons American and German cities are made for cars is because of the influence of their car industry. However, this also pushed out investment in competing alternatives like public transport infrastructure.

FinnLobsien 1y ago
> In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. Every kind of regulation can be exploited and is currently being exploited. GDPR led to law firms squeezing money out of neighborhood bars with cease and desists. Government grants spawn companies doing the exact minimum to keep getting grants without building real businesses. I totally agree that lobbyism is a massive problem (and often the reason we get such complex regulation—they shut out the little players). But any proposed solution will have to be some type of risk.
Analemma_ 1y ago
Has our system done a good job at preventing private capture? Are we better at preventing private capture than countries which build things more easily?
- ryathal 1y ago
  Our system is great at preventing private capture at the small scale and great at ensuring it on the large scale
aqme28 1y ago
> for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture. In truth I think it's a mix of this, and the opposite--where private interests have already captured the public good.
HEmanZ 1y ago
“ that for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture” I just flat out don’t buy this. The majority of regulations I see “abundance” type people arguing against were never aimed at curtailing private capture. They are aimed at keeping neihborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project regardless of type or upside of it, and making sure arbitrary unrelated “goods” are enforced with as much bureaucracy as possible during development (the best example of this is trying to get solar panels built and having to fight many years of “environmental” review for something so desperately needed for our environment).
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >keeping neighborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project You're giving government too much benefit of the doubt. It's not even private stakeholders vetoing these things. Often times is even opposed to these small projects in ways that the most tiny cheap concessions couldn't mitigate. A great many of these projects are dying because the government and its bureaucracy can't/won't approve them, not because anyone doesn't want them.
derbOac 1y ago
I have to admit this essay struck me as sort of strange. On the one hand, the EV charging station seems like something fairly straightforward, that should be approved and built fairly quickly. On the other hand, it's just an EV charging station, and without knowing anything more about it, I am just as inclined to believe that this is some small pet project of interest to the author, who no one else really cares about, and he's invoking some grand criticism of government writ large as a way of bringing urgency and grandeur his idiosyncratic interest that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. EV sales are in the middle of a nationwide decline, especially for one of the major manufacturers. I doubt it has anything to do with the 8-space parking lot in Seattle in particular. Add to this stories about charging station compatibility, and I'm not surprised there isn't a greater sense of urgency from the city. I have my pet projects I'd like to see finished as well, but I don't blame my municipality for not prioritizing them. They have a lot on their plate. It has nothing to do with capture or overregulation, but priorities with constrained staff, budget, and time. People change their minds and city priorities change with popular sentiment. In some ways, this is a good example of why some prudence is warranted, and maybe you should get the other side of the story. The essay neglects to mention that four of the eight charging stations would be owned by Tesla for example — something that if you're not opposed to, you might at least admit is reasonable for the city to reevaluate — and there is apparently contaminated soil at least nearby the site. I'm generally in favor of reregulation or deregulation, but I generally feel like land use, environmental, and public space or resources are something where there should be a lot of scrutiny and layers of approval. Once it's gone, it's hard to reclaim and expensive to clean up. I also feel like many examples of complaints in this area and mention of things like Abundance are just like this — someone complains their personal project of interest isn't done fast enough, criticizing the government for being cumbersome and overwrought, while neglecting to mention all the reasons why people might not prioritize their pet project, or why their pet project might reasonably be seen as requiring safeguards or approval processes. The reason why the government is slow with your pet project is because not everyone agrees with you, and there is a commons issue involved. Meanwhile, discussion about deregulation of things that actually involve personal choice, with little or no public commons issues involved, like medical care, go by the wayside and are never mentioned, or are even hyperregulated.
- 1y ago
gruez 1y ago
>In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. As patio11 would say, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero". Fraud is bad, but if fighting fraud involves so much red tape that it costs more than whatever petty corruption could ever cost, it's bad. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
ryandrake 1y ago
Regulations and process are just scar tissue from mistakes of the past. Excessive process indicates abundant past mistakes. If we want to go back to taking risks and making mistakes, by all means, let's cut red tape and get rid of process. But, we should do it knowing the tradeoff we're making. I think some people here just think "regulation/process = bad" and "getting rid of regulation/process = good" but it's more complex than that.
- kelseyfrog 1y ago
  Every regulation is a Chesterton's Fence. Maybe there's a different regulation that fences in the past mistake. Maybe it's historically contingent and irrelevant. Most laws exist without a direct reference to their relevancy and it takes legal archeology to uncover the telos of each clause.
like_any_other 1y ago
> "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. Nearly any kind of public spending can be exploited, including auctions. There are countless cases where the cheapest vendor that satisfies the written criteria is chosen, only to end up with delays, cost overruns that far outweigh the initial savings, or equipment that malfunctions and breaks. I know somebody who was in charge of writing these auctions for their government department. They picked a vendor, and then worked backwards to write the requirements so that only that vendor would satisfy them. Not because of corruption, but because they knew that vendor's equipment was quality. There was another case, in a different department, where this was not done - the auction was written naively (and honestly), and the cheapest vendor chosen. The equipment failed within months, putting people at risk, and a different vendor had to be quickly chosen. It's better to just put some conflict-of-interest guards in place, and then trust the judgment of whoever needs those goods, than to try to eliminate corruption through bureaucratic procedures. Because it can't be eliminated with bureaucracy - but efficiency can, and will be.
jordanb 1y ago
Biggest problems with "Abundance" are: 1) Somehow he decided euclidean zoning was a leftist project. Most leftists and environmentalists I've ever known hate euclidean zoning and this includes many urban planners. Euclidean zoning exists pretty much because property owners want to be able to exclude nearby land uses. It's fundamentally conservative, especially when the goal is to enforce limited housing density. 2) Setting up euclidean zoning as the main whipping boy and then saying "and also air quality regulations are basically the same thing" is a form of straw-manning the stuff he's arguing against. 3) He sets up a dichotomy between California and Texas ignoring that a lot of California's problems are conservative (downzoning, prop 13) and also ignoring the weaknesses in the Texas model including corporations running roughshod over locals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU) a fragile power grid, huge flooding problems etc. It's possible to look at quality of life metrics and see that Texas is doing quite badly. Also, you had the whole tech moving to Austin thing that already fizzled out. 4) He set up developers as the heroes in the story and apparently got a lot of his info from private equity ride-alongs. He ignores that developers are also often land speculators and are in favor of blocking competitors projects and downzoning areas to keep land value high. (https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/abundance-hudson-yards-west?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/abundance-hudson-yards-west?u...) Basically Abundance is a way for Ezra Klein and his fellow travelers to repackage Clinton-era triangulation and Obama-era neoliberalism as something completely new, so the party can carry on with its pro-donor agenda and ignore why they keep losing. That's also the reason why it was astroturfed into every left media space with a massive marketing budget.

by pu_pe 1y ago

FinnLobsien 1y ago

> In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. Every kind of regulation can be exploited and is currently being exploited. GDPR led to law firms squeezing money out of neighborhood bars with cease and desists. Government grants spawn companies doing the exact minimum to keep getting grants without building real businesses. I totally agree that lobbyism is a massive problem (and often the reason we get such complex regulation—they shut out the little players). But any proposed solution will have to be some type of risk.

Analemma_ 1y ago

Has our system done a good job at preventing private capture? Are we better at preventing private capture than countries which build things more easily?

ryathal 1y ago
Our system is great at preventing private capture at the small scale and great at ensuring it on the large scale

aqme28 1y ago

> for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture. In truth I think it's a mix of this, and the opposite--where private interests have already captured the public good.

HEmanZ 1y ago

“ that for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture” I just flat out don’t buy this. The majority of regulations I see “abundance” type people arguing against were never aimed at curtailing private capture. They are aimed at keeping neihborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project regardless of type or upside of it, and making sure arbitrary unrelated “goods” are enforced with as much bureaucracy as possible during development (the best example of this is trying to get solar panels built and having to fight many years of “environmental” review for something so desperately needed for our environment).

potato3732842 1y ago
>keeping neighborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project You're giving government too much benefit of the doubt. It's not even private stakeholders vetoing these things. Often times is even opposed to these small projects in ways that the most tiny cheap concessions couldn't mitigate. A great many of these projects are dying because the government and its bureaucracy can't/won't approve them, not because anyone doesn't want them.

derbOac 1y ago

I have to admit this essay struck me as sort of strange. On the one hand, the EV charging station seems like something fairly straightforward, that should be approved and built fairly quickly. On the other hand, it's just an EV charging station, and without knowing anything more about it, I am just as inclined to believe that this is some small pet project of interest to the author, who no one else really cares about, and he's invoking some grand criticism of government writ large as a way of bringing urgency and grandeur his idiosyncratic interest that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. EV sales are in the middle of a nationwide decline, especially for one of the major manufacturers. I doubt it has anything to do with the 8-space parking lot in Seattle in particular. Add to this stories about charging station compatibility, and I'm not surprised there isn't a greater sense of urgency from the city. I have my pet projects I'd like to see finished as well, but I don't blame my municipality for not prioritizing them. They have a lot on their plate. It has nothing to do with capture or overregulation, but priorities with constrained staff, budget, and time. People change their minds and city priorities change with popular sentiment. In some ways, this is a good example of why some prudence is warranted, and maybe you should get the other side of the story. The essay neglects to mention that four of the eight charging stations would be owned by Tesla for example — something that if you're not opposed to, you might at least admit is reasonable for the city to reevaluate — and there is apparently contaminated soil at least nearby the site. I'm generally in favor of reregulation or deregulation, but I generally feel like land use, environmental, and public space or resources are something where there should be a lot of scrutiny and layers of approval. Once it's gone, it's hard to reclaim and expensive to clean up. I also feel like many examples of complaints in this area and mention of things like Abundance are just like this — someone complains their personal project of interest isn't done fast enough, criticizing the government for being cumbersome and overwrought, while neglecting to mention all the reasons why people might not prioritize their pet project, or why their pet project might reasonably be seen as requiring safeguards or approval processes. The reason why the government is slow with your pet project is because not everyone agrees with you, and there is a commons issue involved. Meanwhile, discussion about deregulation of things that actually involve personal choice, with little or no public commons issues involved, like medical care, go by the wayside and are never mentioned, or are even hyperregulated.

1y ago

gruez 1y ago

>In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. As patio11 would say, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero". Fraud is bad, but if fighting fraud involves so much red tape that it costs more than whatever petty corruption could ever cost, it's bad. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

ryandrake 1y ago

Regulations and process are just scar tissue from mistakes of the past. Excessive process indicates abundant past mistakes. If we want to go back to taking risks and making mistakes, by all means, let's cut red tape and get rid of process. But, we should do it knowing the tradeoff we're making. I think some people here just think "regulation/process = bad" and "getting rid of regulation/process = good" but it's more complex than that.

kelseyfrog 1y ago
Every regulation is a Chesterton's Fence. Maybe there's a different regulation that fences in the past mistake. Maybe it's historically contingent and irrelevant. Most laws exist without a direct reference to their relevancy and it takes legal archeology to uncover the telos of each clause.

like_any_other 1y ago

> "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited. Nearly any kind of public spending can be exploited, including auctions. There are countless cases where the cheapest vendor that satisfies the written criteria is chosen, only to end up with delays, cost overruns that far outweigh the initial savings, or equipment that malfunctions and breaks. I know somebody who was in charge of writing these auctions for their government department. They picked a vendor, and then worked backwards to write the requirements so that only that vendor would satisfy them. Not because of corruption, but because they knew that vendor's equipment was quality. There was another case, in a different department, where this was not done - the auction was written naively (and honestly), and the cheapest vendor chosen. The equipment failed within months, putting people at risk, and a different vendor had to be quickly chosen. It's better to just put some conflict-of-interest guards in place, and then trust the judgment of whoever needs those goods, than to try to eliminate corruption through bureaucratic procedures. Because it can't be eliminated with bureaucracy - but efficiency can, and will be.

jordanb 1y ago

Biggest problems with "Abundance" are: 1) Somehow he decided euclidean zoning was a leftist project. Most leftists and environmentalists I've ever known hate euclidean zoning and this includes many urban planners. Euclidean zoning exists pretty much because property owners want to be able to exclude nearby land uses. It's fundamentally conservative, especially when the goal is to enforce limited housing density. 2) Setting up euclidean zoning as the main whipping boy and then saying "and also air quality regulations are basically the same thing" is a form of straw-manning the stuff he's arguing against. 3) He sets up a dichotomy between California and Texas ignoring that a lot of California's problems are conservative (downzoning, prop 13) and also ignoring the weaknesses in the Texas model including corporations running roughshod over locals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU) a fragile power grid, huge flooding problems etc. It's possible to look at quality of life metrics and see that Texas is doing quite badly. Also, you had the whole tech moving to Austin thing that already fizzled out. 4) He set up developers as the heroes in the story and apparently got a lot of his info from private equity ride-alongs. He ignores that developers are also often land speculators and are in favor of blocking competitors projects and downzoning areas to keep land value high. (https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/abundance-hudson-yards-west?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/abundance-hudson-yards-west?u...) Basically Abundance is a way for Ezra Klein and his fellow travelers to repackage Clinton-era triangulation and Obama-era neoliberalism as something completely new, so the party can carry on with its pro-donor agenda and ignore why they keep losing. That's also the reason why it was astroturfed into every left media space with a massive marketing budget.