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**JULY 19, 2023**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Power and Progressivism
Ezra Klein and David Dayen debate obstacles to progressive gains. (I
think Dayen wins, but judge for yourself.)
Our former writing fellow and later
**Prospect** senior staff writer Ezra Klein is one of the most
influential alums of this magazine, now with a column at
**The New York Times**. Klein is ingenious, inventive, good-hearted, and
reads widely and deeply. Every once in a while, however, he gets
infatuated with an intellectual framing that creates a straw man.
Lately, Klein has faulted liberals for focusing too much on the "demand
side," (by which he means purchasing power) and has called for a "supply
side progressivism
<[link removed]>"
or "a liberalism that builds
<[link removed]>."
This of course is exactly what President Biden has been trying to
achieve with his program of extensive public investments and efforts to
bring home supply chains; the immediate obstacles, as Klein
acknowledges, are Republicans.
But Klein goes further and blames liberals for making building difficult
by imposing regulatory hurdles, such as permitting requirements,
environmental criteria, and zoning restrictions. On this point, he's
half right. But the problem is not just these impositions, but the
corporate use of them to slow things down.
As our colleague David Dayen has argued, Klein tends to leave out of his
analysis realities of political power. In this rebuttal to Klein, deftly
titled "A Liberalism That Builds Power
<[link removed]>,"
Dayen does a deep dive into recent projects attempted by government and
adds the power analysis that Klein leaves out. And he notes the amazing
successes of Biden's several industrial policies that have leveraged
extensive private investments, despite presumed regulatory barriers.
They work even better when they empower workers. Conversely, Dayen
points out, regulation hardly slows down corporations when they have the
power to achieve what they want.
A favorite Klein example is the case of affordable housing. For Klein,
the main problem is zoning and other regulatory barriers that make it
more costly to build housing and raise costs. But as Dayen correctly
points out, we have a very modest social-housing sector in the U.S. and
limited funds for housing subsidies. We are largely at the mercy of
developers. We could eliminate zoning restrictions and make it easier to
build multifamily housing, and that would solve only a small portion of
the affordable-housing shortage.
Klein gamely acknowledged Dayen's critique and responds to it in this
recent
**New York Times** column, titled "Two Theories of What I'm Getting
Wrong
<[link removed]>."
Klein writes, "In focusing on how power can be gained, [Dayen] is
ignoring the very real way in which it can be lost. Power is lost when
projects fail-and it is lost by the very interest groups Dayen wants
to defend."
Klein means unions. The trouble with that contention is that when unions
are brought into the process, they can be big advocates of cutting red
tape, as they were in Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's success in
repairing the I-95 bridge collapse in record time.
By all means, we need to streamline approvals of public projects. But if
you take a close look at how regulation works in practice, much of the
glacial pace is the result of corporate capture of the regulatory
process. It takes a power shift to reverse that. A good example, which I
addressed in this piece
<[link removed]>,
is the Biden administration's reversal of the role of the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) from corporate ally, obstacle,
and source of regulatory delay to enabler of public-interest regulation.
These two pieces, by Dayen and Klein (both
**Prospect** products), are elegant examples of two of America's
smartest commentators debating what it will take for progressivism to
succeed. You owe it to yourself to read both.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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Where Discrimination Flourished Like Mushrooms
<[link removed]>
Washington state fines a mushroom grower $3.4 million for firing women
farmworkers and replacing them with male contract labor. BY DAVID BACON
Campus Whitewash
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What will the end of affirmative action mean for prospective students of
color navigating the application process at elite universities? BY
ELIZABETH MEISENZAHL
TSMC Phoenix Cuts Electrician Pay and Sends In Taiwanese Workers
<[link removed]>
After 50 union electricians left, TSMC reinstated incentive pay and
offered 25 non-union workers dispatched from Taiwan. BY LEE HARRIS
Â
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