"Abundance Progressivism" vs. Reality

You can't kill all the lawyers

By now, you may have heard about some folks who think that the way to rescue Progressivism is with an Abundance Agenda. The thesis is that government can do good things, but progressives need to be more friendly to be less attached to rules that stifle activities like building homes or infrastructure. All the supply-side progressives are asking for is environmental groups and other progressive NGOs to politely get out of the way of government when it wants to do good things.

In reality, lawyers make a good living out of undertaking lawsuits under the current regime. And if there is one lesson I have learned about politics is this: never get between lawyers and a gravy train.

Take title insurance, for example. One of the annoying expenses when buy a house is paying for a title search and title insurance. The theory is that somebody generations ago might have failed to pay taxes or lift a mortgage on the property you are buying, and that could put your ownership of the property in doubt.

There is a simple solution to this, which is to change the law to say that the current owner’s title to the property is good enough. So when the owner sells the property to you, no one can come after you with a claim from previous generations.

But that simple solution would put a lot of title lawyers out of business! And we can’t have that.

Here is another example. Suppose that a family has a child with special needs, and the school district for some reason denies the services to meet those needs. Lawyers can sue the school district. In some jurisdictions, the government pays for the lawyers to undertake the lawsuits. So on the one hand, the government is on the one hand paying for lawyers to sue the other hand of the government (the school district).

These lawsuits do not increase spending on services for special needs children. The winners of the lawsuits get more services, but with a fixed budget the school district has to make services less available to other children. In fact, the cost of fighting the lawsuits reduces the district’s funding for services for special needs.

Is this a stupid way to handle the distribution of funds to special needs children? Obviously. But it is good for lawyers. And never get between lawyers and a gravy train.

I am inclined to believe that overly optimistic assumptions about human nature are baked in to any political philosophy that advocates the use of government to solve many social problems. This applies to all forms of progressivism, including Abundance Progressivism.

One cannot assume that government will do good things just because Abundance Progressives advocate for that to happen. Will NGOs give up on environmental lawsuits because Abundance Progressives make compelling arguments? That is not the way to bet.