The Economic Mistake the Left Is Finally Confronting
"Progressives are often uninterested in the creation of the goods and services they want everyone to have."
What It’s About
Klein introduces the idea of "supply-side progressivism,” which focuses on increasing essential goods and services like housing, healthcare, and clean energy. Klein argues that policy constraints on supply hinder many of progressives’ goals, and mainstream progressivism (which mostly focuses on subsidizing consumers) is ill-equipped to solve this problem. For example, housing shortages are worsened by restrictive zoning, and lack of access to healthcare is exacerbated by arbitrary limits on medical school residencies.
Upshot
Klein identifies:
- The Limits of Subsidies: Subsidies without supply fixes (in markets like housing) create inflation or waiting lists
- Better Options: To solve America’s sticker challenges, we need to try new things, like deregulating housing construction, paving the way for more innovation in and faster deployment of clean energy, and implementing new models in healthcare (like pairing price controls on pharmaceuticals with rewards to the companies for breakthroughs)
Why It Matters
Klein’s analysis has been foundational in kicking off new thinking on the left about supply’s deep relationship to quality of life and prices.
Who Wrote It
Ezra Klein is an opinion columnist at The New York Times, a former editor-at-large of Vox, and the co-author of Abundance with The Atlantic's Derek Thompson.
