Thanks For Coming Back! Your Free Allocated Content Will Shortly Be Coming to an End. We would like to give you a 14-Day Free Trial with No Credit Card Required.

Create a profile and unlock personalized features. Receive your personalised daily report. Login to your Personal FEED, Follow and Join Channel VIP Rooms. Comment and be part of our global community. Get access to all member content with No Censorship, Freedom of Speech, No tracking, No algorithms and NO A.I. Plus much more. Click the START button, complete the form below and verify your email address.

This offer expires in
00 00 00

Start your free trial now!
No Payment or Credit Card Required

Already a premium member? Log in here

Skip the Trial - Join Us Now

Join the Worldwide Community That Believe in the Protection of Freedom of Speech

Your Free Allocated Content Has come to an End. However, We would like to give you a 14-Day Free Trial with No Credit Card Required.

Create a profile and unlock personalized features. Receive your personalised daily report. Login to your Personal FEED, Follow and Join Channel VIP Rooms. Comment and be part of our global community. Get access to all member content with No Censorship, Freedom of Speech, No tracking, No algorithms and NO A.I. Plus much more. Click the START button, complete the form below and verify your email address.

This offer expires in
00 00 00

Start your free trial now!
No Payment or Credit Card Required

Already a premium member? Log in here

Skip the Trial - Join Us Now

Join the Worldwide Community That Believe in the Protection of Freedom of Speech

You need to log in to proceed.

Login

Read

Abundance’ shows how the left can start winning again

  • elocal magazine By elocal magazine
  • Mar 27, 2025

According to commentator Jesse Mulligan, in Abundance, Democrat-aligned journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that progressive parties have become bureaucratic blockers instead of visionary builders.

This is an idea Mulligan believes will “dominate the political conversation” in the coming weeks.

Mulligan says the book explains why the Democrats failed in 2024 and why centre-left parties are losing touch with voters. “People want homes, safe streets and good transport,” he writes, “but we’ve made it nearly impossible to build them.”

For Mulligan, the book’s central insight is that voters are exhausted—not just conservatives—by endless red tape and regulatory deadlock.

He connects these ideas to New Zealand, pointing to the $44 million cost of a 3km cycleway in Auckland and the decade-long bureaucratic disaster of Get Wellington Moving.

He writes approvingly of Abundance’s core message: that the left needs to promise action and delivery, not just ideals. “Vote for us and we’ll blow up this bloated bureaucracy and start building rail lines and houses,” he summarises.

The book makes a wider point about housing, which Mulligan notes: “Housing is everything. Housing is the quantum field of urban life.”

While Abundance is an American book, Mulligan cites the Labour–National urban housing accord, Barbara Edmonds’ comments at a recent investment summit, and Chris Bishop’s fast-track bill as signs of cross-party appetite for reform—if only parties could agree on the details.


Centrist Ltd.

Opinion
New Zealand
Avatar

View elocal magazine’s premium content now…

Get a free 14 day trial (no credit card required)

Already a premium member? Log in here

Skip the Trial - Join Us Now