🌞☁️ Pro-growthers are having a moment. But so are degrowthers

Disruption today in the name of abundance tomorrow isn't for everyone. The future still has plenty of enemies

Is the pro-growth/progress/abundance movement — “Up Wing” (rather than Left or Right Wing) in the parlance of this high-value newsletter and my 2023 book — having a moment? And if so, is it more than just a moment? Can it be sustained?

That’s a question I ask my friend Virginia ”The Future and Its Enemies” Postrel in a just-completed podcast that I will post next week. Here’s a bit of her answer:

I think there is a real progress and abundance movement. “Abundance” tends to be the word that people who are more Democrat-oriented use, and “progress” is the word that people who are more — I don't know if they're exactly Republican, but more on the right . . . They have disagreements, but they represent distinct Up Wing (to put it in your words) factions within their respective parties. And actually, the Up Wing thing is a good way of thinking about it because it includes both people that, in The Future and Its Enemies, I would classify as technocrats. . . They want top-down direction in the pursuit of what they see as progress. And people that I would classify as dynamists who are more bottom-up and more about decentralized decision-making, price signals, markets, et cetera. They share a sense that they would like to see the possibility of getting stuff done, of increasing abundance, of more scientific and technological progress, all of those kinds of things. I think it is a real thing, I think it is in both parties, and its enemies are in both parties, too.

Now, both here and in my book, I outline the tailwinds capable of propelling and sustaining an Up Wing shift in American actions and attitudes: the embryonic Age of Generative AI, nuclear power's growing acceptance, the emergence of a pro-abundance progressive movement focused on expanding economic capacity, and competition with China. All of these factors remain in play, helping create momentum for technological progress and policy changes that embrace innovation and dynamism. (My one notable analytical miss was not connecting how the energy demands of AI would help boost the nuclear revival.)

Degrowth rhetoric finds new platforms

Yet the Down Wing forces are far from defeated, as Postrel is correct to note.