⤴ The Harris economic agenda: How pro-progress Up Wing is it?

The broad goals are more encouraging than many of the policy details

What do I make of the newly released Kamala Harris economic agenda? 

First some context: The political divide that this newsletter (and my 2023 book The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised) cares most about is one that transcends traditional left-right politics: "Up Wing" and "Down Wing" thinking. Up Wing represents a bold, optimistic view that embraces technological innovation and rapid economic growth as solutions to society's biggest challenges. It envisions a future of expanding possibilities and human potential. In contrast, Down Wing thinking is characterized by caution and a focus on limitations. It's skeptical of rapid change and often views innovation as a potential threat to stability and the environment.

As I write in the book:

Down Wing is about accepting limits, even yearning for them. Down Wingers are doomsters. Up Wing is about accelerating past limits—much as a rocket accelerates up through Earth’s gravity well. Up Wingers are boomsters. Up Wing embraces calculated risk-taking, especially from innovation, as essential to human progress and sees the capacity for such progress as central to our humanity. The burden of proof is on the defender of stasis. … Down Wingers live in a never-ending present. They see America as a zero-sum society where only the elite would benefit from tech and economic acceleration, if even possible. Some Down Wingers think climate change is such an existential threat that rich countries must live poorer and poor countries must never become rich. Down Wingers think human-level artificial general intelligence would mean mass unemployment, disrupted communities, civil unrest, and a ruined planet—and then it would kill us. Americans exploring the solar system and perhaps beyond? Not if uberbillionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are building the rockets. Better to tax away their fortunes so government can spend the money on more down-to-Earth challenges. You can look to the left and the right and find plenty of Down Wingers.

So I look at the Harris agenda through the Up Wing/Down Wing lens (with the unfortunate limitation that overall her economic blueprint is a bit more impressionistic than information-dense.) This is also important to stress: Believers in abundance and techno-solutionism can be found across the traditional Left-Right spectrum.

Indulgent interregnum: The example I like to give is the issue of science funding. Someone to my left might have more confidence in the ability of government to intervene to positive effect. At the minimal end, governments fund basic science research without specific applied goals, expanding fundamental knowledge but potentially lacking direct technological applications. A light-touch approach adds some direction through targeted funding and incentives. Moderate intervention involves strategic investments in specific areas with defined goals. Heavy intervention, often called "industrial policy," sees the government actively shaping industrial development. At the most extensive level, governments directly support specific companies as "national champions." I would have no problem with the first three examples being called Up Wing, broadly.

Harris and supply-side progressivism

What I was searching for in Kamalanomics was some … flavor of the policy and attitude energy found in the pro-abundance left. It’s a (micro?) movement that emerged from the Biden administration's "Build Back Better" plan, which aims to transform America's economy by targeting drastic carbon emission reductions and infrastructure modernization. But this ambitious dream faced (and continues to face) a major hurdle: a fundamental: a lack of state capacity to implement large-scale renewable energy and infrastructure projects in a timely and cost-effective manner.

This realization sparked a broader recognition among left-leaning thinkers — notably journalists Ezra Klein of the New York Times and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic — of supply constraints across various sectors, including housing, education, and healthcare. Often, these limitations stem from regulatory barriers. This shift in perspective gave rise to "supply-side progressivism," which emphasizes expanding the economy's productive capacity. Interestingly, this new abundance left shares common ground with right-leaning techno-optimists. Urban density and housing reform have emerged as key areas for potential collaboration. So, too, has nuclear energy.

Some pro-growth bright spots

Let me phrase the issue this way: To what extent is Kamala Harris a supply-side progressive?