Document Type

Report

Publication Date

4-2026

Abstract

The “abundance agenda” identifies a worthy goal: to ask what people really need and to organize government to make sure there is enough of it, including by eliminating unnecessary delays and veto points. However, abundance’s theory of why government fails to provide the goods people need and how to change that reality falls short. As critics have argued, abundance is insufficiently attentive to questions of political power and distribution, undervalues democratic participation, and sidelines discussions about trade-offs, including around the importance of protecting labor standards and the environment. Centering the role of workers and organized labor helps respond to all three of these flaws, ensuring that abundance is truly democratic, rather than exacerbating inequality or democratic erosion at a time of authoritarian backsliding. Organized labor — in its existing form and even more so with key reforms — can play an essential role in delivering a democratic version of abundance. Unions can provide a steady stream of labor for new infrastructure projects, help abundance programs overcome political obstacles, and increase the legitimacy and efficacy of abundance programs — though success will ultimately require changes to some unions’ practices and to public policies. In turn, the abundance agenda, properly designed, can help labor — indeed, all working people—by increasing the supply of good jobs, providing desperately needed infrastructure for workers, and facilitating labor organizing.

Disciplines

Administrative Law | Labor and Employment Law | Law

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