The Worker Power Missing From the Abundance Debate (with Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

News, Business, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Everyone wants more housing, more clean energy, more transit, more care infrastructure, and more of the things people need to live good lives. But too much of the “abundance” debate treats workers, unions, environmental review, and community voice as obstacles to building — instead of asking who has power, who benefits, and who gets left out. This week, Goldy and Paul talk with Columbia professors Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez about their Roosevelt Institute report, Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers. They argue that the problem isn’t too much democracy — it’s too little. If we want to build at the scale this moment demands, we need an abundance agenda that puts workers, communities, and democratic power at the center from the start. Kate Andrias is the Patricia D. and R. Paul Yetter Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and serves as co-director of both the Columbia Law School Center for Constitutional Governance and the Columbia Labor Lab. Previously, she served as associate counsel and special assistant to President Barack Obama and as chief of staff in the White House Counsel’s Office. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is an associate professor and vice dean at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and serves as co-director of the Columbia Labor Lab. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Labor and a senior fellow in the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Further reading: Report: Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics TikTok: @pitchfork_econ YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.
0:10.6	The last five decades of trickle-down economics haven't worked.
0:14.7	But what's the alternative?
0:16.3	Middle-out economics is the answer.
0:18.6	Because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence.
0:23.2	That's right.
0:28.7	This is pitchfork economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.
0:36.9	Welcome to the show.
0:44.4	It's Paul again.
0:46.4	Yes, it is.
0:47.2	Here I am.
0:48.0	Man, we've been getting an abundance of Paul on these podcasts recently.
0:53.2	Waka, Waka.
1:17.5	I know I'm bringing down the, the median salary of our, of our podcast team here. Yeah, well, that's, uh, that's not hard. Every time, every time Nick is not on the, on the show, uh, it's, uh, it's a very different, uh, class feel, I guess. But it's, but speaking of an abundance of Paul, we're talking about abundance again. It's been over a year. We've had an abundance of
1:23.7	conversations about it, and the abundance conversations will continue until morale improves.
1:30.1	You know, I've been thinking a lot about abundance, right?
1:33.9	Obviously, I read the book last year.
1:35.7	We had some listeners who were upset that we mentioned it in our year-end book Roundup,
1:40.3	although I still stand by the fact that it was an important economic conversation.
1:44.9	Look, look, you look on my bookshelf, you'll see the communist manifesto, Das Kapital,
1:50.6	Mankf. You know, Mime Kampf is a terrible book. It's an important part of history. I didn't
1:58.7	read the whole thing, but, you know, reading bits of it.
	...

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