Zephyr Teachout
speaker
84 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Zephyr Teachout’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Thanks so much for having us on.
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate how you led off because I do actually think there's a deep disagreement. I'll start with the deep disagreement and then there's some areas of genuine agreement and we should talk about those as well. But I gather you're having us on to really fight out the... I want the deep disagreement, yeah.
There's an area of deep disagreement and there's areas of specific disagreement. So the deepest disagreement is actually what you started with, which is the question of focus.
And I think that we should be focusing democratic politics and politics in general on the problem of concentrated power and the way in which concentrated power is making it impossible to do things and also really crushing our democracy. That we really do have an oligarchy problem and that the anti-monopoly toolkit is then a response to that. So, like, with that focus, I would say...
OK, something good the Biden administration did, getting over-the-counter hearing aids, like a life changer for millions of Americans. Who blocked that? Well, it's an oligarchy in the hearing aid market. There's basically five companies that control the hearing aids, and they did everything they could to slow down the procedure that
The best friend of the Chamber of Commerce is a long notice and comment period that slows down government from doing something really good and meaningful. So I use that as a micro example, but the macro critique and disagreement is around focus.
I just want to make sure that we keep something I think that is really important, really central, which is democracy. And so when I'm thinking about examples, and you've done a lot more research in other countries, but in the United States, obviously we're going to look at FDR, and we aren't going to spend all our time on the New Deal.
But we see that for FDR in the first term, it was more of a top-down vision, right? Let's just get things done. And he found it didn't work. And the buy-in for that, he needed to bring an anti-monopoly agenda.
And when you and I worked together, I think, eight years ago on visions of the Green New Deal, I think an underappreciated aspect of the Green New Deal is it's not just a technocratic top-down vision. It is very much about a vision of power.
I mean, housing is a global crisis right now. It's not just an American crisis, especially the cost of housing.
I want to keep grounded there.
So as I wrote in the review, I have some initial thoughts on housing, but I actually think there's a lot of areas of overlap on housing, that we both agree that there are actually significant problems with zoning. My suspicion is that there is a... Decent amount of problem in the concentration in the home building market and some of the supplies for construction market.
I don't know if that's different in those different areas.
Yeah, but I actually suspect, like, I don't need to fight you on particular housing policies that you're deep in the weeds of, on zoning policies. Your theory, as I understand it, is that the main reason for the cost difference is... left wing resistance like Rick Caruso? You know, I think Rick Caruso is this billionaire in L.A.
who was leading a big NIMBY movement to make sure that you shouldn't have any reform on single family housing. Does he fit into your story? Yes.
And in particular for corporate interests.
I'd have to know about the particular process vetoes that you're talking about. And I do think they matter. And as you know, one of my concerns about the book is that if you describe process vetoes generally, but don't say which ones are a problem, then it really matters.
Like there's, you know, I actually think it's good that I was comparing the other day, I was looking at, okay, what about upstate New York versus Texas? You know, cause I don't know California housing markets, but what about upstate New York versus Texas? Not New York City, but places where there's more capacity. And roughly, it's not two point times.
It's about 20 percent more expensive, 10 to 20 percent more expensive in upstate New York to build than in Texas. And some part of that is labor. And I think that's good. Like, I think it's good. We have a more unionized labor force now. in New York than we do in Texas. So can I come back to you with another example, which is, I think, an area where... Well, I want to stay on housing.
There, I don't think you can look at what has happened in New York public transit, subway and real estate without telling the story of money and politics. Like one of the big differences between the United States and Europe during the period you're talking about. is that we allowed for unlimited campaign spending. We basically made the job of politicians to be a fundraising job.
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