It Could Happen Here - CZM Rewind: Abundance, Or How To Sell Tech Fascism To Liberals

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Mia talks about the new Abundance movement, its ideas and how it operates as a Trojan horse for its funders Peter Thiel and the Koch Brothers. Orignal Air Date: 9.9.25 Sources: https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-matter-with-abundance-harris?ref=newintermag.com https://newintermag.com/abundance-big-techs-bid-for-the-democratic-party/#fn16 https://archive.vn/zgPJ8 https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Abundance-Ecosystem-Report-Final.pdf https://www.semafor.com/article/08/17/2025/with-the-argument-the-left-gets-a-new-publication http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2022/01/washingtons-newest-think-tank-institute.html https://www.vcinfodocs.com/venture-capital-extremism https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/who-is-behind-the-growing-abundance-movement/ https://www.vcinfodocs.com/the-tech-fascist-axis https://www.abundancedc.org/speakers https://www.vcinfodocs.com/the-tech-fascist-axis https://archive.vn/GKRmw#selection-377.0-377.19 https://www.theargumentmag.com/about https://prospect.org/economy/2024-11-26-abundance-agenda-neoliberalisms-rebrand/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/dc-attorney-general-inks-first-settlement-realpage-price-fixing-lawsuit-2025-06-02/ https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/economic-liberties-launches-2025-end-rental-price-fixing-campaign/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/12/17/the-cost-of-anticompetitive-pricing-algorithms-in-rental-housing/ https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realpage-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions-american-renters https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realpage-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions-american-renters https://techfascism.substack.com/p/the-network-state-and-infrastructureSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit

gentleman's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. From NBA champion, Stefan Curry, comes Shot Ready, a powerful, never-before-seen look at the mindset that changed the game. I fell in love with the grind. You have to find joy in the work you do when no one else is around.

Success is not an accident. I'm passing the ball to you. let's go step curry redefined basketball now he's rewriting what it means to succeed order your copy of the new york times bestseller shot ready today at stephen curry book dot com cozo media welcome to a cadap here a podcast about a world on fire and how to put it out i'm your host mea wong the world is fucked It's the one thing everyone agrees on. In the vacuum of a defeated Democratic Party and a hideously unpopular fascist takeover

that is nevertheless on the march, ideologies vie for the mantle of resistance to the fascist purge. Suran Mamdani's victory in New York represents a resurgent social democracy. In the streets, everyone from liberals to communists to anarchists are fighting against ICE and the National Guard occupations. To get our bearings in the swirling vortex of ideology, let us check in slightly further to the right,

but still firmly in the grounds of liberalism on a new movement called abundance. What is abundance? Brust into prominence by a book in March 2025, simply called Abundance by Liberal stalwart Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, who is slightly the most well-known, and futures people like Matthew and Glacius. They argue that growth is good. They argue we should make more things. They argue we should have bold visions of the future, with, to quote Malcolm Harris's description in the baffler,

desalinated ocean water flowing from the taps, skyscraper farms growing our food indoors, and, quote, star pills, manufactured in space, clean air, and super-fast planes. Think big, think fast, solve problems by building more. They even have a new magazine runoff of Substack called The Argument, which is supposed to be about bringing these new ideas to the left.

It includes Social Democratic stalwart Matt Prunach. Isn't that nice? Semaphore in the reporting on the launch of the argument wrote, quote, many of the argument's writers have supported, or in Thompson's case authored, the ideas of abundance, a recent book advocating for reforms to improve government deficiency, lower the cost of housing and improve public transportation among other initiatives. And those sound like good things, don't they?

Let's take a look at who's funding the argument. It's funded in part by Emergent Ventures? Which was created by the Koch Brothers' Mercantus Center with seed money from Peter Thiel? Wait, what? They have a conference every year. They had one in 2024. The 2025 conference was last. week. Who was speaking? The opponent's conference 2025 speakers include Charles Lehman from the

Right Wing Manhattan Institute, an organization founded by Ronald Reagan's director of the CIA. Well, let's hear him out. Let's see what he thinks. Lehman advocates what he calls deportation abundance, which is his plan to make a more efficient deportation machine. that could actually deport every undocumented person in the U.S.? Wait, what? This conference is also sponsored by the Koch family's organizations stand together. It includes speakers from the American Enterprise Institute. One of the co-sponsors of the event did another conference with special guest Kevin Roberts,

the guy who wrote Project 2025. Isn't this supposed to be a liberal movement? Oh, no! What's going on here? Could Abundance really be funded by all these right-wing billionaires and tech fascists? Oh, no! As you may have guessed from the title, most of today's episode is going to be about what the people behind abundance actually want. And it's not what you or I want.

It is what Peter Thiel wants, what Mark Andreessen wants, what J.D. Vance wants. In a sense, it is what Donald Trump wants. because abundance as an ideology is an attempt by the tech oligarchs to take over the left the same way they took over the right and that makes the ideology extremely dangerous as we are going to unfail

this project is directly tied to many of the worst people in this country right now it is tied to Peter Thiel, it is funded by Peter Thiel it is funded by Mark Andreessen who is another effectively TELite who believes in most of the same, if not all of the same things that Teal does.

These ideas are normally unacceptable on the liberal left, but because abundance is wrapped in the ideology of liberalism, because it wears the faces of liberal Starworts like Ezra Klein, it can be smuggled in a way that leaves the left and liberalism as a whole susceptible to broad ideological capture by the very same tech fascists we are all trying to oppose. Before we fully get into what the funders of abundance actually want, let's talk a little bit about what the ideology of abundance is.

The very, very basic ideology of abundance is that we need more things, we need to build more, and that government regulations are standing in the way of building things. Now, if this sounds suspiciously Reaganite to you, that's because, in a sense, it is. Asra Klein describes this as progressive supply-side economics. Now, supply-side economics, famously, is Reagan's thing. You will note that basically everyone across the entire political spectrum, at least sort of when pressed, will agree that supply-side economics simply does not work.

But let's hear them out. I think another way to understand what abundance is and why it works the way that it does, is to look at it in the context not of American political ideology and debates, but of Chinese political debates. Now, Chinese political debates have, for much of the last decade, really a decade and a half,

taken the form of arguments about either increasing the size of the pie or splitting the pie more evenly. On the left, you have a case for redistribution, right? For higher taxation, for higher welfare benefits, for giving people things

from the states and redistributing it from rich people to the poor. On the rights, you have growing the pie, which argues that instead of redistributing wealth, we should simply grow more wealth, and that wealth will trickle down to everyone else. Wait, this is just Reaganism again. It's all Reaganism. This is the very frustrating thing about abundance, is that when you actually go past the language they're using and you look at what they think will happen, it's just trickle down economics again. It's just trickle down economics, and abundance is on the right wing side of it. Now, you know, there are definitely arguments for places where we do, in fact, need to build more things, right? And this

argument has become particularly prominent with the rise of yimbism. And like, yeah, I don't know, building more houses is good. I mean, it was, it was literally a demand of the Hungarian revolution, right? Like, yeah, we need more of it. But, comma, we need to be very, very careful here. Because the way that abundance structures its arguments and the ways that, for example, a really, really vulgar version of Yimbism has been deployed by these people in order to just sort of wholesale oppose government regulations. And we're not just talking about things here like eliminating zoning requirements, right? We are talking about, as we'll get into later, the people behind this movement wants to

create their own city, states, and special economic zones where no government regulations supply. But the fundamental argument here is that lifting government restrictions on production will, you know, increase the size of the market, and because prices just supply and demand, prices will fall because there's more supply. None of this is how markets actually work. One of the crucial insights of anthropology is that markets are not simply neutral objective forces that function according to precise mathematical laws. They are socially constructed. even in neoclassical economics, by their own logic, price is not just supply and demand.

That's something that's only true in perfectly competitive markets. Imperfectically competitive markets do not exist. They probably cannot exist, but they do not exist in the real world, and they do not represent something like the housing market. In the real world, markets are defined by power. Neoclassical economists attempt to explain the role of power in markets, through monopoly, right? You know, you can look at monopoly and monopsony.

There are a bunch of very different things that they think are sort of deviations of this perfect competitive market where people band together to build power and thus are able to distort what the perfect free market should be doing. And this is a feature of basically every market that actually exists, right?

There aren't perfectly competitive markets. They all have power in them and they all have degrees of monotonyms. to use a sort of Marxian term, in them as well. Now, do you know what else has a degree of monopoly? That's right. It is the products and services that support this podcast. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip. you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuthuburn.com.

Please enjoy responsibly. The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question. What do I want my life to look like now? I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford. And on therapy for black girls, we create space for honest conversations about identity, relationships, mental health, and the choices that help us grow. As cybersecurity expert, Camille Stewart Gloucester reminds us,

We are in a divisive time where our comments are weaponized against us. And so what we find is a lot of black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain. Each week, we explore the tools and insights that help you move with purpose, whether you're navigating something new or returning to yourself. If you're ready for thoughtful guidance and grounded support, this is the place for you. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here.

It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need. This year, we're taking part in the PODS Fight Poverty Kim. campaign. And it's not just the happiness lab. Some of my favorite podcasters are also taking part. Think Jay Shetty from On Purpose, Dan Harris from 10% Happier, and Dave Desteno from How God Works, and more. Our goal this year is to raise $1 million, which will help over 700 families in Rwanda living in extreme poverty. Here's how it works. You donate to give directly, and they put that cash directly into the hands of families in need, because those families know best what they

need, whether it's buying livestock to fertilize their farm, paying school fees, or starting a small business. With that support, families can invest in their future and build lasting change. So join me and your favorite podcasters in the PODS Fight Poverty campaign. Head to give directly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and make a contribution. And if you're a first time donor, giving multiplier will even match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness Lab to donate. Like if we're on the air here and I literally have my contract here and I'm looking at, you know, as soon as I sign this, I'm going to get a seven-figure check. I've told them I won't be working here in two weeks. From the underground clubs that shaped global music to the pastors

and creatives who built a cultural empire. The Atlanta Ears podcast uncovers the stories behind one of the most influential cities in the world. The thing I love about Atlanta is that it's a city of hustlers, man. Each episode explores a different chapter of Atlanta's rise, featuring conversations with ludicrous, Will Packer, Pastor Jamal Bryan, DJ Drama, and more. The full series is available to listen to now. I really just had never experienced anything like what was going on in the city as far as, like, you know, seeing so many young, black, affluent, creatives in all walks of life. The church had dwindled almost to nothing, and God said, this is your assignment.

And that's like how you know, like, okay, oh, you're from Atlanta for real. I ain't got to say too much. I'm a gradie, baby. Shut up. Listen to Atlanta is on the I Heart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So what does this actually have to do with abundance? Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I explained rent on this show.

And this is specifically here, rent in the context of what you pay to your landlords. I promise this will circle back to, this will circle back to sort of abundance, yumbiaism, in a second. I attempted to explain rent by drawing on the work of the legendary Venezuel Fernando Cornel, to argue that the rent that we pay to our landlords function similarly to oil rent, where price is not set by supply and demand, but instead by the social power of oil producers. Now, people got very, very mad at me for this, but the long der Reyes of history has vindicated me. In the real world, it turns out, I was right. The most powerful example, of this in the housing market is the case of RealPage, a service that allowed landlords to get

recommendations on their pricing based on information from all the landlords who submitted their data, thus creating an algorithmic machine for price fixing. This got bad enough that even the Biden Justice Department got involved. Here's from the Department of Justice's lawsuit against RealPage. Quote, RealPage acknowledged that its software is aimed at maximizing prices for landlords referring to its products as, quote, driving every possible opportunity to increase price, avoiding the race to the bottom in down markets, and, quote, a rising tide raises all ships. A real page executive observed that its products help landlords avoid competing on the merits, noting, quote, there is a greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete

against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down. A Real Page executive explains to a landlord that using competitor data can help identify situations where a landlord may have a $50 increase instead of $10 increase for the day. Another landlord commented about Real Page's product. I always like this product because your algorithm used proprietary data from other subscribers to suggest rents and terms. That's classical price fixing.

Now, I was derided for arguing that landlords would ban together using their social power to prevent rents. from falling even with units sit and empty. And it turns out, I was right the whole time. They were doing exactly that. It turns out, in the actual real world of the market, all of these companies on all of these landlords had found a way to ban together

in order to use their social power and use the information in their possession to fix the price of rent. Here is from Reuters, drawing from yet another lawsuit this time from the Attorney General of D.C. A monthly report from W.C. Smith in 2022 showed the company had increased revenues per unit by 4.6 to 4.7% despite decreased occupancy levels according to the lawsuit. So what is that saying? That is saying

that the actual number of people in these apartments is decreasing. The number of apartments staying open that have no one in them is increasing. but the price is not going down, even though there's more supply. The price is still going up. Why is the price still going up? Well, well, well, the Justice Department calls this price-fixing, large-scale collusion to disrupt the functioning of the perfectly normal competitive market. The anthropologist Fernando Corneal, as I argued before, calls it absolute rent, rent extracted by virtue of the social power of the landowner. As I wrote in that episode, quote, absolute rent does not obey the law of supply and demand. It is the product of social power, of the power of land ownership itself, and the organization of landowning class, and they're

backing by the state and its militaries and police. And this causes economists attempting to use supply and demand to explain rent to get very, very important events, very wrong. Morris Edelman, the famous oil economist, predicted in 1972 that the price of oil was going to collapse based on oversupply and competition. Instead, it increased 400% between 1973 and 1974 because oil producers banded together to exercise their power and their organization, known as OPEC, became a genuine world power. As Cornel put it, quote, the sharp increase of 1973 and 1974 in oil prices did not result from a world shortage of oil. It was, rather, the outcome of a long historical process by which OPEC nations, acting as landowners,

developed a means to extract a rent on the basis of their ownership of the oil fields, an absolute rent, in addition to the differential rents they had collected in the past. In 1973, a set of converging political and economic conditions helped establish their collective ability to restrict the world supply of oil. With this power, OPEC felt entitled to set the market price of oil, thus freeing the level of rent from the previous constraints of market price. Now rent itself, absolute and differential, would determine the market price of oil. What does that sound like?

Oh, it sounds like Real Page's price-fixing algorithm. Why does it sound like Real Page's price-fixing algorithm? It's because, in the real world, markets are not neutral institutions that operate according to neutral laws. Their institutions created and enforced by the state. Landlords can jack up your rent because they wield collective power together and have the ability to use the state to drag you out of your home at gunpoint. abundance is, to a large extent, an attempt to harness widespread discontent over the price of goods,

the price of rent, the price of food, and argue that you can simply produce more and this will make all of the prices go down. But as we've seen here, as long as the social power is held by the rent extractors, they can simply set their own price. None of this is addressed in abundance, and there's a simple reason for that. The people funding the abundance agenda are the very same people profiting from their social power. So let's talk about the money. I'm going to be quoting here from a report from prospect, which is very good. The Institute for Progress, IFP, which co-hosted Abundance, 2024 and is listed as a key

institutional partner by the Inclusive Abundance Initiative, has a bevy of corporate ties. In 2022, IFP received $110,000 from FAI and has FAI's executive director on its board. Now, FAA is the Foundation for American Innovation. I'm going to read, this is also an abundance co-host, which is very funny. I am going to read a quote from Kate Willett, who has also done some excellent reporting on this, and she describes how the FAA hosted another conference in 2024 called Reboot. The quote, surprise guest of the conference was Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and chief architect of 2025.

Now, back to the Institute for Progress. Part of what's going on here, right, is that this is an, you know, and what I'm trying to emphasize by how confusing this whole thing is, is that abundance is composed of a series of think tanks and weird institutes that are all tied into a bunch of tech money, right? Keeping the acronym straight is very difficult. You do not need to hold all of them in your head. The other thing that you need to understand about this, right, is if you look at who is co-hosting these conferences and who is behind these books and who is behind these media outlets, a very, very clear picture starts to. to emerge. I'm going to go back to quoting from prospect. One of the funders of the Institute for Progress was Emergent Ventures, which is a product of the Cokeback Mercantus Institute at George Mason University. Emergent itself was launched by a grant from Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is a right-wing billionaire with a vast influence network at the intersection of techno-futurism and anti-democratic thought, who has called technology an alternative to democratic politics, small D-democratic, by the way,

he means the concept of democracy to, quote, unilaterally change the world. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance is a known sion of Peter Thiel. Let's look at the Chamber of Progress, another one of the groups that is heavily involved in abundance. Chamber of Progress, which self-identifies its work as part of a growing abundance policy movement, is a trade group started with Google Seed Money. By Google alum, Adam Kovacovic. Kovacovic proudly touts his college activism leading an effort to cross a united farm workers picket line. The Chamber of Progress's partners,

reed funders include A16Z, Circle, Coinbase, Google, Cracken, Ripple, Waymo, and Driesen Horowitz, or A16Z, is a venture capital firm heavily invested in AI and crypto. Co-founder Markandreason believes the technology is a solution to every problem. He's also on Meta's board. He is also a theolyte tech fashion. this is in some sense a very, very interesting

collusion of forces, right? We have the Koch brothers who are, you know, sort of the ancient libertarian right side of Republican dark money. They are, you know, the people who have traditionally funded right-wing movements in the past,

they are the Tea Party people, they are, you know, they are sort of the boogeyman under the bed for anyone who has wanted to make the world a better place for a very, very, very low. long time. And they and their organizations are

working with the emergent tech fascist right. You know, people like, people like Mark Andresen, people with Peter Thiel. And these are the organizations that have gotten in bed together in order to do this. Now, these people have a bunch of absolutely hideous beliefs.

We're not even going to get in to the eugenics here, but like these, the people funding this thing are huge eugenicists. We literally do not have time to do all of the eugenic shit. associated with this because if I were to actually do the eugenic, I mean, we talked about some of

like Maddie and Glacius' bullshit on this podcast earlier, but like, if I actually went through and did this, this episode would be like 12 hours long, I am going to cover this sort of network state peer theolyte eugenics circle at some point later. That is a forthcoming episode.

But yeah, for now, here are these ads. Hopefully are not eugenics. Woo! I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo.

This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. cut bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question. What do I want my life to look like now?

I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford. And on therapy for black girls, we create space for honest conversations about identity, relationships, mental health, and the choices that help us grow. As cybersecurity expert, Camille Stewart Gloucester reminds us,

we are in a device of time where our comments are weaponized against us. And so what we find is a lot of black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain. Each week, we explore the tools and insights that help you move with purpose, whether you're navigating something new or returning to yourself. If you're ready for thoughtful guidance and grounded support, this is the place for you.

Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. podcast. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need. This year, we're taking part in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. And it's not just the Happiness Lab. Some of my favorite podcasters are also taking part. Think Jay Shetty from On Purpose, Dan Harris from 10% Happier, and Dave Desteno from How God Works and more. Our goal this year is to raise $1 million, which will help over 700 families in Rwanda living in extreme poverty. Here's how it works. You donate to give directly, and they put that cash directly into the hands of families in need, because those families know best what they need, whether it's buying livestock to fertilize their farm, paying school fees, or starting a small business. With that support, families can invest in their future and build lasting change. So join me and your favorite

podcasters in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign, head to give directly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and make a contribution. And if you're a first-time donor, giving multiplier will even match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate. Hey, I'm Kelly, and some of you may know me as Laura Winslow. And I'm Telma, also known as Aunt Rachel. If those names ring a bell, then you probably are familiar with the show that we were both on back in the 90s called Family Matters. Kelly and I have done a lot of things and played a lot of roles over the years, but both of us are just so proud to have been part of Family Matters.

Did you know that we were one of the longest running sitcoms with the black cast? When we were making the show, there were so many moments filled the joy and laughter and cut up that I will never forget. Oh, girl, you got that right. The look that you all give me is so black. All black people know about the look. On each episode of Welcome to the Family, we'll share personal reflections about making the show. Yeah, we'll even bring in part of the cast and some other special guests to join in the fun and spill some tea. Listen to Welcome to the Family with Telma and Kelly on the

IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's get back to who I think are really the two primary villains of this story. And that is Peter Thiel and Mark Andresen, who are two of the most dangerous people in the entire world. Teal and Andresen are fascists who believe the state should be a corporation run by the tech elite. They do not believe in democracy, and particularly Thiel has said that democracy is the enemy of freedom, right? When these people talk about running the state like a business, they mean that there should be an unaccountable fucking philosopher's CEO king and that there shouldn't be democracy. a common feature of this and the physical manifestation

of this thing is an idea called the network state and a very common theme of the founders of abundance is their support for the network state both as a concept and in terms of building them

so what is the network state is to a large extent the thing I've just been describing right the version of it that they pitch is that these are like opportunity zones right they're these like tech cities

you know that will eventually become like real states that are based off of special economic zones where, you know, special economic zones where like the normal regulations of the state do not apply so you can, you know, do whatever you want, right? You can, we can build prosperity by having no government regulations

and run everything through corporations. These network states would be, again, actual straight-up corporations that own and control territory and run it as the state. these states are already coming into existence. Maybe the most important is Prospera, a corporate city for profit in Honduras that is run by a corporation, again, in a special economic zone where the state does not apply, it does not have a mayor, it has someone appointed by the corporation who runs the city that is happening all over the world, particularly in developing countries, where it is being pushed by all of these just absolutely demonic tech goals. and they're also being started

and attempts are being started to run them in the United States. I'm going to quote here from Shane Lee's Venture Capital blog Venture Capital status which is a very, very good resource on the network state which we'll be covering

more fully later because we don't have time to do much more than a brief introduction to their ideas here. In Salero County, California, a cartel of venture capitalists associated with Andresen Horowitz,

which is, again, Mark Andreessen's firm, bought up over 65,000 acres of rich fertile farmland and using secretive and threatening methodologies including suing local farmers. They plan to build a city with weapons developments and manufacturing, aerospace and robotics companies,

shipbuilding homes and schools. This network state is called California forever. Also in California, there has been a discussion by network state operatives of taking over Presidio in San Francisco. and there is a network state planned in Simona County. Its founder is a, quote, former promontist venture capitalists. These are the same people funding abundance.

Here's from Kate Willett again. One of the California Forever billionaires, California Forever is, again, the name of the network state they want to set up by buying a bunch of land in Salado County. One of the California Forever billionaires, Patrick Coleson, the CEO of Stripe, looms large in abundance worlds. Along with Open Philanthropy, he donated to fund a $120 million abundance grant

tied to Ezra Klein's book release. Colson is a key backer and inspiration for the Institute for Progress, a think tank, which works closely with others in the Abundance Network, including the Abundance 2020 for conference. The goal of the network state movement is to accelerate the destruction of the United States and create these corporate network states in their wake. They want the world to be composed of these networks of venture capital tech corporations run and ruled by them by the tech elite for profit.

These are the people that are funding all of these fucking movements. These are the people funding the argument. These are the people funding the abundance conference. These are the people that people like Ezra Klein have been brought in to run cover for. These are Trump people. They are the forces behind J.D. Vance. They want to inflict their vision of tech fascism on the world. But they are hideously popular in power.

In order to achieve their agenda, they cannot simply rely on their incredible hegemony on the right. They need you. They need your buy-in. They need the support of good and kind-hearted liberals who they can radicalize into Trumpian tech fascists. This is their opening gambit, and they've played it well. But there is still time for them to fail.

There is still time for us to build a future built by us and for us, by and for each other, based on mutual aid and the benefit of all. A world without death squads and ice. A world ruled not by corporations. But by us, the fight for that world begins here and now. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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