It collapsed.

I assume I'm somewhat impartial, I don't know this author, it's the first time I hear of the "antitrust left" or of the argument that big monopoly builder purposely keep the market scarce to increase prices. And it's not an issue that I hold a strong opinion about.

The way the piece reads to me is a "He said, She Said". And I have to choose whose word I trust.

Two articles, both claim to have spoken to expert sources, both claim the expert have told them X and Y. One says the expert told them things that corroborates the idea of the "antitrust left", and the other claims the sources actually disagreed with it.

So my personal take is that both appear untrustworthy and biased, pushing their own distorted narrative.

Hold on. Take the first claim. Derek Thompson called the author of the paper who effectively said "no my paper does not support the claims made".

So either:

1. Derek Thompson is flat out lying

2. The author is wrong and confused, or

3. The critics are wrong

The critics haven't claimed to speak from the author to confirm their interpretation is correct. So to think the critics are right you have to think the convo is a lie or the author is muddled and confused.

> 1. Derek Thompson is flat out lying

It's this one. The person he called made a lengthy follow up post. It's clear Thompson purposely misrepresented the conversation.

It's helpful to understand why the "abundance" movement exists. Its only purpose is to stop the Democratic Party from addressing concentrated economic power. It's funded by the concentrated economic power.

This isn't an academic debate, it's an attempt to maintain power by a discredited group of people who recently presided over the collapse of the Democratic Party and are desperately casting around for a narrative where that's not what happened.

I think it's possible that Derek Thompson is just doing the same thing he is calling out.

4. Derek Thompson interpreted a short conversation with the author the way he wanted to hear it.

The author might have said a bunch of "nuanced details" in that conversation, and he took it as: "I knew it, author thinks their claims are bogus."

If I recall, I don't remember seeing any part of their conversation quoted word for word, or even the name of the author he contacted in the article. (though I might have just missed it)

"He said they said, so I talked to them, and they said otherwise".

That's what she said.

In the "he said, she said".

No it’s not. “He said, she said” applies to two people talking about an event and there is no root source of truth.

In this case there are direct researchers and the researchers are saying their work is being misrepresented.

The researchers wrote neither of the articles.

Two people are claiming the researchers say/mean different things.

In both cases you have no access to what the researchers have actually told either.

So yes, you have two people talking about an event (their interaction/reading of some research and the researchers).

Both are telling you that the research and researchers prove their point of view.

I have never heard antitrust left either. The author casually namesdrop it like some school of thought. I just read it as a virtue signaling epithet.

The crazy part about this is that it is fundamentally a competition problem, but they misidentified the perpetrators. It's not predominantly construction companies colluding with each other in the market, it's land owners colluding through regulatory capture of zoning boards to constrain construction.

Or, to the extent that it is construction companies, it's still regulatory capture rather than market collusion, but in their case it's capture of occupational licensing to artificially restrict people from entering into the trade labor market.

No, this article is saying that the sources are saying they never supported the original thing.

It’s a proof by falsification. It’s not saying necessarily that there isn’t some monopoly builder issue somewhere. It’s saying the current movement is based on complete bullshit.