2025 ended as a year many would just as soon forget, unless the U.S. stock market was your single benchmark. As the backlog of critical needs was building, I followed a series of authors in search of course corrections. One chain of thought that received some traction came to be known as the Abundance Movement. Starting with a book titled Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, I followed how other authors responded to the book, and what history and current events had to say relevant to the debate. The result is a series of eight essays posted to Fifty Year Perspective weekly through January and February 2026. This is the eighth of eight parts.
The prospect of a financial crisis opens the question what’s next? “The system is rigged against the working class.” So say both Democratic and Republican politicians, who claim to speak for the 70% of Americans who believe that wealthy people, corporations and politicians have too much power and influence over the economy. Can “Abundance” undo this injustice, and if so, how?
Given the current milieu of polarization and distrust, an agreement on values would be a reasonable starting point. Faiths, cultures and traditions have shared universal values for millennia. We have all learned them. Thomas Friedman and David Brooks produced a podcast in December 2025 about how to make sense of “the modern world’s cascading crises.” Friedman summarized the challenge when he said, “the faster, more powerful, more integrated, complex the world gets, the more everything you learned at Sunday school matters more than ever.”
So let us start with the lessons learned in Sunday school: Treat others as you would like to be treated. Help the widows, the orphans, the poor, the sick, the disabled. Welcome the stranger. Play fair. Be kind. Seek justice. Treat people with dignity. These are principles that we give lip-service.
Some people today call this “wokeness.” Sue Barrett, an Australian business consultant, wrote, “wokeness is a modern articulation of these timeless ideals. It is not a radical or divisive concept; rather, it is a commitment to ensuring that these universal values guide how we live, work, and connect with one another.” Narrowing the gap between “haves” and “have-nots” depends on acting on our “timeless ideals.”
There is no way to attack the problem without a massive redistribution of resources – dollars from the wealthy funding public services, especially for the working and middle classes. There is widespread appeal for a program that places more burden on wealthy people and corporations to narrow the income gap. Raising the income tax rate for people earning over $250,000, combined with a significant increase in the national minimum wage, can unite essential segments of the electorate in support. Healthcare, that most intractable of social maladies, begs for a health system serving all citizens without spending twice as much as the rest of the developed world, and must be part of any program. Fortune reports on a Harris Poll finding the affordability crisis is hitting Americans earning six figures who “are feeling squeezed as the rising cost of living forces those in top income brackets to cut back on expenses and look for ways to stretch their dollars.”
Other federal government policies disproportionately favor the wealthy: tax loopholes; low tax rates for capital gains; a cap on Social Security Tax for high-income individuals; deductions for charitable donations; saving for retirement in tax-advantaged accounts. Various tax changes to raise revenue will not be enough to significantly reduce annual deficits. Cost reduction also must occur. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation website identifies key drivers of the growth in national debt: aging population, rising healthcare costs, and rapidly escalating interest costs.
How government policies are established is equally as crucial for reassessment and improvement as the policies themselves. The United States is a representative democracy. The senators and congressmen are elected by voters and sent to Washington to legislate on behalf of those voters. Unlimited money has changed the dynamics of that relationship through court decisions since 1976. Citizens United v. FEC in 2010 is among the worst decisions in Supreme Court history, second only to Dred Scott. It effectively replaced one person, one vote with one dollar, one vote. The 2025 mid-decade flood of redistricting, financed by $140 million in California alone, magnifies the attack on one person, one-vote, and 2025 saw new highs in odd-year election spending.
Historian Timothy Shenk, Assistant Professor at George Washington University, calls for a coalition of liberals and populists as a “response to the economic problems both sides feel are most important in their lives today.” Shenk admits some voters on both sides of the political divide will be uncomfortable in such a coalition, and cultural differences could be exploited. Who can lead this coalition? Shenk observes that 50 years ago a charismatic politician “with shaky moderate credentials” shaped much of today’s economic landscape. As Reagan led a party reeling from Richard Nixon’s presidency, Shenk wrote, today may be the moment for “a coalition asserting itself against a sclerotic political elite, our economic overlords in Big Tech and Wall Street and a radical right crusading against its own country.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Keith Zeff has been a city planner and a commercial real estate researcher for many years. His education includes undergraduate degrees in architecture and a graduate degree in political science. Fifty Year Perspective is designed to address the longer-term concerns. The perspective of 50 years was chosen to respond to those in business, government, and private life who may have said: "I am doing this for my children and grandchildren." Two generations – fifty years.
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