Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back (with Marc Dunkelman)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why does it feel like we can’t build anything anymore? In this episode, Nick and Goldy talk with author Mark Dunkelman about his new book Why Nothing Works, which examines how well-intentioned progressive reforms created a “vetocracy” that makes major public projects nearly impossible. From Seattle’s decades-long waterfront rebuild to the dysfunction of Penn Station, they explore the messy trade-offs between accountability and action—and ask what it would take to make progress possible again. Marc Dunkelman is a fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a former fellow at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. During more than a decade working in politics, he worked for Democratic members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives and as a senior fellow at the Clinton Foundation. Social Media: @MarcDunkelman Further reading: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics 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.
0:11.0	The last five decades of trickle-down economics haven't worked. But what's the alternative?
0:16.0	Middle-out economics is the answer. Because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence.
0:23.1	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.
0:44.3	Hey, Nick.
0:45.4	We're recording on a Monday morning as the markets crash,
0:49.3	and I'm wondering what a plutocrat like you did over the weekend.
0:54.5	Well, I tried not to worry about the collapse of Western civilization.
0:59.1	But my wife and I did a really fun thing.
1:01.6	We went downtown and we spent part of the day walking around Seattle's New Waterfront.
1:08.1	And I'm not sure if you know, but we, Leslie and I gave one of the early gifts to the waterfront,
1:15.9	the entity that managed the transformation of Seattle's waterfront.
1:20.1	Many of our listeners won't know that over the last 10 years or so, the entire waterfront of the city of Seattle has been
1:30.8	transformed. And my wife, my wife was on the executive committee of the waterfront for 10 years.
1:38.0	And what happened, for those of you don't know and don't live in Seattle, the waterfront of
1:43.1	Seattle used to be dominated by a two-story
1:46.6	highway, uh, which we called the viaduct. Double-decker freeway along the waterfront. It was
1:55.0	incredibly ugly. It was incredibly loud. Yeah, I'll tell you a story, Nick.
2:01.2	Yeah.
2:01.5	My first trip to Seattle, my future ex-wife, we met New York.
	...

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