Why Liberal Abundance is Bullsh*t

Nov. 8, 2025

An Interview with Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell

Capitalism has created a world of bullsh*t abundance and artificial scarcity, where we have too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do

 Watch here: https://youtu.be/GLrh1wetgvY

Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green Democratic Future by Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell is out now from Pluto Press. Get your copy here: https://www.plutobooks.com/product/ra…

Capitalism has created a world of bullsh*t abundance and artificial scarcity, where we have too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do. The system’s pursuit of profits has put us on a collision course with social and ecological limits that can no longer be ignored. It’s clear we need an alternative, and liberal visions of green capitalism just won’t cut it. We need ‘radical abundance’—a world of human and non-human flourishing made possible by democratically planned production.

Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell join Radicals in Conversation host Chris Browne to talk about the big ideas in their new book ‘Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green Democratic Future.’ They discuss why the left needs to be laser-focused on the question of ecosocialist transition, and why the patient work of institution building is a necessary response to a world on fire. They explain the Public-Common Partnership model, and explore the housing, pharmaceutical and food sectors, as three areas in which new institutions and forms of social property might be developed.

Kai Heron is a political organiser, trade unionist, and Lecturer in Political Ecology at Lancaster University. He is the co-editor of the De Gruyter Degrowth Handbook (2024) and has published widely on the politics of green transitions, political theory, and political economy in academic journals and in popular outlets including New Statesman, Sidecar, Jacobin, e-flux, Rupture, and Spectre. He is a co-director of the action-research organisation Abundance.

Keir Milburn is a writer, researcher, and activist. He has a background as an academic in political economy and organisational theory. He has written over a hundred articles and book chapters in venues ranging from academic journals, such as Urban Studies, to media commentary in outlets such as The Guardian, The Independent, and The Nation. His book Generation Left provoked debate across several countries on generational political divides driven, in part, by generational imbalances in asset ownership. He is co-director of the action-research organisation Abundance.

Bertie Russell is a Research Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is an activist-researcher with a focus on radical municipalism, urban commons, economic democracy, public-common partnerships and co-production. He is co-editor of the forthcoming book Radical Municipalism: The Politics of the Common and the Democratization of Public Services (2026), and co-director of the action-research organisation Abundance.