The buzziest political word of the year is “affordability” — it’s the mantra that carried the insurgent progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani to victory in New York City’s mayoral primary, and that Democrats across the country have since raced to claim as their own.

“Affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared in August. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has similarly placed “affordability” at the center of his state housing reforms and his administration’s plan to manufacture generic insulin pens. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison launched his reelection bid this week under the banner of “Afford your life.”

Few candidates or elected officials are willing to acknowledge what many economists say quietly: that prices tend to be “sticky,” and that absent a major economic slowdown, costs are unlikely to fall much from where they are today. Still, Democratic strategists who worried that the party under Joe Biden had for too long ignored cost-of-living issues and the growing frustration around inflation have been happy to see “affordability” take center stage. That the cry is being led by a candidate endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America has even given the term leftist validation — despite the fact that a decade ago “affordability“ stood as the vague, squishy descriptor socialists blamed for watering down the goal of universal health care with the Affordable Care Act.

But when it comes to the explanation for today’s affordability crisis, the party has found itself embroiled in seemingly endless factional debates — with each camp insisting their diagnosis is the primary one. Is the crisis because, as the Abundance theorists argue, we’re not building enough? Or is it, as some populists allege, due to corporate greed and Wall Street recklessness? Or because we’ve shirked on antitrust enforcement, allowing monopolies to take over and artificially raise prices? Or........

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