Abundance
What Progress Takes
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4.5 • 156 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“A terrific book...Powerful and persuasive.” —Fareed Zakaria
“Spectacular…Offers a comprehensive indictment of the current problems and a clear path forward…Klein and Thompson usher in a mood shift. They inspire hope and enlarge the imagination.” —David Brooks, The New York Times
From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life.
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.
Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.
Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this probing treatise, New York Times columnist Klein (Why We're Polarized) and Atlantic staff writer Thompson (Hit Makers) explore the legislative bottlenecks hampering progress on housing, infrastructure, and clean energy, among other pressing issues. Zooming in on San Francisco to explore the nation's housing crisis, the authors explain how onerous zoning restrictions limiting the number of units developers can build per lot constrain housing supply growth, while a law requiring the government to prioritize small businesses when granting contracts means developers must wait until one of the few qualifying companies has availability. Effective governance necessitates cutting through red tape when it proves overly prohibitive, Klein and Thompson contend, citing how Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro restored a collapsed section of I-95 in 12 days, instead of the many months initially expected, by issuing a declaration of emergency that enabled the state to waive such time-consuming requirements as a bidding process and environmental impact statement. Elsewhere, the authors lament how caps on H-1B visas are limiting immigration of the highly skilled foreign scientists and mathematicians who have historically helped drive American innovation. Klein and Thompson are, by their own admission, more interested in diagnosing problems than outlining solutions, and while this feels like a bit of a cop-out, the remarkably unstuffy discussions offer as lucid an explanation of contemporary legislative quandaries as readers are likely to find. Policy wonks will rejoice.
Customer Reviews
Well researched and thought provoking
With the current political climate globally, it’s refreshing to reflect on where government and industry work and where they don’t.
As the writers point out, government is the one true power that can bend the arc of the future. We all should be holding our elected officials more accountable to deliver for constituents.
Come for the policy discussion, stay for the history
There was more in the book than I expected in the way of historical examples of success and failure. I found it very interesting, engaging, and thought provoking.
DECENT 3
After reading, I feel like the book is worth breaking down in two ways: the validity of its arguments, and the political opportunities those arguments might present.
As far as the arguments put forth, I found the book pretty interesting. Many of the examples it brings up, especially in the second half, I find to be pretty valid. When it comes to housing and green energy, it's hard to deny that in some circumstances regulations have created friction of the building and development process. Even though many of these rules are "written in blood," it seems clear that the accumulation of regulations over time has led to, at least in part, a reduced output. Similarly, the lack of funding and focus on the sciences has contributed to stagnation. At times I did find myself rolling my eyes at some of the arguments presented. When comparing red states vs. blue states the authors use Houston and San Francisco as examples. Although it is definitely true that Houston builds far more then San Fran, San Francisco is almost 13x smaller then Houston just on a land area basis. Not to mention the significantly more densely populated, higher educated and higher paid population that live in a city with far better public transport. There are a couple other arguments like this scattered throughout the book that feel disingenuous and don't paint the full picture. All that being said, "Abundance" makes a pretty good case that we just simply need to do more; whether that means building more housing, putting up wind turbines, or developing carbon sequestration methods. We just need more of it and I can get behind that aspect wholeheartedly.
The actual politics of the “Abundance Agenda” are where I think the leftist critiques have the biggest foothold. The authors do a lot of work to set the stage and provide nuance to many of their arguments. While some of their ideas could be labeled as “neoliberal”, their perspective is genuine and reasonable. They’re not advocating for deregulation to benefit corporations (although it most certainly would), they’re pushing for an increased supply and output from anyone. In many of these cases, they could be right. However, politics aren't about nuance. 99.999% of voters will never read this book. Even if Ezra Klein himself ran for office and led the Democratic ticket, most voters still wouldn’t read it. Because of that, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of the “Abundance Agenda” becoming the political identity or future of the Democratic Party. To most people, it would just look like another deregulation platform, something we’ve seen for decades. That not only gives Republicans an opening, but I also don’t think it’s the right move for this moment. At a surface level (which is where most voters engage), this agenda doesn’t seem all that different from what Democrats (or Republicans for that matter) have already been doing. A more populist and progressive leftward shift, like Bernie/AOC’s anti-oligarchy, tax-the-rich messaging, feels like a more powerful and timely political stance. It has real momentum and energy behind it. While I think some of the ideas in this book could genuinely improve the country, I don’t think they should be the headline.
There were definitely some things I felt were missing from this book. For starters, nuclear energy wasn't even mentioned. While its inclusion wouldn’t necessarily change the core arguments, I think a book that aims to be this forward-thinking should at least acknowledge nuclear as part of the broader conversation given its blatantly obvious promise. Also, the leftist in me wasn’t thrilled with how little attention was given to the role private interests play in many of the issues discussed. Whether it’s corporations buying up huge portions of the housing supply, rampant corporate lobbying, the deliberate weakening of government capacity, or corrupt politicians prioritizing donors over constituents, these forces matter. If we’re serious about increasing output in a meaningful and equitable way, these things should be addressed. You can argue that overregulation has led to a decrease in supply and then an increase of costs. With enough nuance and specificity I can get behind that. However, to do that and to completely ignore the money that drives everything in this country, the understaffing/underfunding of relevant government agencies and the Republicans blowing up everything they can? That does irk me even if I can find value of some of the arguments. If moneyed interests are allowed to play a significant role the housing sector, they will continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and powerless. Whether that is a private equity firm buying all the housing in Atlanta or it is a local NIMBY group in New York. When the profit incentive exists within the housing sector, people will continue to do what is best for themselves and not for society.
There is definitely an argument to be made that deregulation can help increase supply and thus lower costs. However, an argument could be made that the better way of efficiently spurring more building is supplying the government with the power and resources to do it themselves. Some of this could be deregulating the red tape handcuffing the government specifically, but it could also include more funding and more workers. Ignoring the role of the money and the dangers of running what is basically a deregulation platform just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. All that being said, I thought that this book did a pretty decent job at what it was trying to do. They don't provide solutions, but this book and the "Abundance Agenda" could be the start of an idea that leads to some good. There's a bunch of things in this book I don't love (If Gavin Newsome runs on the "Abundance Agenda" I will put my head though a wall), but at the end of the day we just need output. The Democratic Party needs to do more for our country. I can't hate too much on a book with a lot of ideas to try and do that.