Abundance - SFBA Book Club

Audiobook

English language

Published March 18, 2025 by Simon & Schuster Audio.

ISBN:: 978-1-7971-6860-9
OCLC Number:: 1509446896
Goodreads:: 176501336

(2 reviews)

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 …

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.

4 editions

Phil in SF reviewed Abundance by Ezra Klein

I agree with them, but this is underwhelming

2 stars

I agree with many of the authors' conclusions and political positions, but this book is mostly a facile argument for "abundance". It's best feature is the articulation of an "abundance" (as opposed to scarcity) political theory. But the chapters arguing that it is right rely on anecdote and suffer from severe survivorship bias (the logical fallacy that examining winners reveals how to succeed). As I noted in a comment, they also subject degrowth to a pretty withering critique that they do not subject their own theory to: degrowth is a political dead end because it includes policies like vegetarianism that are political non-starters. Nowhere in the book do they talk about how one of their core positions, subsidize things you want like heck, is a really hard sell because it means giving a lot more money to people who have money. Another of their core positions is that liberals value …

I agree with many of the authors' conclusions and political positions, but this book is mostly a facile argument for "abundance". It's best feature is the articulation of an "abundance" (as opposed to scarcity) political theory. But the chapters arguing that it is right rely on anecdote and suffer from severe survivorship bias (the logical fallacy that examining winners reveals how to succeed). As I noted in a comment, they also subject degrowth to a pretty withering critique that they do not subject their own theory to: degrowth is a political dead end because it includes policies like vegetarianism that are political non-starters. Nowhere in the book do they talk about how one of their core positions, subsidize things you want like heck, is a really hard sell because it means giving a lot more money to people who have money. Another of their core positions is that liberals value too many things, and because of that don't do any of them, especially building stuff, particularly well. But they do not really articulate what goals liberals should give up in favor of building things. Is it the environment? Is it equitable distribution of wealth? Is it diversity? About the only thing they are clear that should be given up is lengthy process. And I kind of agree with them on that, but process is what ensures those other goals are considered. If not process to accomplish goals, what is the alternate way to achieve those goals. If that's not figured out, we give up all those other goals, just so we can build some shit.

And as a side note, the authors are very positive about "AI" in the book, and that's another thing they may not have wrestled with to the extent they should. But I'll critique that if they ever write a book where the main topic is AI.

anaulin@bookwyrm.social reviewed Abundance by Ezra Klein

Surprisingly superficial for something so researched

3 stars

Giving this 3 stars instead of 2 because reading it seems useful to keep abreast of The Discourse, and it was a reasonably quick read (I reserve 1 star for "didn't want to waste time to finish this").

Despite all the footnotes and references, this book has the superficial vibe of the early Internet "Let's make more Progress with Technology and then we will have Luxury for Everyone!" manifestos, but applied more broadly to also housing, energy production and some nebulous "innovation". It's hard to take seriously as a stance in 2025.

I hope it spurs more conversation and deeper thinking about these themes, but I fear its lack of thoughtfulness about trade-offs might take us in an even worse direction.