Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book is important — but not for the reasons its supporters or critics seem to think.
“Abundance” is the policy book of the moment, the hardcover that launched a thousand podcast episodes, Tweet storms and Substack posts.
Written by Ezra Klein (of the New York Times) and Derek Thompson (of, until very recently, The Atlantic), “Abundance” is basically the platonic ideal of a modern policy book: lean (250 pages, give or take) and well-written, with a clear and provocative argument.
In terms of style, Klein and Thompson are gifted practitioners of the Malcolm Gladwell mode of highbrow journalistic nonfiction writing. Wherever possible, they launch each new idea with a snappy historical anecdote that foregrounds a compelling individual story — the contradictions of Horace Greeley’s life, say, or an unknown scientist suffering years of unwarranted rejection from federal grantmakers — using the personal as a jumping off point to make larger, more general claims. Critics may carp that this approach obscures as much as it reveals, but it endures for a reason: it works. “Abundance” is never less than a sprightly, engaging read.
Klein and Thompson define their core idea as a new way of looking at the world:
Abundance reorients politics around a fresh provocation: Can we solve our problems with supply? Many valuable questions bloom from this deceptively simple prompt. If there are not enough homes, can we make more? If not, why not? If there is not enough clean energy, can we make more? If not, why not? If the government is repeatedly failing to complete major projects on time and on budget, then what is going wrong and how do we fix it? If the rate of scientific progress is slowing, how can we help scientists do their best work? If we need new technologies to solve our important problems, how do we pull these inventions from the future and distribute them in the present?
In arguing for “a liberalism that builds,” Klein and Thompson make the case that rules and regulations — many of them put in place over the past half century by Democrats and their nonprofit allies — are currently preventing our government from achieving important goals. As Klein and Thompson detail, fierce advocacy, both in the courts and in Congress, has led to the creation of multiple rounds of review, or veto points, where new initiatives can be stymied. Over time, a fetish for hewing to the proper procedure has become the focus of government rather than a relentless focus on achieving good outcomes.
This is not exactly a new argument. Among others, Philip K. Howard (who is not acknowledged anywhere in “Abundance,” unless I missed it) has been making a similar point for decades.
“Abundance” might not be advancing a wholly original thesis, but its central argument would seem to be irrefutable. Who could argue that government isn’t sometimes hamstrung by unnecessary red tape?
Lots of people, as it turns out. Dozens of critics have stepped forward to pick a fight with “Abundance.”
The Baffler argued that “the last thing society needs is more stuff.”
Washington Monthly bemoaned the “meager agenda” of “Abundance.”
Boston Review alleged that “Abundance” suffers from “a severe case of myopia.”
The American Prospect accused Klein and Thompson of “an abundance of credulity.”
Why so much hate for such a common sense, and arguably banal, premise?
Some of the reaction is no doubt a case of Ezra Klein Derangement Syndrome. The high-profile New York Times columnist doesn’t exactly suffer from underexposure. He also has the kind of self-satisfied manner that practically invites contradiction.
But something deeper is at work in the critical reaction to Abundance than personal antipathy for one of the most influential pundits of the day.
“Abundance” might not be advancing a wholly original thesis, but its central argument would seem to be irrefutable. Who could argue that government isn’t sometimes hamstrung by unnecessary red tape?
The negative responses to “Abundance” have been largely driven by Klein and Thompson’s decision to announce that their book is addressed to “the pathologies of the broad left.” In doing so, Klein and Thompson helped to ensure that their book would be received as a salvo in an ongoing war between moderates and progressives.
The past few years have been littered with proxy fights between the two factions vying for control of the Democratic Party (see, for example, Zohran Mamdani v. Andrew Cuomo). “Abundance” has become just another thing for the two sides to argue about, with endorsement of the book becoming center-coded and many left-wing critics furiously looking for reasons to attack it.
That’s a shame, because Klein and Thompson are not really culture warriors at heart. In truth, “Abundance” is more olive branch than battle cry. Klein and Thompson actually work pretty hard not to unnecessarily offend their friends on the left (tellingly, there is no entry for “woke” in the book’s index). “Abundance” is, in essence, an argument for a host of progressive priorities, including increasing the scope of the government, developing clean energy sources and improving affordability. The left-wing objections to “Abundance” mostly amount to accusing Klein and Thompson of being handmaidens for “neoliberalism,” that omnipresent but ill-defined progressive boogeyman. According to these critics, Klein and Thompson are pointing the finger at the wrong enemy. “What constrains political action for the public good?” asks Hannah Story Brown in a review of “Abundance” in The American Prospect. “Call it industry influence, corporate capture, consolidated power. Call it the societal consequences of the profit motive. Whatever your shorthand, what’s missing from [the book] is a substantive engagement with the fact that powerful entities profit from the government failing to meet the public’s needs.” If you are the kind of person who requires every policy argument to begin and end with an indictment of capitalism, “Abundance” probably isn’t the book for you.
The other major complaint that progressives have levied against “Abundance” is that eliminating unneeded rules and regulations doesn’t provide the answer to many of the problems currently confronting our country. According to Paul Gastris and Nate Weisberg, writing in Washington Monthly,
“There’s an old saying that ‘If all you have is a hammer,’” the psychologist Abraham Maslow famously observed, “everything looks like a nail.” For abundance liberals, the nails are government-created bottlenecks. Remove them (via the claw end of the hammer, to extend the metaphor) and a world of plenty will flow.”
Fair enough. It is safe to say that “Abundance” isn’t a skeleton key that unlocks every challenge that bedevils the United States. You won’t find the solution to the war in Gaza or controversies over trans rights or a million other thorny issues in these pages. For all the hype about the book, both pro and con, the insights of “Abundance” are of a more modest variety. But that doesn’t mean that Klein and Thompson aren’t offering something valuable. Perhaps the most important contribution that the book makes is to focus attention on two topics that are often absent from the public conversation about government: tradeoffs and discretion.
As Klein and Thompson outline, the labyrinth of process and procedure that has built up within American government over time exists for some good reasons. Environmental impact reviews, worker safety standards, disability access provisions — all these things (and more) are good-faith responses to real problems.
But all of these things create burdens as well, adding time and cost to any government project. How should we balance competing priorities like fairness and efficiency or free speech and inclusiveness or public safety and individual freedom? It is impossible to answer these questions if we can’t admit that, per Thomas Sowell, “There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs.”
Perhaps the most important contribution that the book makes is to focus attention on two topics that are often absent from the public conversation about government: tradeoffs and discretion.
Similarly, “Abundance” helps to advance a more forthright discussion about the nature of discretion within government. According to Klein and Thompson, “We hire skilled, dedicated people to do the public’s work and then make it impossible for them to do that work well. We ask people to work on society’s hardest problems…and then rob them of the discretion and agility they need to solve them.”
Without some measure of discretion, government workers won’t be able to adapt to changing conditions on the ground or figure out how to expedite priorities — as Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro famously did when he managed to re-open a damaged stretch of I-95 in record time. But it is also true that some of those entrusted with discretion will make bad, and even corrupt, decisions. The American public does not usually react with patience or understanding when this happens.
“Everyone, everywhere is afraid of being implicated in fraud or waste or having their funding cut or seeing the public turn on them,” according to Klein and Thompson. Far easier for government workers to keep their heads down and just follow the rules. Thus, CYA becomes the dominant ethic within government.
All of which leads to the real villain of “Abundance”: Lack of public trust in government. Klein and Thompson cite public polls documenting a dramatic decline in public trust over the past 50 years. In 1964, 77% of the public believed that government would do the right thing most of the time. By 2023, that number was down to 16%.
By itself, reducing government red tape won’t reverse this trend, but Klein and Thompson make a persuasive case that is an important piece of the puzzle — a significant step toward not just restoring faith in the public sector but also tamping down the populist distemper that has deformed our politics.