Abundance Hardcover – March 18, 2025

Abundance is scintillating, reality based, hopeful, and supremely timely.Klein and Thompson provide an eye opening account of how liberal American governance has evolved over the last 80 years - through accretion of policies and regulations put in place by mostly well-intentioned politicians, activists, and voters - into a system that constrains itself to provide the pro- working class, pro- equity, and pro- environmental outcomes it was intended to produce.Make no mistake though, this is not at all an endorsement of conservative anti-regulatory thinking. This book is a timely, extremely well researched, and fact-based rebuttal of dishonest and clownish conservative efforts to such as DOGE. The author's are supportive of 'big' government and regulation but only when it WORKS. Their key contribution is to ask if the outcomes of progressive policy are in fact progressive, in contrast to the historical tendency of liberals to focus on writing laws that combine as many progressive stipulations as possible without following up to see if the law actually leads to progressive outcomes (or even functions at all e.g., California high speed rail).The authors' focus on actual, real-life, policy outcomes and their attention to nuanced policy tradeoffs that do not cleave cleanly across ideological lines is deeply refreshing. Reading this book feels like being transported back to a much earlier time (pre 2016 at least) when facts were largely shared and debates were largely made in good faith. Yoking that refreshing fact based approach to some of the absolute top issues shared by all Americans (cost of living, homelessness, decaying/insufficient infrastructure) at this particular moment when liberals and Americans in general feel upset with both parties makes this book feel potentially monumental. I tore through the text since the book came out last week, and I cannot stop thinking (and hoping) that this could be a paradigm shift and a blueprint to overcome the childish and low brow culture war politics of the Trump era.PS: I wanted to address the arguments I have seen online from others who see the vision set out in this book as 1) unrealistically hopeful, or 2) dangerously conciliatory to those who want to cut government and regulation across the board, including to the benefit of the fossil fuel and tech industries.My interpretation of the first point is that Klein and Thompson set out the hopeful vision for what America could be not because they think this is realistic or necessarily even possible to achieve, but rather because it is crucial to define your ideal societal outcomes before considering policy changes. We have to have a clear idea of what we are working towards in order to judge if the policies intended to get us there are effective. Their key point is that our metric of success has to be what society looks like, not how much funding was allocated or what stipulations were attached to it.To the second point, I respect other people's interpretation but I personally did not get the impression at all that the author's are advocating for sweeping regulatory cuts and I certainly hope that democratic politicians do not take it this way. Perhaps the disagreement on this point stems from the fact that the main emphasis of the book is really more of a critique of existing policy and it is rather more sparing in terms of specific advocated policy changes. I personally got the impression the authors would say targeted policy changes could make a big difference and are certainly better than trying nothing new. For example: exceptions to NEPA review for solar/wind projects rather than abolition of NEPA.

Authors are informative in their way, but open little new ground. They are a bit loquacious, too often unfocused, and rarely practical in their approach to undeniable problems. We do need to know about, and must not turn our backs on the issues addressed here: housing shortages, lagging inventiveness, governmental sclerosis, and climate issues. Particularly in the current retrogressive administration into which we have been dragged by a semi-conscious plurality, we need to keep our collective eye on the ball. However, the authors (they seem to admit) are largely relegated to the role of cheerleaders for lack of practical - and practicable - solutions. The authors do not address the two seriously complicating issues that stand in the way of theoretical remedies: (1) seemingly intractable and worsening income inequality, and (2) the morally bankrupt abandonment of decency by MAGAmerica. The authors’ self-flagellating placement of blame on (undefined) “liberals” does not shed any useful light on the path to solutions. The book is well worth reading, but be prepared for some annoyance and frustration.

This book is exceptional. I happened to get my copy a few days early and absolutely tore through it. If you, like many of us on the left, have been left feeling adrift and a bit hopeless in the last few years, you need to read this book.It offers an extremely compelling vision for the future. A vision of the left that works, that builds, that grows, and that can work to create a better future for us all. Klein and Thompson take you on a journey, one that exposes all of the flaws and non-workings of the left over the last few decades. They pull no punches. If what you want is a book that blames 100% of our countries problems on the GOP then go back to your cocoon and leave this book alone. It viscerally exposes the way that liberalism has failed to achieve it's very own goals and objectives. The left didn't die because the GOP killed it, the left withered by virtue of its own poor governance. The book shows the myriad ways that us, and the politicians we vote for, have been the hinderance to change that we all know that our society needs.It's not an easy read - not because the prose is difficult, it's extremely well-written - but because it puts the onus of responsibility for fixing our society back on the ways that we on the left have failed. This moment seems hopeless, but after reading this book I also feel firmly like we have never been better positioned to actually move ourselves forward.And in the end, this book left me with hope. If we are lucky, this book will go down as one of the most importance political texts of the last 100 years. Read it, tell everyone you know to read it, write to every politician you know and tell them to read it as well. Then get to work doing what you can to Build the American Future.