Review: Abundance

 Abundance is Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book about what they called supply-side liberalism. It's an indictment of the systems built in the 1960s and 70s to prevent government abuse that no longer works in today's environments. While the old 1960s liberalism is about being able to sue government in order to stop it from building a freeway through your neighborhood, that same set of rules is now blocking the need to build sufficient housing for people to live in in our most vibrant cities, or green energy projects in order to power the green energy transition:

the story of America in the twenty-first century is the story of chosen scarcities. Recognizing that these scarcities are chosen—that we could choose otherwise—is thrilling. Confronting the reasons we choose otherwise is maddening. We say that we want to save the planet from climate change. But in practice, many Americans are dead set against the clean energy revolution, with even liberal states shutting down zero-carbon nuclear plants and protesting solar power projects. We say that housing is a human right. But our richest cities have made it excruciatingly difficult to build new homes (kindle loc 67)

Worse, the inability of government to deliver needed housing, energy, or transportation projects creates an opening for the right wing to claim that government doesn't work, or that the problem is immigrants coming into the country, or to take an axe to the NIH and NSF in the name of cutting taxes.

political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe write that “populists don’t just feed on socioeconomic discontent. They feed on ineffective government—and their great appeal is that they claim to replace it with a government that is effective through their own autocratic power.”23 In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won by shifting almost every part of America to the right. But the signal Democrats should fear most is that the shift was largest in blue states and blue cities—the places where voters were most exposed to the day-to-day realities of liberal governance. Nearly every county in California moved toward Trump,24 with Los Angeles County shifting eleven points toward the GOP. In and around the “Blue Wall” states, Philadelphia County shifted four points right, Wayne County (Detroit) shifted nine points right, and Cook County (Chicago) shifted eight points right. In the New York City metro area, New York County (Manhattan) shifted nine points right, Kings County (Brooklyn) shifted twelve points right, Queens County shifted twenty-one points right, and Bronx County shifted twenty-two points right.25 Voting is a cheap way to express anger. Moving is expensive. But residents of blue states and cities are doing that, too. In 2023, California lost 342,000 more residents than it gained; in Illinois, the net loss was 115,000; in New York, 284,000.26 In the American political system, to lose people is to lose political power. If current trends hold, the 2030 census will shift the Electoral College sharply to the right; even adding Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to the states Harris won won’t be enough for Democrats to win future presidential elections. (kindle loc 261)

The book explores housing, energy, our science funding process, and manufacturing. Much of this is driven by the federal government, which obviously the Democrats can do nothing about as long as they're out of power. But local issues like housing and energy can and should be done by blue states, and the authors point out that they need to be done by blue states.

The book has lots of ideas, and is interesting as well as a quick read. The Democrats cannot keep selling pro-illegal immigration, DEI, anti-Asian discrimination, and antisemitic messages as the voters have showed in the last election that they're not buying it. This book provides a playbook for the Democrats for a compelling, non-zero sum vision of the future, if a brave politician would listen. You should read it.