Abundance
by
4/99
Critics' Rating Index
52/99
Readers' Rating Index
99/99
Scholars' Citation Index
84/99
Volume of Reviews
98/99
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About This Book
From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic from climate change to housing, education to healthcare. To trace the global history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don't have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven't built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need. 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 environmental problems of the 1970s often prevent urban density and green energy projects that would help solve the environmental problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions in matters of education and healthcare 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 the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. In a book exploring how 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 how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.
Reviews
"Very smart and eminently useful."
"Abundance ducks the most difficult issue."
"Klein and Thompson have no answers for how to get the masses back their mojo, and Abundance does not seriously confront a big reason for Democratic aversion to dreaming big: neoliberal globalization."
"Deals mostly in concepts that sound swell in the authors' epigrammatic prose but have minimal contact with the world of people and things."
"If Klein and Thompson's aim is to force liberals to accept their portion of responsibility for the challenges facing the nation, then this book is a useful provocation, even if it lacks details about how to reconcile the public good with reduced red tape ..."
"It's a bit like discussing how you'd like to redecorate your house while your neighbors strip the copper wiring from your walls."
"Klein and Thompson's influence is one good reason to see these books as blueprints for a political movement."
"Readers of Abundance will probably find Malm and Carton's rhetoric too florid, their diagnosis and their prescription too unrealistic ..."
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