On Abundance: Where We Agree, Where We Disagree, and How to Move Forward

We’re in a moment where we desperately need new ideas about how government should work and what it can deliver for people. That’s true for two reasons, one long-standing and complex, and one recent and more blunt. First, four decades of bipartisan disinvestment and disbelief in the power of government to shape markets for the public good left the Left defending anemic institutions that couldn’t deliver, even when we tried to make them do so during the Biden administration. And second, the Musk/DOGE attack on the foundations of the social compact—from provision of basic economic security through social security to protection from corporate overreach through places like the CFPB and the FTC—leaves us no other choice: We will have to build anew, and better than we have before. Smart people taking seriously what and how we have to build is good for our ideas ecosystem.

Enter Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book Abundance, which has taken on a life of its own given the public demand for different results and the political and policy ecosphere’s search for different answers. I am an avid Ezra Klein podcast listener and am more often than not quite struck by his thoughtful approach to thorny, multisided issues. My baseline is therefore to approach the book, and the storm of debate it has engendered, with the same readiness to be interested and challenged.

One fundamental challenge in the debate, though, is getting aligned on the level at which we’re engaging with these ideas. If we’re talking about specific policy critiques on a set of identifiable policy areas related to building infrastructure, we have a lot to agree on (e.g., their focus on veto points in the process), and some to disagree on. Roosevelt’s Todd N. Tucker has said just that in his review of the book—yes, absolutely, one of the lessons of the Biden era industrial policy is that, area by area, we have to figure out how to build faster, not without regard to citizen voice but by finding ways it can meaningfully influence the agenda without dragging things into endless litigation. To take another area, Paul Williams recently wrote a piece with us agreeing that we need to get rid of constricting zoning and regulation that chokes off new housing construction. Roosevelt Fellow Ned Resnikoff, self-proclaimed YIMBY, thinks so too.

But you can’t do any of that robust building without also seriously contending with the economic power imbalances that shape our political possibilities. Eliminating veto points, worthy though it may be, will not eliminate either the problem of concentration in markets that can also choke or distort supply, or the problem of special interests with disproportionate power. After all, the very wealthy will always have the best lawyers working on finding or creating new veto points that advantage them. In addition to scrutinizing key points of purchase for existing wealth and power, we also need to build countervailing power as a movement—including labor, tenants, and others—to keep the former in check, fight for the long-term policies we want to see, and defend our democracy against outsized corporate influence and capture. Our policy design has to be attentive to both the things we seek to build and the ways the policy affects those power dynamics. Finally, it’s right to point out that the kinds of strings and conditionalities that can help support the building of countervailing power can have trade-offs in terms of time, cost, and the like. If we care about both goals, let’s get down to the hard, nitty gritty work of trying to quantify those trade-offs so we can make serious policy decisions. That’s exactly what we at Roosevelt are planning to do.

Another entry point into this debate is at the values level. Are Klein and Thompson trying to make bigger, broader claims about who we are and should be as a people and how we express that in our policy program? I was struck by this question listening to Oren Cass interview Klein recently. Cass asks whether our economic policy has to engage at a deeper, more structural level—”the set of incentives, the way capital is deployed, the way labor engages with management, etc.”—that is creating today’s distorted economic outcomes, and if so, whether abundance is expansive enough to meet that challenge. That’s a different critique—that abundance is underwhelming as an all-encompassing ideology. And I think that critique comes mostly from a good place—a place of yearning, an understanding that in this moment, we need big ideas that speak not just to the cost of living but to what it means for economic policy to deliver a shot at a good life to people, and for a policy agenda to give voice to the value of human flourishing.

I think we ought to take Klein, Thompson, and others at their word. This is more than a set of technocratic proposals, but it’s also not trying to be the be-all and end-all. Klein’s answer to Cass is helpful: “I think for us, abundance is not supposed to be a thoroughgoing, full replacement for all other political ideologies. Abundance is meant to solve what we think of as very significant but a definable set of problems.”

So. Let’s have the debate about how to make a true liberalism that builds, or supply-side progressivism, or whatever we want to call it. We’re starting with a shared foundation that government needs to step up, actively invest in the research and infrastructure that we need, and deliver results that improve people’s lives. We have important disagreements with some abundance enthusiasts about where eliminating veto points isn’t enough, and which trade-offs to make in the name of labor power, of equity, of market-shaping.

But. Let’s also not forget that there are bigger questions here that we are called to answer. Questions about who we are as a people, what we owe to our compatriots, how the whole of our governing philosophy springs from core beliefs, starting with the basic dignity of each of us. We believe that we are each owed a measure of security, of freedom, of liberty to ply our trades, support and be with our families, have a little leisure. And we believe that we deserve economic policy that supports the communities we want to live in.

Again, I will argue that the question of who holds power in our economy, and how our government ensures an equitable distribution of that power, is essential to delivering the kind of lives that most people want for themselves. For policymakers, that means a continued commitment to bold experimentation, irreverence for long-held and disproven beliefs, and reforms that will make a true difference.

For that, watch this space.