Abundance

Abundance—What If the Real Crisis Is That We Stopped Building?

From two of today’s most influential thinkers—Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson—comes Abundance, a bracing, big-hearted, and sharply argued call to reimagine what’s possible when we stop accepting scarcity as inevitable.

This isn’t another hand-wringing diagnosis. It’s a reset. A shift in how we think about politics, progress, and the power of government—not just to regulate or protect but to build.

Why is housing unaffordable? Why are climate goals slipping out of reach? Why can’t public projects get off the ground—or finish at all? Abundance makes the case that these aren’t flukes. They’re outcomes of choices and systems that once worked but now hold us back. Solutions from the 1970s have become roadblocks in the 2020s. The real crisis? We’ve built a system that’s forgotten how to act.

Klein and Thompson trace the roots—naming names, unpacking policies, and showing how both left and right helped create the gridlock we’re stuck in. But they also do something rare: they offer a way forward. A politics that doesn’t just manage decline but dares to build—with urgency, clarity, and yes, hope.

Fareed Zakaria calls it “terrific.” David Brooks says it “enlarges the imagination.” For anyone exhausted by stagnation, Abundance doesn’t just diagnose—it inspires.

Because the real scarcity isn’t just housing or energy—it’s belief. And rebuilding that might be the first thing we need to do.