Abundance Book Summary

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Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson — Comprehensive Summary

Introduction: The Paradox of American Progress

In Abundance (2025), journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson pose a provocative question: What if America’s biggest problems—unaffordable housing, climate inaction, and stagnant wages—stem not from too much government, but from our inability to build?

They argue that the United States has become trapped in a system of manufactured scarcity, where excessive bureaucracy, outdated regulation, and political gridlock prevent society from translating its wealth and technological capability into widespread prosperity.

According to the authors, America is no longer constrained by lack of resources—it’s constrained by design. Systems that were created to protect communities and the environment now unintentionally obstruct progress. The result is a nation rich in talent but poor in execution, a society optimized for saying no.

Their “abundance agenda” proposes a reinvention of modern liberalism: one that focuses less on redistribution and more on production. It’s about building more of what people need—homes, clean energy, infrastructure, and innovation—and doing so faster, smarter, and more fairly.

From Abundance to Scarcity: How America Learned to Constrain Itself

Klein and Thompson redefine “abundance” as a state in which society produces enough of the essentials for every person to live well—affordable housing, clean energy, accessible healthcare, and quality education. They imagine a 2050 America powered by nuclear and solar energy, producing food in vertical farms, using AI to enhance productivity, and allowing people to spend more time on family, creativity, and leisure.

Yet, they argue, the United States is stuck in a self-imposed scarcity loop. For much of the 20th century, America operated under an abundance mindset, seen most clearly during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, when large public projects—roads, dams, bridges, housing—created jobs and modernized the nation.

Over time, this optimism gave way to austerity thinking. In the 1960s and 1970s, environmental disasters, pollution crises, and reckless urban renewal projects led to a new culture of constraint. Well-intentioned laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) sought to protect communities and nature, but they also multiplied procedural hurdles. Eventually, these rules became tools for delay and obstruction rather than progress.

Klein and Thompson describe this shift as a movement from a “can-do nation” to a “cannot-do bureaucracy.” Today, environmentalists, homeowners, and local officials can all stall projects for years through lawsuits, reviews, and appeals—even when the projects are designed to solve the very problems they care about.

The Rise of Regulatory Obstruction

The authors trace this transformation to changes in progressive politics. During the New Deal and postwar boom, progressives believed in building. By the late 20th century, progressives had become protectors of the status quo—defending the very regulatory systems that now block the housing, energy, and infrastructure Americans desperately need.

This overcorrection created what political scientist Francis Fukuyama calls a “vetocracy”—a system where too many actors have the power to say no, and too few have the authority to say yes.

The book offers several examples:

• Housing: In major cities like San Francisco and New York, even affordable housing developments are mired in delays. The West 108th Street...

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