Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A terrific book…Powerful and persuasive.” —Fareed Zakaria “Spectacular…Offers a comprehensive indictment of the current problems and a clear path forward…Klein and Thompson usher in a mood shift. They inspire hope and enlarge the imagination.” —David Brooks, The New York Times From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. 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 problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions 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 facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we 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 propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

Die globale Geschichte des 21. Jahrhunderts ist eine Geschichte der Knappheit, ganz gleich, ob es um Wohnungen geht, um Arbeitskräfte, um Technologien oder um saubere Energie. Dabei hat sich die gegenwärtige Krise in den Industriestaaten seit Jahren angebahnt – weil wir eine Politik des Verzichts geübt haben und nicht innovativ genug waren. Ezra Klein und Derek Thompson zeigen, wie wir die politischen, wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Hindernisse für den Fortschritt überwinden, wie wir Systeme und Institutionen für den Aufbau schaffen und so zu einem neuen Wohlstand gelangen. Ein Wohlstand, der nicht gleichbedeutend ist mit dem Reichtum weniger, sondern mit einer besseren Zukunft für möglichst viele Menschen.