I read Abundance back in April. In the Dewey Decimal System, you’d find this book under “Political Beach Reads.” Neither the narrative nor the ideas (obvious) proposals require anything of the reader. Nothing in its 200-some pages causes any level of discomfort, disagreement, or critical thinking about where we are, why we’re here, or any practical ideas for climbing out. I assume they had to wait for the outcome of last year’s election to write the conclusion, at best a light touch on our circumstances.
If authors Ezra Klein (boo, hiss!) and Derek Thompson wanted to craft a kinder-gentler neoliberalism, they succeeded in spades. Government is the problem, citizens’ concerns over their own neighborhoods or communities are derided as NIMBYism (I wonder if they’d okay with methadone clinics on their streets) and they ignore, lock-stock-and barrel, the system that created the issues we’re face or the political era in which we’re living.
As I glided through their gossamer prose, I was struck by how many of their complaints could be applied to today’s Democratic Party. A complete lack of self-reflection, an inability study why their ideas are unpopular (even in the face of Trumpism,) and unwillingness to look askance at sacred cows, let alone skewer them.
Geography
That the authors chose to spotlight two states in which I’ve lived and worked provided me a unique insight into their arguments. California and Texas, come in for particular attention. The two largest states by population and economy have many valid stories to tell. Klein and Thompson ignored any innovations in favor of superficial examples cherry-picked to back up what passes for their arguments.
Going to California
Since the book’s release last spring, California’s high speed rail project has been the exemplar of the Golden State’s inability to ‘get anything done.’ As someone who worked on ballot measures in California, Prop 1A, the initiative that allowed for issuance of bonds, wasn’t controversial.
Author’s Note: 2008 was also the year of Prop 8 that banned same-sex marriage, and Prop 11 which created an independent redistricting commission (which may be overturned by Prop 50 next month in reaction to Texas’ mid-cycle gerrymander.)
Have a headache yet?
Even back then, bullet trains whizzing up and down the San Joaquin Valley seemed unlikely. Given the nature of development, the desire for the Central Valley to be among the stops on the train’s routing from LA to San Francisco, and the overwhelming infrastructure needed in two already overbuilt, earthquake-prone termini, the average Californian wasn’t queuing up for a ride.
While traffic out west is legendary, there was not then, and is not now, a shortage of ways to get from south to north. There are more than 130 daily flights between the Bay Area and the LA area. The 101, the 5, and the 99 carry tens of thousands of cars every day (yes belching emissions into the air, along with the feedlots of Bakersfield.)
Author’s note: This clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm sums up Abundance.
Focusing on one transit mode, the authors leave out the overwhelming power of California’s public employee unions to truly reform things like public education. According to Wallet Hub, the state’s school systems rank 29th in quality and 37th in safety. This is an abomination for anywhere, but certainly in a state that ranks as the 4th largest economy in the world.
But to take on the might California Teachers Association (which I tried to do several times in a past life) would be to invite criticism from a pillar of the Democratic Establishment. Neither Klein nor Thompson are willing to take on such a behemoth and their work suffers for it.
Author’s Note: The Establishment Left’s narrow worldview leaves them boxed in on so many current issues that they’re left having to sell old wine in new bottles. No one is buying it.
Texas, My Texas
Abundance extols the virtues of Texas’ willingness to invest in housing through fewer zoning regulations and its expansion of alternative sources of power such as wind and solar. Texas is perhaps the prime example of where the author’s extolling ‘progress’ ignores the means by which its achieved.
Just a moment on zoning. If you’ve spent anytime in Houston, you’ll know the city is famous for its lack of zoning laws. Years ago driving through the city’s outskirts I remember seeing a lonely skyscraper next to a large, open field full of livestock.
The author’s excitement about how many ‘green’ energy projects have been built in the Lone Star State ignores a crucial detail. The Texas grid is intentionally separated from the Eastern and Western US grids to avoid federal regulation of its energy system.
This situation avoids dreaded regulation, but also prevents any sort of redundancy. In 2021, this ideological (read financial) opposition cost human lives when the grid failed in the face of frigid temperatures. Somewhere between 246 and 750 people died as Texas’ electrical system was unable to keep up with demand, and had no back-up on which to rely.
A 2024 University of Michigan study stated:
“The roots of this disaster lie in Texas’ unique power grid and approach to energy regulation, with a legacy of deregulation going back to the 1990s (Krauss, 2021). At that time, the state dismantled its centralized utility model in favor of a competitive, market-based system of private generators, transmission operators, and energy retailers (Krauss, 2021). The goal was to lower consumers’ costs and foster innovation, however, the system lacked financial incentives for maintenance, requirements for weatherproofing infrastructure, and effective oversight (Krauss, 2021). These deficits left the system exposed to the catastrophic storm of 2021.”
If the loss of life and exposition of the Texas grid’s failures weren’t bad enough, Governor Greg Abbottoir and the Republican-dominated legislature betrayed their citizens (again) by refusing to bring up any legislation designed to prevent a similar catastrophe.
The downstream effect of destroying any sort of regulatory scheme came from a 2023 Texas Supreme Court ruling that absolved ERCOT (the grid operator) of any legal or financial liability based on the failure.
The “Abundance Agenda” as laid out in the book ignores the human toll that zeroed-out regulatory systems can create. The Texas state government isn’t even an appendage to energy companies, developers, or other wealthy interests. It’s an appendix: A vestigial organ of little use and only ripe for excision if it becomes a problem.
Why do Klein and Thompson ignore these, and the other myriad issues (from civil rights, abortion rights, voting rights) that have exploded across Texas in the last decade? Because, like teachers unions in California, they’re inconvenient to their argument.
Land of Plenty?
Abundance posits a utopian world in which cheap housing and electricity will bring happiness and prosperity to all Americans. I spend a lot of time traveling the country - from the Upper West Side to Upper Bucks County - and many of the folks I meet have homes. They don’t have anything else. They don’t have access to affordable health care, wages that keep pace with costs-of-living, solid education for their kids, or fresh sources of food.
The authors avoid these broader issues for a simple reason: To call out these vast shortcomings would be an admission that the American system is broken. That the social contract has evaporated. That our politics and economics are skewed for the 1% and the 99% be damned. Neither Klein nor Thompson nor their benefactors, readers, or listeners, want to accept those facts or what such recognition means.
Trickle Down and Rising Tides
Donald Trump’s presidencies have ended the neoliberal order, but that doesn’t mean its adherents are ready to let it go. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson are just two of the better-known acolytes of trickle-down economics. Even the late George H.W. Bush had the good sense to call it ‘voodooo.’ Warm, safe, and wealthy in the bosom of the Democratic establishment and its private equity benefactors, the Abundance crew worries not about the death of the American Dream, yawning wealth gaps, or a stalling economy. For them, a rising tide lifts all boats, the yachts first and foremost, the skiffs with holes in them, not so much.
News and Notes:
Watch my terrific conversations from this past week:
I appreciate the reality check of the solutions they provided but they aren’t wrong that cities are over regulated and slow. I work in construction and allowing every city and county to have their own roles over everything is a big problem. That and the time it takes to get a permit. It’s time to do some streamlining.
I’m late to the party here but chiming in with my two cents. I thought the book offered realistic solutions to the housing affordability crisis in blue cities like New York and San Francisco. One obvious way out of this crisis is to build more housing. As a Californian, part of the reason why housing is so expensive here is because it is nearly impossible to build anything. Housing supply has been artificially constricted by nimby groups weaponizing CEQA and zoning laws to shoot down any developments they don’t like. These groups tend to be older and wealthier who have bought their homes when it was cheaper. The groups who can’t afford to buy a home now tend to be younger, more working class and people of color. In some CA cities, even households with two people earning six-figure incomes cannot afford to buy a median-priced home. Sure, they can buy in the surrounding suburbs and drive a 2 hour commute each way, and many people do, but it’s a serious quality of life downgrade.
Opening up housing supply along transit lines is a good solution for California. Will it work for Utah? Probably not. I don’t pretend to know enough about Utah’s politics to chime in there. But it is something different than the system of artificially constricted supply we have now. Building more housing is a good way to keep more people in blue states, along with our congressional representation.
I’m not normally a fan of Ezra Klein. I didn’t appreciate the panic stampede he started with the mainstream media about Biden’s age so close to the election. I thought he should have raised it a year earlier or shut his trap. As we know now, even a nursing home Joe Biden would be better than what we have now. But on how to solve the housing crisis in blue states, I thought his book got it mostly right.
The only thing I would add - tax foreign investors (mostly from Russia and China) buying up property in expensive cities but not living in them. Entire flats just sit empty in building after building. And use that to fund affordable housing units. Homes are for living in!