Abundance
Key Data
- Authors: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Published: 2025
- Purchase link: here
- Finished reading on: 11.08.2025
Content
The book looks at several problems of current liberalism and proposes a new lens to look at politics.
Why Did I Read It?
I was very interested in the book because it was hyped up a lot in Liberal circles. I wanted a coherent vision to advocate for in the face of competing ideologies.
Thoughts After Finishing
The book is well-written, and thought provoking. I now see the value of a whole range of new policies that we should implement
Main Takeaways
This book gave me a good image of why liberalism is good, how it changed and which problems it faces now. Key insights include:
- American Politics is structured in pre-New Deal, the New Deal era and the Neoliberalism that followed it from both left and right.
- There is a trade-off between developing a lot of good infrastructure and making sure that all of societies interests are properly balanced.
- You can run into issues balancing all interests in society, in fact it could be very harmful.
- There is range of things which only government can do, and it should strive to do it as well as possible.
- Innovation requires government help in order to allow for some risk which will eventually improve lives.
- Operation Warp Speed, the US governments Covid policy, should be given way more credit than it currently gets.
- Currently, we live in an age of artificial scarcity, and we should strive towards abundance.
Criticisms
- It doesn't give a blueprint for ordinary people to change anything.
Quotes
"That might be a system so consumed trying to balance its manifold interests that it can no longer perceive what is in the public's interest" Abundance-page 93
"The important thing for government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all"- Abundance, page 193