The pundits Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson describe themselves as liberals, and the public looks on them that way. But conservatives will find the two men subscribe to many of their long-held beliefs. That’s the message in Abundance, Klein and Thompson’s thought-provoking new book. And readers in general may be surprised to see that the book isn’t an arm’s-length list of policy proposals like those common on both sides of the aisle. Rather, it’s analysis. “Liberals speak as if they believe in government and then pass policy after policy hamstringing what it can actually do,” Klein and Thompson write. “Conservatives talk as if they want a small state but support a national security and surveillance apparatus of terrifying scope and power.” The coauthors make clear that on many critical issues they are, indeed, liberal. But in Abundance the pair focus on the flaws in liberal orthodoxy as they see them. Their book is a critique of progressive, not right-wing politics.
Challenging liberal orthodoxy on housing, transportation, and energy
Klein and Thompson zero in on one central flaw in conventional liberal wisdom: that too much government can and does get in the way of solving some of our society’s most urgent and consequential problems. Homelessness. Crumbling infrastructure. Poor public transportation. Over-reliance on fossil fuels. Out-of-sight healthcare costs. And our country’s tendency to let others build industries around American inventions. So much of the time, what prevents our meeting these challenges are government rules and regulations—not just at the federal level but in the states and local communities as well. And the evidence they offer up is compelling. Liberals may quail at the thought of eliminating some of these regulations, such as some of those meant to combat climate change, but there can be no question that Klein and Thompson are correct in pointing to them as a roadblock.
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (2025) 297 pages ★★★★★
“We need to build and invent more of what we need”
Klein and Thompson single out our failure to build what we need as the central bottleneck in meeting so many of our challenges as a society. “For years, we knew what we needed to build to alleviate the scarcities so many faced and create the opportunities so many wanted, and we simply didn’t build it,” they write. “For years, we failed to invent and implement technology that would make the world cleaner, healthier, and richer. [And] for years, we constrained our ability to solve the most important problems.” Now, this wasn’t only the result of liberal policies. Conservatives in Congress and state legislatures sometimes got in the act, too, adding strictures to reasonable policies that made them unreasonable. But the liberal predilection to protect the public and the environment from out-of-control government, industry, and commerce was at the heart of the problem.
Here’s the gist of it: “This book is dedicated to a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need. That’s it. That’s the thesis.” And so it is. The authors elaborate on this concept as they enumerate the challenges. Too few homes to house the American people. Bridges, roads, and tunnels crumbling before our very eyes. Too little renewable energy despite its rapidly falling price. And so forth. And these are all solvable problems.
These are conservative ideas but very different from Donald Trump’s
You might jump to the conclusion that Klein and Thompson are advocating a policy central to the Trump Administration’s agenda: bringing manufacturing back to the United States. That’s a fool’s errand. Instead, they’re focusing on our ability to do lots more of the things we already know how to do. Build housing. Repair or replace faulty infrastructure. Build the new industries around the revolutionary products that come from Silicon Valley and university and corporate labs rather than outsource the work. By contrast, President Trump and his advisors are pursuing the delusional idea that by levying absurdly high tariffs the United States can simply force American companies to dispense with their global supply chains and do all the work here at home. Which, of course, will never happen.
No matter your political persuasion, no matter how many of your oxen the authors gore, you owe it to yourself to read this challenging book.
About the authors
Since 2020, Ezra Klein has been a New York Times columnist and podcast host. Although he is by all accounts liberal, he has long questioned the wisdom of many deeply held beliefs that underpin the policies and politics of the Democratic Party. Klein was born in 1984 and raised in Irvine, California, where his father was a professor of mathematics. He holds a BA in political science from UCLA. Klein began blogging early in the century and quickly gained a following, which attracted the attention of the Washington Post. He began writing for the paper in 2009. Klein is married to an economic policy reporter at The Atlantic. They have two young children.
Derek Thompson describes himself as a progressive and a secular Reform Jew. However, like his coauthor he is quick to question liberal orthodoxy that he perceives as wrong-headed. Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a podcaster. He was born in McLean, Virginia, in 1986 and graduated from Northeastern University in 2008 with a triple major in journalism, political science, and legal studies. He and his wife live in North Carolina with their daughter.
For related reading
For a book with the same main title but a different approach to future prospects, see Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler (Does technology promise humanity a bright future?).
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