I suspect you'd strongly prefer reading Recoding America (https://amzn.to/44NPFPb) by Jen Pahlka on how to free government to actual enact policies it passes on paper.
As I commented on Don Moynihan's interview with Jen about Abundance (https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-jen-pahlka), I am a definite "Pahlkastan", even though I didn't love all her responses in that interview. While I certainly was always aware that the U.S. Civil Service was not as efficient as it could be, Pahlka's piece here about trying to hire a web designer (https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-jen-pahlka) was eye opening for me in terms of just how deep the dysfunctions runs and the need for reform.
Your description of the way that their insistence on their single vague idea veers into self-parody (is there a problem? It's being caused by a lack of abundance!) reminds me a bit of fellow NYT-er Ross Douthat's book "Decadence." When the structural sclerosis of politics, falling birthrates, the mediocrity of post-original trilogy Star Wars projects, and a decline in the speed of scientific innovation are all attributable to "decadence," it ceases to have any meaning. It's the quantum flux of op-ed writers.
I think that's a totally fair knock on Douthat's book. The only thing I'll say in his defense is that he doesn't actually *attribute* anything to decadence -- decadence is more a description of how he thinks things *feel* in general, as opposed to some force that is *causing* anything.
I have been underwhelmed by Ross Douthat since he started at the New York Times. At least with George Will, I can swing from violent agreement to violent disagreement.
The book reads like the authors got caught between writing some policy journalism, writing a manifesto for Democrats, and writing a manifesto for America. It would have benefited from being marketed as a collection of essays on energy policy and then some editing to that effect.
As a national manifesto, it suffers from several obvious drawbacks that are touched on in an extremely brief and unclear way:
1) Zoning reform is a state and local issue, not federal policy that a national manifesto can change. The authors ask in one sentence if that could change, but refuse to answer it.
2) Should the federal government should cut off federal money for CA's high speed rail or future new gas car bans? One sentence on the 2035 gas car ban, but no stated position for or against.
3) Is the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine a good model for public R&D given it was a global emergency with enormous costs to all of society, unlike most R&D problems? The authors once again, address the latter with one sentence saying we can just decide what crises are. This is obviously incorrect.
4) Can abundance even paper over political division? America has poured incredible debt resources into healthcare for seniors and it seems to have deranged our politics far more than healed them. Like picking and choosing what counts as a crisis, the authors tend to alternate between being unbelievably cynical and unbelievably idealistic about our policy trajectory today.
I think it's reasonable for a national movement to act in a coordinated way at the state and local level, so I'm not sure your point #1 is dispositive. But it's notable that the general prescription of the YIMBYs is to move power up to a higher level of government.
You're clearly correct that you can't simply define something as a crisis and thereby defeat it. We have still not won the war on drugs, or on poverty, or on cancer. Heck, you can't even win an actual war by declaring that you have to win it -- we didn't beat the Viet Cong and we ultimately lost to the Taliban.
I think the book barely made any case for Abundance as good politics in the sense of being a winning program. I think their point, rather, is that choosing scarcity means choosing governmental and societal failure, and that cannot benefit progressive causes. That's probably correct, but it leaves a lot unaddressed.
Simultaneously very cynical and very idealistic strikes me as correct, and suggests to me that the book just isn't a serious enough treatment of its own subject matter.
Regarding the framing of the book as a message to progressives and Democrats: I should have been more vocal about this in my original post, but it's terrible politics to polarize these issues on ideological or partisan lines. Sure, maybe you'll convince progressives to be more supportive of permitting reform or zoning reform -- but doing so could just polarize right-leaning types and even some normies against those things. This is part of how you wind up with 1/5 of all counties in the country passing laws against deploying renewables: https://heatmap.news/politics/laws-restricting-renewable-energy.
If you’re big on abundance there is already a solution, move to the sunbelt. That’s what i did.
I hope that blue states/cities work out their dysfunctions, but ultimately I think they are deep into the machine politics to the point it ain’t going to happen. Every entity at some point in its lifecycle has stakeholders that want to spend capital more than build it.
A few thoughts on this piece and on Abundance and abundance.
If you haven't seen it, John Ganz review (https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/abundance-no-thanks) of Abundance struck some of the same notes. Like you, I think Ganz found both the book and the "movement" antiseptic and too technocratic.
I should admit that I haven't read Abundance, though I have been a fan of abundance since this Yglesias Slow Boring post back in 2021 making the case for energy abudance.
And I feel like I have read enough of Thompson and Klein over the years to understand the argument without reading the book.
Having said that, as someone who does believe that focusing on abundance is critical for both the country in general and helping review the Democrats' prospects specifically, I'm disappointed that the book for you wasn't more persuasive and rousing. But I think it's important to not oversell what the politics of abundance could be.
I think a focus on abundance is critical for helping the Democrats move past its wrongheaded anti-growth and identity politics tendencies. While you're right that there are still important debates to be had about how to achieve abundance, just recognizing that it needs to be a foundational principle for the party is huge.
But it's also not enough. I think the second pillar of the party has to be a focus on building community and social capital. Abundance thinking is not the answer there, Instead, it's about figuring out how to catalyze the building of a service ethic and service organizations in the way that early 20th Century American did as Robert Putnam describe in The Upswing.
Another book recommendation, Noah, one that, unlike Leah's, I don't suspect you'll like--but to the extent that your response to "Abundance" really comes down to a dissatisfaction (one I agree with) with Klein and Thompson's aim to get their readers to make "a commitment to [an] abstraction," then Daniel London's detailed and very specific challenge to one very particular kind of abundance thinking is worth considering: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo247855479.html
I suspect you'd strongly prefer reading Recoding America (https://amzn.to/44NPFPb) by Jen Pahlka on how to free government to actual enact policies it passes on paper.
(I reviewed it here: https://www.deseret.com/2023/8/20/23824622/government-websites-veterans-benefits-decoding-america/)
I'll definitely check out your review -- and quite possibly the book.
As I commented on Don Moynihan's interview with Jen about Abundance (https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-jen-pahlka), I am a definite "Pahlkastan", even though I didn't love all her responses in that interview. While I certainly was always aware that the U.S. Civil Service was not as efficient as it could be, Pahlka's piece here about trying to hire a web designer (https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-jen-pahlka) was eye opening for me in terms of just how deep the dysfunctions runs and the need for reform.
Your description of the way that their insistence on their single vague idea veers into self-parody (is there a problem? It's being caused by a lack of abundance!) reminds me a bit of fellow NYT-er Ross Douthat's book "Decadence." When the structural sclerosis of politics, falling birthrates, the mediocrity of post-original trilogy Star Wars projects, and a decline in the speed of scientific innovation are all attributable to "decadence," it ceases to have any meaning. It's the quantum flux of op-ed writers.
I think that's a totally fair knock on Douthat's book. The only thing I'll say in his defense is that he doesn't actually *attribute* anything to decadence -- decadence is more a description of how he thinks things *feel* in general, as opposed to some force that is *causing* anything.
I have been underwhelmed by Ross Douthat since he started at the New York Times. At least with George Will, I can swing from violent agreement to violent disagreement.
For reference: https://theonion.com/sci-fi-writer-attributes-everything-mysterious-to-quant-1819570928/
The book reads like the authors got caught between writing some policy journalism, writing a manifesto for Democrats, and writing a manifesto for America. It would have benefited from being marketed as a collection of essays on energy policy and then some editing to that effect.
As a national manifesto, it suffers from several obvious drawbacks that are touched on in an extremely brief and unclear way:
1) Zoning reform is a state and local issue, not federal policy that a national manifesto can change. The authors ask in one sentence if that could change, but refuse to answer it.
2) Should the federal government should cut off federal money for CA's high speed rail or future new gas car bans? One sentence on the 2035 gas car ban, but no stated position for or against.
3) Is the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine a good model for public R&D given it was a global emergency with enormous costs to all of society, unlike most R&D problems? The authors once again, address the latter with one sentence saying we can just decide what crises are. This is obviously incorrect.
4) Can abundance even paper over political division? America has poured incredible debt resources into healthcare for seniors and it seems to have deranged our politics far more than healed them. Like picking and choosing what counts as a crisis, the authors tend to alternate between being unbelievably cynical and unbelievably idealistic about our policy trajectory today.
I think it's reasonable for a national movement to act in a coordinated way at the state and local level, so I'm not sure your point #1 is dispositive. But it's notable that the general prescription of the YIMBYs is to move power up to a higher level of government.
You're clearly correct that you can't simply define something as a crisis and thereby defeat it. We have still not won the war on drugs, or on poverty, or on cancer. Heck, you can't even win an actual war by declaring that you have to win it -- we didn't beat the Viet Cong and we ultimately lost to the Taliban.
I think the book barely made any case for Abundance as good politics in the sense of being a winning program. I think their point, rather, is that choosing scarcity means choosing governmental and societal failure, and that cannot benefit progressive causes. That's probably correct, but it leaves a lot unaddressed.
Simultaneously very cynical and very idealistic strikes me as correct, and suggests to me that the book just isn't a serious enough treatment of its own subject matter.
Regarding the framing of the book as a message to progressives and Democrats: I should have been more vocal about this in my original post, but it's terrible politics to polarize these issues on ideological or partisan lines. Sure, maybe you'll convince progressives to be more supportive of permitting reform or zoning reform -- but doing so could just polarize right-leaning types and even some normies against those things. This is part of how you wind up with 1/5 of all counties in the country passing laws against deploying renewables: https://heatmap.news/politics/laws-restricting-renewable-energy.
If you’re big on abundance there is already a solution, move to the sunbelt. That’s what i did.
I hope that blue states/cities work out their dysfunctions, but ultimately I think they are deep into the machine politics to the point it ain’t going to happen. Every entity at some point in its lifecycle has stakeholders that want to spend capital more than build it.
A few thoughts on this piece and on Abundance and abundance.
If you haven't seen it, John Ganz review (https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/abundance-no-thanks) of Abundance struck some of the same notes. Like you, I think Ganz found both the book and the "movement" antiseptic and too technocratic.
I should admit that I haven't read Abundance, though I have been a fan of abundance since this Yglesias Slow Boring post back in 2021 making the case for energy abudance.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/energy-abundance
And I feel like I have read enough of Thompson and Klein over the years to understand the argument without reading the book.
Having said that, as someone who does believe that focusing on abundance is critical for both the country in general and helping review the Democrats' prospects specifically, I'm disappointed that the book for you wasn't more persuasive and rousing. But I think it's important to not oversell what the politics of abundance could be.
I think a focus on abundance is critical for helping the Democrats move past its wrongheaded anti-growth and identity politics tendencies. While you're right that there are still important debates to be had about how to achieve abundance, just recognizing that it needs to be a foundational principle for the party is huge.
But it's also not enough. I think the second pillar of the party has to be a focus on building community and social capital. Abundance thinking is not the answer there, Instead, it's about figuring out how to catalyze the building of a service ethic and service organizations in the way that early 20th Century American did as Robert Putnam describe in The Upswing.
Another book recommendation, Noah, one that, unlike Leah's, I don't suspect you'll like--but to the extent that your response to "Abundance" really comes down to a dissatisfaction (one I agree with) with Klein and Thompson's aim to get their readers to make "a commitment to [an] abstraction," then Daniel London's detailed and very specific challenge to one very particular kind of abundance thinking is worth considering: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo247855479.html