Klein & Thompson - Abundance

I naturally gravitated to Klein and Thompson's Abundance (2025), largely because my sense of optimism is always stimulated by a title that appears to provide hope. In simple terms, this book helped make sense of the current dysfunctional state of U.S. government and it proposed a way out.

I've never thought of it before but essentially "Politics is a way of organizing conflict" (p. 203). The authors explain that the U.S. has had deep and conflicting views before and that the ebb and flow of conservativism and liberalism is to be expected because neither political perspective ever gets things completely right. Owning their affinity to the progressive or liberal side, Klein and Thompson laud the New Deal of the 1930s and the neoliberal order of the 1970s as the most significant in recent history where progressivism had a transcendent moment in serving the largest number of citizens. In both of these cases the previous political order broke down (the Great Depression giving rise to the New Deal and the civil rights movement defining a new "we" through progressivism) and made it possible to adopt a dramatically different political ethos.

Klein and Thompson propose that governance in the U.S. is on the crest of a failing political order that will make space for something new. Philosophically, the U.S. is suffering from an ideological conspiracy that is dependent on viewing itself in decline. This decline is embraced in different ways by both liberals and conservatives. "Too often, the right sees only the imagined glories of the past, and the left sees only the injustices of the present" (p. 15). What is critical about an emerging new order is that the previous ideological conspiracy has to be rewritten with "a (new) narrative, a story... about the good life" (p. 206). The current politics of scarcity motivates right-wing populists whose preference is to close doors while glorifying business and oligarchy as essential handmaidens of managed scarcity. The current culture and economic wars unfortunately do not have the patience and reason to build toward a shared positive future, thus MAGA ideology relies on the dark side of competition rather than the possibility of cooperation and mutual benefit.

Scarcity-driven instincts are derived at least partially from the failures of liberalism, coalescing scientific and cultural skeptics who view dismantling the deep state and limiting the reach of government as their primary calling. And the liberal view perpetuates its ineptitude by creating obstructionists processes and advocating over-regulation that slows, if not undermines, progress for the very projects and visions that would allow progressivism to create a better society. And, the legalism that dominates much of U.S. decision making breeds mistrust of government, resulting in safeguards to disable misuse of power. Tragically, the "safeguards" get in the way of constructive influence as well. As an example, Klein and Thompson describe NSF and NIH funding as most often going to researchers pursuing proofs that are almost certain, avoiding the tougher questions of scientific discovery, binding and constricting the entire process with excessive paperwork and reporting. They propose, instead, funding researchers to pursue grand questions and then rewarding those able to find a solution.

In order to shift from the current scarcity warfare to a new lens based on abundance, Klein and Thompson propose new questions (p. 215), rather than policy solutions, to draw citizens and politicians together:

1. What is scarce that should be abundant?
2. What is difficult to build that should be easy?
3. What inventions do we need that we do not yet have?

These big questions relieve both conservative and liberals of the pathology of defending their ideas based on ideology and quibbling over rules and control. Instead, a politics of abundance would begin to deliver real innovation and solutions for real world problems that most citizens and even politicians secretly recognize.This abundance would unleash the creativity and genius required for the U.S. to regain its national character and return to a place of opportunity for anyone with a great idea and the gumption to pursue it.