What We Got Right — and Wrong — in ‘Abundance’

new video loaded: What We Got Right — and Wrong — in ‘Abundance’transcriptBacktranscriptWhat We Got Right — and Wrong — in ‘Abundance’It’s been a big year for the abundance movement, but what has it really achieved? Ezra Klein talks with his “Abundance” co-author Derek Thompson and with Marc Dunkelman, the author of “Why Nothing Works.”It has been a little over a year since Derek Thompson and I published “Abundance,” and so I wanted here at the just over year mark to have a check in. What has happened? What hasn’t happened? Which of the arguments have changed our minds? Which politicians actually seem to be doing something with the idea? And where does it all go from here? Derek Thompson is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He’s, of course, co-author of “Abundance” and the author of a great Substack newsletter under his name. Marc Dunkelman is a fellow at the Searchlight Institute and at Brown University, and the author of a book that came out around the same time, “Why Nothing Works,” which is about some very similar ideas, but with a much more historical perspective. So I want to have them on together to talk through what we’ve seen and what we think is coming. As always, my email [email protected] Marc Dunkelman, Derek Thompson, welcome to the show. It’s good to be here. Thrilled to be here. So our books came out a little more than a year ago. Congratulations, everybody. But just at the high level. Where’s your head at? What are you feeling good about? What are you feeling worried about a year on? And, Derek, let’s start with you. So maybe one way to think about the reaction to the fallout of “Abundance” is to think about its impact at three different levels the level of vibes, the level of legislation and the level of outcomes and the level of vibes. This is a 0.1 percentile outcome given where I was March 1st of 2025. The degree to which the concept of abundance has reached something like full penetration of the political discourse, certainly the discourse of the Democratic Party. You look at the fact that governors Kathy Hochul, JB Pritzker are talking about how their solutions to the energy crisis or the housing crisis must begin with a supply side policy that tells me that this is not just a word that’s being bandied about. It’s a concept. Look at problems, solve them on the supply side that is being actively talked about at the level of governors, at the level of Congress, at the level of the Senate. Zohran Mamdani has called out the concept of abundance and has paired his policy of rent freezes with a policy of helping developers build in New York City. So that’s the level of vibes. I think it’s clearly entered this level of memetic strength, that is far beyond my wildest dreams of 13 months ago. At the level of legislation, I’d say it’s like a B, B+ One bill that Gavin Newsom signed is literally called Abundant and Affordable Homes near Transit Act. Abundant is right there in the first word. There’s legislation that’s been passed around the country that also has tried many times, explicitly citing “Abundance” to make it easier to build housing and easier to build clean energy. But then I think where the strongest criticism of our movement has to begin is at the level of outcomes. California should be commended for the law that it signed. But if you have the misfortune of going to say FRED the St. Louis data website and looking up housing starts in California between, say, 2021 and 2026, you do not see the…

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