Are resources in America really scarce? How is bureaucracy holding America back?
In Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that America can create a world of plentiful resources and improved living standards, but is being held back by manufactured scarcities and barriers. Their answer is to remove bureaucratic obstacles while reinvigorating scientific innovation.
Here’s a look at what the “abundance agenda” is and why it represents a new direction for liberalism.
What Is Abundance?
Before we jump into what the “abundance agenda” is, Klein and Thompson begin their book by establishing what abundance means and how it contrasts with our current state of manufactured scarcity. This article explores their vision of a plentiful future, traces how America shifted from a building mindset to a constraining one, and examines how excessive regulation creates bottlenecks in housing, energy, transportation, and innovation.
Defining Abundance and Scarcity
Klein and Thompson envision a future where society produces more than enough of what people need to live fulfilling lives. Abundance means ensuring everyone has access to affordable housing, clean energy, reliable transportation, high-quality health care, and educational opportunities. The authors describe what life could look like in 2050: clean energy flowing abundantly from nuclear plants and solar panels, vertical farms growing fresh produce in urban centers, lab-grown meat reducing environmental impact, and artificial intelligence boosting productivity while letting people devote more time to leisure, creativity, and family.
(Shortform note: Policy analyst Tony Dutzik offers a counterpoint to Klein and Thompson’s vision of abundance: He argues that by many measures, America is already materially abundant. He points to the US’s surplus food production, high per-capita energy consumption, and excessive personal consumption, along with overflowing self-storage units and the many resources we let go to waste. The paradox is that despite this material plenty, Americans report declining life satisfaction and face rising costs for food, housing, and health care. Dutzik blames the problem on a misalignment between what we produce and what enhances well-being, and suggests that shifting these priorities is as crucial as increasing production.)
Klein and Thompson believe we could achieve this if we remove the barriers we’ve built that block progress. At its core, abundance requires rejecting the assumption that resources are limited and embracing the idea that human ingenuity and the right policies can create plenty for all. Klein and Thompson argue that most shortages we face today aren’t inevitable: They’re choices we’ve made through policies that constrain production and innovation.
(Shortform note: In addition to regulatory barriers, additional structural factors affect abundance. Law professor Zephyr Teachout explains that corporate monopolies can restrict innovation and supply. Similarly, policy analyst Matt Bruenig explains that entrenched interests create significant obstacles to reform—homeowners protect their property values by opposing new development, established researchers benefit from the current grant system, and firms that have mastered existing regulatory frameworks resist changes. These powerful constituencies complicate the process of removing barriers to abundance, especially since they often argue (sometimes compellingly) that many regulations were created with worthy goals in mind.)
Scarcity refers to the insufficient supply of essential goods and services. But Klein and Thompson differentiate between natural scarcity (genuine physical limitations) and chosen scarcity manufactured by policy decisions and institutional failures. For instance, during the Great Depression, fears mounted that the US couldn’t grow further. The New Deal policymakers responded by embracing an abundance mindset: building infrastructure, creating jobs, and expanding production. Later, the authors argue, the environmental movement of the 1960s to 1970s emphasized limits, focusing on problems caused by unchecked growth and advocating constraints on development.
| Abundance Versus Austerity Klein and Thompson’s distinction between natural and chosen scarcity reflects two contrasting mindsets that have shaped American policy: austerity versus abundance. Austerity represents what economist Mark Blyth (Austerity) defines as “a form of voluntary deflation” achieved through reducing government spending, debts, and deficits. This approach treats government spending as wasteful and assumes that nations, like households, must “tighten their belts” during difficult times. In contrast, abundance focuses on expanding production and opportunity rather than accepting limitations as inevitable, suggesting that growth-oriented policies offer better solutions to tough times than cutting back. The US’s response to the Great Depression demonstrates both of these approaches in action. When economic collapse left nearly a quarter of Americans unemployed in the early 1930s, President Roosevelt’s New Deal responded with ambitious government programs to stimulate the economy, embodying an abundance mindset and cutting unemployment from 22% to less than 10%. When Roosevelt later embraced austerity in 1937 by cutting government spending to address growing deficits, unemployment immediately jumped 3%, the stock market crashed again, and what historians call the “Roosevelt Recession” began. While applying the abundance and austerity labels to Roosevelt’s policies is fairly straightforward, in other historical contexts, the distinction isn’t as clear. For example, Klein and Thompson portray the environmental movement of the 1960s-70s as a shift toward an austerity mindset that emphasized constraints on development—in their view, environmental regulations appear as obstacles to necessary growth. Yet writer Rebecca Solnit offers a contrasting interpretation: that Environmentalism is an alternative form of abundance, one that prioritizes quality of life over quantity of production. This suggests that debates about scarcity versus abundance go beyond policy disagreements and reflect different sets of values. |
Why We Need to Switch to the Abundance Agenda
Klein and Thompson present three arguments for why we need to abandon the scarcity mindset and adopt the abundance agenda: It causes material harm to everyday people, it weakens democratic stability, and its effects on society are morally indefensible.
1. Lack of Supply Causes Measurable Harm
The most direct case for abundance is improving people’s daily lives. Klein and Thompson note that when essential goods are scarce, everyone suffers—but especially those with fewer resources. For example, Klein and Thompson note that 30% of Americans are “house poor,” spending at least 30% of their income on housing, which reduces resources for other necessities, education, health care, and saving for the future. Meanwhile, our failure to build energy infrastructure means clean energy projects remain disconnected from the grid, while scientific stagnation means that potentially life-saving medical treatments remain undiscovered or undeveloped.
These scarcities compound each other. When housing costs prevent people from moving to where their skills are most valuable, productivity suffers. When infrastructure is inadequate, businesses face higher costs. When scientific progress slows, technological solutions to other problems remain out of reach.
| The Material Benefits of Abundance in Action Iowa City has implemented abundance-oriented policies that make it one of the “best” and most “livable” cities in the US In housing, the city launched the South District Home Investment Partnership Program to purchase and rehabilitate properties with energy-efficient upgrades, then sell them at below-market prices to help long-term renters become homeowners. On the energy front, Iowa City reached its 2030 goal of reducing emissions by 45% a full decade early, primarily through renewable energy development. The city has streamlined solar permitting—applications are reviewed within just three business days—and solar installations now power municipal buildings, lowering energy costs. Iowa City’s climate action grants also fund solar installations for homeless shelters, community clinics, and affordable housing projects, showing how increasing supply can specifically benefit those with fewer resources. Plus, the community itself is invested in the city’s research sector and its benefits (like medical advances and economic development). For instance, residents rallied to “Stand Up for Science” when the NIH was threatened with cuts that could cost the University of Iowa $33.4 million in funding. |
2. Political Instability and Zero-Sum Thinking
Perhaps less obvious but just as important are the political consequences of scarcity. Klein and Thompson argue that scarcity fuels zero-sum thinking, feeding movements that thrive on division and undermine democratic norms. When people believe there isn’t enough housing, jobs, or opportunities to go around, they become susceptible to narratives that pit groups against each other. If resources seem fixed, then one person’s gain seems to require another’s loss. This mindset underpins arguments that immigrants take jobs or housing from others who need it, or that environmental protection comes at the expense of economic growth. Abundance, conversely, creates conditions where more people can thrive simultaneously.
(Shortform note: Harvard research reveals that zero-sum thinking—the belief that one group’s gain comes at another’s expense—drives political polarization in specific ways. On immigration, Republicans who exhibit zero-sum thinking tend to view immigrants as taking jobs, housing, or resources from native-born citizens. On economic issues, Democrats with zero-sum tendencies believe wealth accumulation by the rich diminishes resources available to others, strengthening support for progressive taxation and universal health care. Zero-sum thinking is also linked to decreased democratic engagement: weaker commitment to voting rights, greater willingness to compromise democratic processes, and increased acceptance of political violence.)
The consequences of scarcity extend to governance and regional population shifts. When governments fail to deliver visible improvements in people’s lives—such as affordable housing or reliable infrastructure—public trust in institutions erodes. Both progressive and conservative administrations suffer when they can’t demonstrate tangible results.
Meanwhile, the population is shifting from states with high living costs, like California and New York, to states with more affordable housing, like Texas and Florida. This migration reflects economic reality: people move where they can afford to live, which increasingly means leaving regions with regulatory barriers to building. The authors note that these demographic shifts have significant electoral implications that could reshape political power for decades to come.
(Shortform note: The population shift from liberal to conservative states seems driven largely by housing affordability: States gaining population have less restrictive building regulations, while the median home price in the 10 states with the largest population gains is 23% lower than in the 10 states with the largest losses. The growth within majority-conservative states is primarily in metropolitan areas, many of which lean liberal, which suggests people aren’t seeking conservative policies, but economic opportunity. If the trend continues, liberal states could lose significant representation in Congress and the Electoral College after the 2030 census.)
3. Abundance Is a Moral Imperative
Beyond material benefits and political stability, Klein and Thompson make a moral case for abundance as essential to human flourishing and addressing our greatest challenges. They argue that chosen scarcity is morally indefensible when we have the technological capacity to overcome it. If we can build enough housing for everyone but choose not to—because of regulatory barriers or local opposition—that represents a collective moral failure. Similarly, if we have the knowledge to develop clean energy but fail to deploy it at scale, we betray future generations.
| The Ethical Obligation to Create Abundance When Klein and Thompson argue that we have a moral obligation to create abundance, they draw on the ethical principle that human flourishing requires certain material conditions to be met. Aristotle argued that a good life doesn’t hinge on experiencing pleasure, but on realizing one’s full potential as a human being. For Aristotle, this meant developing and exercising virtues within a community that supports human excellence. Klein and Thompson’s abundance agenda can be seen as a modern application of this idea: Rather than seeing sustainability and growth as opposing values, they suggest our central moral failure isn’t that we consume too much, but that we’ve created unnecessary barriers to meeting human needs. Just as Aristotle recognized that some external goods were necessary for people to live a virtuous life, Klein and Thompson contend that housing, energy, and innovation form essential foundations for human flourishing in the modern world. This ethical framing helps explain why the authors see abundance as morally necessary. When we limit the supply of housing or clean energy we’re curtailing the possibility for everyone to live a good life. |
Abundance represents a commitment to possibility over constraint. Klein and Thompson envision a future where we solve big challenges rather than merely managing scarcity. They reject what they see as false choices between environmental sustainability and economic growth, urban density and livability, or scientific progress and safety. This moral vision emphasizes that removing constraints on production and innovation can create a world where more people have what they need. Rather than abandoning progressive values like economic justice and environmental protection, the abundance agenda would fulfill these commitments more effectively by expanding production rather than just redistributing existing resources.
(Shortform note: Other experts agree that environmental protection and economic prosperity aren’t inherently opposed. Environmental regulations have had minimal negative effects on employment in regulated industries—and can stimulate innovation, create new markets, and generate jobs. For example, the transition to renewable energy has created more jobs per dollar invested than fossil fuel industries. This aligns with what some researchers call the “decoupling” of economic growth from environmental degradation, which began around 1980 when GDP continued to rise while pollution levels fell. Cities like Los Angeles and New York now have cleaner air and water while maintaining larger economies than they had decades ago.)
