Abundance

Image from Harvard Book Store

The summary (no spoilers)

I heard about Abundance from one of my favorite podcasters, and since I often find books through recommendations from others, it went on my list. It is part history, part policy recommendation, part vision for the future. The authors offer a lens through which to view politics, one that emphasizes abundance over scarcity and outcomes over processes.

touchstones

The book zooms in on five areas that could benefit from a lens of abundance: housing, energy, infrastructure, the environment, and medical science. In all of these areas, they focus on successes and failures, and how government could contribute to meaningful change. There are important takeaways throughout the book that are specific to each of these fields, but there are a couple of overall ideas that I want to hold onto. 

"It is childish to declare government the problem. It is just as childish to declare government the solution. Government can be either the problem or the solution, and it is often both... One problem that liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too many goals to a single project. A government that tries to accomplish too much all at once often ends up accomplishing nothing at all.... Whether government is bigger or smaller is the wrong question. What it needs to be is better. It needs to justify itself not through the rules it follows but through the outcomes it delivers."

While I believe there is benefit to following a process or rule, and I don’t wish to throw that out entirely because that can foster exploitation, we have weighted process too heavily and neglected to foster an environment in which things are actually able to get done. I can get on board with the argument that the size of government is not the problem, its ineffectiveness is.

"Implementation, not mere invention, determines the pace of progress... Progress is now, as it has always been, about the combination of invention and implementation... 'America has the ability to invent. China has the ability to build. The first country that can figure out how to do both will be the superpower.' ... The state is no enemy of invention or innovation. In fact, the government can accelerate both."

"One of the most dangerous political pathologies is the tendency to defend whatever your enemies attack. Decades of attacks on the state have turned liberals into reflexive champions of government. But if you believe in government, you must make it work. To make it work, you must be clear-eyed about when it fails and why it fails... The ideas and movements of the last few decades are not our villains. They were the responses to the crises of another time. They succeeded, often brilliantly. That we have not matched our institutions to our moment is our failure, not theirs."

This last feels so important to remember.

My review

I found this book to be a fairly quick, easy, engaging read. They made a strong case, which lends itself to both frustration and hope. I would consider this required reading for all lawmakers, activists, community organizers, leaders, researchers, project managers, decision makers. The lens it provides could benefit so many areas of society. I give Abundance 5 stars.