Abundance (Klein and Thompson)

Why it’s on the list: Klein and Thompson’s argument that the binding constraint on American progress is no longer invention or money but the accumulated procedural veto — the permitting, review and litigation that make it hard to build housing, transmission or transit — and that the political project should be scarcity-removal rather than redistribution alone.

Where I saw it: A bare Amazon link saved in the note. Recommended again on X by @GS_Watson (March 18, 2025): “Eventually the push for zero-sum, ‘tear it all down’ politics on all sides will pass. Smart, constructive folks on the center-left and center-right are already charting a path for what the future of liberalism may offer to Americans.” And cited a third time by @BevansAdvocate (October 9, 2025) in a meme casting this book as “the anime” and Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations as “the manga.”

Connections

• Ezra Klein · Derek Thompson — authors.
• Housing · Regulation — the two constraints the book spends the most time on.
• City Building · Progress Studies — the portfolio idea and the adjacent movement.
• Abundance — the concept page; this card carries the disambiguated title so the bare name stays with it.
• The Rise and Decline of Nations — Olson 1982, offered on X as the book this one is downstream of.
• Why Nothing Works — Dunkelman’s parallel 2025 argument, recommended on X as the follow-on read.