Kyle Harrison
to-read
Why Nothing Works
Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress — and How to Bring It Back
- Author
- Marc J. Dunkelman
- Published
- 2025
- Pages
- 416
- Recommended
- 2 times
Why it’s on the list: Dunkelman’s argument that American progressivism disabled its own ability to build: a century of reforms aimed at checking concentrated power left no one with enough authority to finish anything.
Where I saw it: Recommended twice on X — by @PhilSustainable (September 28, 2025): “If you liked abundance you’ll love ‘why nothing works’”; and by @fredstaffordcs (January 10, 2026): “A book last year that deserves to be read more widely.”
Connections
- Regulation — the accumulated veto points the book blames.
- NIMBY — the local-veto mechanism at the center of the argument.
- Abundance (Klein and Thompson) — the adjacent 2025 book @PhilSustainable positioned this as the follow-on to.
- Abundance — the concept page.