ABUNDANCE

Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson

This reading group guide for Abundance includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough. Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems.

Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. In the introduction, the authors draw a distinction between ideological disagreement and ideological collusion. What are these concepts, and how do they differ? Why do the authors find the former misleading, and why do they think the latter is a more accurate diagnosis for the problems facing American political governance?

2. “To have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need. That’s it. That’s the thesis. It reads, even to us, as too simple” (page 4). In the conclusion, the authors revisit this theme of simplicity: “Abundance reorients politics around a fresh provocation: Can we solve our problems with supply? Many valuable questions bloom from this deceptively simple prompt” (page 219). Why does a simple thesis raise eyebrows? Think about why the authors are writing this book. How might the adoption of a simple thesis, as opposed to a complex one, serve their aims?

3. Pay attention to the sources that are referenced throughout this book. What kinds of training and credentials do their authors have, and what kinds of methodologies do they use? Describe the way the authors of Abundance bring them into conversation with one another.

4. The authors try to disprove some commonly held assumptions about the causes of homelessness. What are these assumptions? Who benefits from their existence?

5. How do people use zoning to preserve community character and how does this tactic depart from the preexisting ways people used to curate community? (Think about the authors’ discussion on page 27 of the ecosystems of talent that are located within some cities, such as New York).

7. On page 102 the authors claim that “The government is a plural posing as a singular.” What key government players and factions feature in this book? Identify a few types of conflicts that exist between different groups within the government. Why do they exist?

8. In chapter 3 the authors claim, “The big government–small government divide is often more a matter of sentiment than substance” (page 105). Define these two words, “sentiment” and “substance.” What does the substitution of substance with sentiment reveal about the specific way in which American politics is changing? What are some spaces where politics might find itself today in America that it would not have occupied a few decades ago?

9. To illustrate America’s supply-side problems, the authors spend much of the first half of the book discussing housing affordability. Why do you think they make housing their case study of choice?

10. In chapter 4 the authors raise some problems besetting America’s technology companies and other research and development organizations. Why is it important for them to approach this section through a historical lens? What would they overlook if they only described the way those organizations operate today?

11. One of the authors’ major contentions is that the policies and procedures we adopt in one generation are central to the problems that we face in the next. The authors state in their conclusion, “Political movements succeed when they build a vision of the future that is imbued with the virtues of the past” (page 221). Discuss some of the ways people conceive of the past as it figures in politics. Why might political groups struggle to act consistently across generations?

12. Where do discussions like the ones in this book take place today? Who are the loudest pundits? Who is missing from them? How does your experience change when reading this conversation in a book as opposed to having it in person?

13. Did you have any reservations about the points the authors make? Are there any comparable books you’ve read to this one that offer a different perspective?

14. Notice the centrality of “choice” in this book. For instance, the authors state that crises often create periods of greater efficiency and innovation, but we first choose what we consider to be a crisis. Who makes these choices? Do you feel like you have the ability to participate in that process?

15. Share some of the ways you are personally affected by the problems outlined in this book. Has your perspective on them changed?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. The year is 2035 and the world has implemented most of the proposals Abundance raises. Now, it is up to you to write the follow-up. How might the world have changed, and what concerns would you still have?

3. Split off into small groups. Take one domain each (think: technology, education, political governance, arts, and more) and describe, with as much detail as possible, how it would ideally change within 5-, 10-, and 20-year increments. Share your thoughts with the group