(Audio) Abundance, by Klein and Thompson

Thursday November 20, 2025

I started listening to Dunkelman's Why Nothing Works, but abandoned it. Ezra Klein's name, I think, is why I made it through the similar Abundance. Crazy culturally mediated world.

I was very pleased that Klein explicitly references Fully Automated Luxury Communism. Breakneck turns out to be substantially similar to Abundance as well, and references it. The general vibe has been in the air.

The vibe is: Regulate less, build more. Less restriction, more expansion. Less red tape, more research.

This requires giving government more room to act, which makes sense if the government is going to do the right things. Power is needed to do big things, but its tendency to corrupt may still be an issue.

Some interesting references: Homelessness is a housing problem. WTF Happened In 1971? Apparently the US has four times as many lawyers per capita as France.

There are hints of Why greatness cannot be planned in Thompson's second half on science and technology. It makes me wonder about the limits of fully federated action, as opposed to central control. What truly requires the power of a government, a university?

Just as feudalism blocked production that only capitalism could unleash, so did capitalism constrain an abundance that a new paradigm might unleash. Core to this analysis of the economy was an idea that has come to be called the “fettering of production.” Marx observed that many companies’ obsession with profit kept the entire economy from exploring ideas that threatened incumbent margins or failed to produce immediate returns. Among capitalism’s many sins, Marx wrote, was that it prevented the most wondrous and useful technology from being invented and deployed in the first place. An economy run amok with useless fettering serves the rich few at the expense of the poorer many. (page 127)