Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

 This book seems to be the concatenation of essays written by the two authors about what is wrong with our current political system, and what we might do to fix it.  They focus on two main problems: the lack of affordable housing, and the problem of global warming but their ideas also have a broader application to society in general.  The main premise seems to be that government regulation, although well intentioned, has gotten so unmanageable that it is very difficult to accomplish the large scale projects needed to end the housing crisis and combat global warming.  They give examples when government regulation was scaled back in an emergency and how quickly and efficiently the government was able to address needs when that happened, as in the creation of a vaccine during the COVID pandemic, and the recent speedy repair of the damaged bridge leading into Washington DC. They finish by explaining that our country has all it needs to combat its massive problems if we will only leverage it in the right way. 

I saw this book on the New Books shelf in the Highland Library and thought it sounded both interesting and hopeful.  As it turned out, I found it interesting, but not very hopeful. Yes, the things they propose are possible and would go a long way to solving these large looming problems they discussed, but I think it is virtually impossible in the current political climate that anyone could do what they propose. I kept wondering who was the intended target audience of the book. I think they are hoping that liberal policy makers will read the book and realize they need to loosen regulation and actually accomplish some of these big projects if they ever want to win back the confidence of the American people. Instead, the book made me see why so many people are willing to accept the dictatorial actions of the current administration in hopes that they can actually get something done. It made me worry that our country will slip into fascism and lose both its political and moral identity. So, yeah, not a very hopeful book. (2025, 304 p.)