🟠 News Club - An 'abundance' of debate

You might’ve seen the word ‘abundance’ floating around lately - it’s thanks to a new book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein that’s getting plenty of airtime, including from Treasurer Jim Chalmers. So for today’s newsletter, I wanted to look at what’s behind the hype, and why it’s got people across the political spectrum talking...

Making history in real time

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been suffering from the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Otherwise known as the ‘frequency illusion’, it occurs when you notice something for the first time, and then you see it everywhere. That’s how I feel about the book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson…

The premise of the book is simple enough: there are big issues with not having enough houses, enough clean energy, and enough infrastructure. But what if the problem isn't that we can't build these things - it's that we've made it nearly impossible to build them?

Klein and Thompson argue that this is a particular problem for those on the left of politics, which, they say, has become so hyper-focused on preventing ‘bad’ things from happening that it has forgotten how to create ‘good’ things. 

This discussion landed firmly in my consciousness almost 2 weeks ago when I read that Treasurer Jim Chalmers had called the book “a ripper”. He said he and his team are drawing inspiration on how "we" can get out of "our" own way. In fact, Shane Wright from the Sydney Morning Herald/Age says about "half of the Federal Cabinet has a dog-eared copy on their bed stands". 

So, to our Club Picks to become better acquainted: 

1. To the book itself… Klein - the New York Times opinion columnist and host of the Ezra Klein Show podcast - and Thompson - a journalist with The Atlantic - were independently exploring the issue at about the same time 4 years ago, and decided to join forces. They are progressive in their political outlook and see US President Donald Trump's victory last year as a symptom of the failures of governments on the left. You can buy it here, and the NYT review (including a link for subscribers to Klein’s reading of the intro) is here.
   

2. The Albanese Government’s Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury is Dr Andrew Leigh (that’s a lot of capitals…). He recently gave a speech outlining ‘The Abundance Agenda for Australia’ where he points to a lack of "capacity to deliver at the pace and scale that the moment demands" across housing, infrastructure and energy. It's a surprisingly frank admission…
   

3. Not everyone's convinced about this Abundance thing - including some on the left… Nathan Robinson from US publication Current Affairs sums it up - he says Klein and Thompson are calling for a realignment of the progressive agenda in a way that "sidelines equality and justice in favour of cutting red tape".
   

4. And for a more ‘centrist’ view, we turned to Bari Weiss from The Free Press. She interviewed Klein and Thompson in March, and her take could be summed up with one word: “finally”... When Weiss left The New York Times, it was in part because she felt her progressive colleagues were bullying her for not agreeing with them, so it’s clear she sees Abundance as vindication. It’s a good (albeit long at an hour and a half…) listen. 

What I find fascinating about the ideas captured by Abundance is that it cuts across traditional political battle lines. Progressives like it because it offers a way to actually achieve their goals instead of just talking about them. And conservatives like it because it's a way for their opponents to admit they have got it wrong.

Either way, the real test will be whether it ushers in any change. 

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