The best way to read Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book is to take the authors at their word. Abundance is what is usually called a “policy book,” but Klein and Thompson don’t quite offer a traditional policy agenda. Instead, the authors begin and end with a question that is also a concentrating lens. “Can we solve our problems with supply?” More broadly, if we focused our attention on expanding the provision of goods and services rather than fighting over who gets what, or who is winning or losing the culture wars, what might we learn?

The central problem of American politics, Klein and Thompson imply, is not conflict but the scarcity that fuels it. If we lived in a world of real material abundance—for example, where people had sufficient access to housing and the other resources necessary for a good life rather than just consumer goods—people would be less dissatisfied.

More at Combinations.