Abundance: How We Build a Better Future

"Abundance is the book that is probably the most prominent of the six on the shortlist, in the sense that Ezra Klein is a well-known commentator, and the book has already been widely reviewed and talked about. He and Derek Thompson, his co-author, have picked up an element of the danger that is posed to America if it continues to tie itself up in bureaucratic and regulatory mechanisms. It’s essentially a message to what you might call the US opposition, the center-left, that by layering on regulation, legislation, and various bits of friction, you prevent the prosperity and growth and invention that built the American way. They point to the danger that you never remove any of the legislative and regulatory measures that you’ve put in place. They’re quite critical of the government, which in the US in the past has been able to ignite innovation. They argue it’s no longer doing that job properly, and sound the warning that China, in particular, is doing some of these things better. So it goes to the heart of some of the things that the Trump administration has tried to solve with a sledgehammer—through tariffs etc. The book speaks to the fear that Americans have of being left behind, I think, and it’s attempting to address that in a quite polemical way. They don’t pull their punches. Yes, but it’s coming from the left and it’s directed to the left. They aren’t preaching to the converted. They’re saying, ‘There are some things that were well intentioned but have held back American prosperity and growth and risk holding it back in future if we’re not careful.’ There’s a clear idea that there’s a path towards a progressive future that can still encourage prosperity. So I think it’s an interesting and provocative take from people who are actually talking to their own tribe to some extent, and pointing out errors that have been made in the past. When we reviewed it, our reviewer, who had been part of the Biden administration, pointed out that Biden himself did try and do some of these things. She also made it clear that there are darker forces, if you like, that might be working on the American economy in the meantime. So it may look a bit pie in the sky in the end, these prescriptions."