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The Ezra Klein Show

What We Got Right — and Wrong — in ‘Abundance’

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

News, Government, Society & Culture

4.314.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2026

⏱️ 123 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“Abundance” came out a little over a year ago. It’s been exciting — and a little disorienting — seeing how it’s rippled out into the world, and the ways it’s been embraced and debated and critiqued. So I wanted to take a moment to talk through what’s really happened in the last year – with Derek Thompson, my “Abundance” co-author, and Marc Dunkelman, whose book “Why Nothing Works” came out around the same time, and circles the same ideas. What has the abundance movement actually achieved in the last year? Where has it fallen short? And what have the three of us learned from our critics? Mentioned: Ezra is moderating a forum on housing and affordability with some of the top California gubernatorial candidates. The event is on Friday, May 8, in Oakland, CA. You can buy tickets here. Use the code EKSHOW for 20 percent off your order. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman Derek Thompson’s Substack The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro “The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth” by Brian M. Rosenthal “Why Are Palantir and OpenAI Scared of Alex Bores?” by The Ezra Klein Show “The Anti-Social Century” by Derek Thompson Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam The Permanent Problem by Brink Lindsey “Bernie Sanders: ‘There Ain’t Much of a Democratic Party” by Bernie Sanders and David Leonhardt Book Recommendations: Making a New Deal by Lizabeth Cohen Stuck by Yoni Appelbaum Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis The Secret History by Donna Tartt Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, Narrated by Richard Poe Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Annika Robbins and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Brianna Johnson.

Transcript

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0:00.0

We've got an announcement before we begin the show today.

0:03.1

I'm going to be hosting a forum on housing and affordability

0:06.1

with some of the top California governance candidates on Friday, May 8th.

0:10.1

We're going to discuss why housing in California, my beloved home state, is so damn expensive

0:15.1

and what each candidate hopes to do about it.

0:18.2

The event is being co-hosted by the New York Times, Housing Action Coalition,

0:22.3

and the Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, and the San Francisco Foundation.

0:26.9

Tickets are on still now, so get them while they're available. We'll include a link and a promo

0:30.6

code in the show notes.

1:08.0

Music I'm I'm It's been a little over a year since Derek Thompson and I published the book Abundance.

1:11.5

Now, the book didn't begin what I think of his abundance movement,

1:19.9

but it did mark a kind of kickoff of the idea as a both an object in the discourse, something people are fighting over and creating factional wars over, and actually something politicians

1:25.4

are claiming and trying to think through how they would turn into policy.

1:29.7

Actually, being part of us has been a bit of a wild ride on a bunch of levels.

1:33.8

It has created fights I didn't expect, opportunities I didn't expect.

1:37.9

It can be a very weird experience.

1:40.3

But I've been really wanting to come back to abundance.

1:43.9

Been a little distracted from it by the million things Donald Trump is doing.

1:48.5

But if this is to become something more than a synonym for efficiency,

1:54.0

if it's become part of a vision for a better world,

1:57.8

I think there's some success to build on, but a whole lot more that actually needs to be

2:03.0

done. So I want to have on some other folks from within this intellectual hot house to talk

...

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