Abundance is the title of the book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson which has been making some waves this year. The gist of the book is that if Democrats want to recover from recent failures, especially with the working class, they need to demonstrate they can actually get things done. And lately it seems clear Democrats can't get things done, even things they claim to want to do even in state where they have complete top-to-bottom control. Here's how Derek Thompson described the theme of the book during an interview last month.

Who’s standing in the way of progress? Sometimes, it’s just the federal government, and I think it’s sometimes the federal government, in terms of the way that a lot of these policies that seem to be policies that would forward progressive ends end up stymieing progressive ends. There’s an incredible echo of that story that’s unfolded in the rollout of broadband-internet construction across the country after the Biden infrastructure bill.

And so the top-line headline that I think a lot of people read in the Politico article, or other articles about the slow rollout of broadband construction, is that Biden authorized $42 billion to build broadband internet, and just a fraction of that money was spent, because of the paperwork required...

So this is what happens, I think, when at the federal level you also have this confusion of process versus outcomes, of wanting to fit everything in Ezra’s everything bagel into the process such that every you’ve stymied your ability to actually achieve the outcomes that you’ve indicated.

The argument here is so obviously a conservative argument about government inefficiency that the interviewer asked the authors if they were "lib-wash[ing] conservatism."  As I've said before, none of what Klein and Thompson are saying here is new. All that's new is that they are progressives saying it instead of conservatives. Without really admitting it's what they are doing (at least not in interviews, I haven't read the book) they really are lib-washing conservatism.

And I think that's an important point in all of this that can't be overlooked. The reason blue states don't create abundance isn't because the arguments haven't been heard. If awareness of the problem was all that was required, liberals and progressives could have jumped on board this train anytime since at least 1980. The problem here isn't ignorance it's much deeper than that.

In fact, I think it's undeniable that part of the problem is that the real leftist progressives see abundance as a dirty compromise with the enemy. Abundance implies building and growth and (shudder!) unfettered capitalism, specifically that's capitalism set free from the kind of death-by-a-thousand-cuts government regulation that progressives seem to naturally admire.

I saw a bit of that today in a new interview Klein himself hosted with Saikat Chakrabarti and Zephyr Teachout. Chakrabarti is a socialist who rant AOC's first campaign and became her chief of staff. Teachout is a law professor who is an expert in antitrust law. The conversation opens with Teachout saying she has a big disagreement with the argument in Abundance.

There’s an area of deep disagreement, and there are areas of specific disagreement. The deepest disagreement is actually what you started with, which is the question of focus.

I think that we should be focusing Democratic politics, and politics in general, on the problem of concentrated power and the way in which concentrated power is making it impossible to do things and also really crushing our democracy.

We really do have an oligarchy problem.

In short, big business interests are the real problem. But Klein pushes back on that arguing (as he does in the book) that if you look at a problem like housing costs and new construction, the problem doesn't seem to be too much big business but too much government. Here's Klein (in bold) arguing with Teachout:

There’s a new RAND report that came out after my book was written that found it costs more than four times as much per square foot to produce publicly subsidized affordable housing in California — which the left supports — as it costs to produce a square foot of market-rate housing in Texas...

Why is it four times more? If you only look at market-rate housing, California is more than two times per square foot than Texas. Why?...

It just seems unlikely to me that California would be much more porous to corporate power than Texas.

Yes. I don’t need to fight you on particular housing policies that you’re deep in the weeds of, on zoning policies. Your theory, as I understand it, is that the main reason for the cost difference is left-wing resistance. Rick Caruso is this billionaire in Los Angeles who was leading a big NIMBY movement to make sure that you didn’t have any reform on single-family housing. Does he fit into your story?

Her knee-jerk response is to once again turns this back on the right. Rick Caruso is the problem. This reminds me of a very similar reaction Gov. Newsom had when Klein was on his podcast show. Klein pushed him on building things in California and Newsom argued it was a universal problem, not a problem on the left. Progressives never see this as a problem unique to them. They refuse to see it that way.

Getting back to the interview today, eventually Teachout changes the subject to green energy. And once again, she sees this as a problem entirely (or largely) created by the right.

So let’s talk about green energy. You’re probably familiar with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. They come out with this report fairly regularly on where checks are on local rules against green energy building.

I took a look at it the other day, and it’s majority red districts in New York and around the country that there are these new rules that come in that say: Can’t build solar.

Green energy has become a culture war.

Right — green energy has become a culture war.

But that sets up my favorite response in the entire interview from Ezra Klein:

I think where your story begins to demand complication is: Why is it easier to build green energy in Texas than in California?

I’ve gone and run these numbers, working with the people who are modeling the Inflation Reduction Act’s build-out. If you look at where the I.R.A.’s money is going, if you are looking at deployment of green energy infrastructure or advanced manufacturing for green energy, that money is going majority to red states. They’re building more of it...

There’s no doubt that the politics are as you describe them nationally. And there’s also no doubt that what you would assume from that politics is a much more rapid build-out of green energy infrastructure in blue states than red. But that is not what we see.

Even on green energy, Texas is building more than California. Let that sink in.

There are millions of people on the left who have the same knee-jerk response to every question that Teachout has, i.e. if there's a problem here's how the right is to blame. And that approach never leaves any room for the idea Klein is defending here, i.e. there's a problem and it looks like Democrats are to blame. Again, that's a very conservative argument for a progressive to be making and despite it being undeniably correct in many different areas, many on the left are predisposed to hear it as an essentially conservative argument and to immediately dismiss it or look for an alternative that suits them better.

All that to say, I think this is a very uphill battle Klein and Thompson are fighting, not because of facts but because of left-wing culture. Bottom line: If what it takes to make blue states efficient and effective is less government regulation and more private sector freedom, I'm not sure that's a deal many on the left will accept.