Abundance Movement

Extracted Attributes

• Focus

  Expanding supply rather than redistribution of scarce resources.

• Critique

  American liberals' focus on blocking negative development over fostering positive growth since the 1970s, leading to stagnation.

• Criticism

  Identifies problems without offering practical solutions; neglects the role of labor; needs to address distressed places, not just booming ones.

• Primary Goal

  Initiate new economic conditions, foster growth, and diminish the appeal of political extremes.

• Core Principle

  Reforming regulatory environments to enable greater supply and development in areas like housing, infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific research.

• Key Proponents

  Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, Matthew Yglesias, Noah Smith, Jerusalem Demsas, Yoni Appelbaum.

• Proposed Policy

  Abundance Agenda, a Third Way policy balancing regulations with social progress.

• Inspiration/Origin

  Local political conditions in California and the YIMBY movement.

• Publication Status

  New York Times Bestseller

• Historical Analogue

  Progressive movement of the early 20th century.

• Associated Publication

  *Abundance* by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Timeline

• Publication of the book *Abundance* by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which explores and popularizes the Abundance Movement. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2025-03

• American liberals began prioritizing blocking negative development over fostering positive growth, a trend the Abundance Movement critiques as leading to stagnation. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  1970s

Abundance (Klein and Thompson book)

Abundance is a nonfiction book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson published by Avid Reader Press in March 2025. The book examines the reasons behind the lack of progress on ambitious projects in the United States, including those related to affordable housing, infrastructure, and climate change. It became a New York Times Bestseller. Klein and Thompson argue that the regulatory environment in many liberal cities, while well intentioned, stymies development. They write that American liberals have been more concerned with blocking bad economic development than promoting good development since the 1970s. They say that Democrats have focused on the process rather than results and favored stasis over growth by backing zoning regulations, developing strict environmental laws, and tying expensive requirements to public infrastructure spending. Klein and Thompson propose an Abundance Agenda that they say better manages the tradeoffs between regulations and social advancement and lament that America is stuck between a progressive movement that is too afraid of growth and a conservative movement that is allergic to government intervention. They present the abundance agenda both as a Third Way policy alternative and as a way to initiate new economic conditions that will diminish the appeal of the "socialist left" and the "populist-authoritarian right". The book received a mixed reception from critics. Critics praised the scope and clarity of the ideas presented, while some viewed the book as pointing out problems without identifying realistic solutions.

Web Search Results

• The 'abundance movement' needs to help distressed places, not just ...

  A new, energetic push to tackle big problems is taking shape in progressive policy circles: the “abundance movement.” Its most notable priority is reforming zoning codes to make it easier to construct more housing, but the movement also calls for expanding the nation’s ability to build infrastructure, operate public services, and support scientific research. [...] Why pay attention to the abundance movement? First, it has many prominent supporters, including journalists at The New York Times (Ezra Klein), The Atlantic (Derek Thompson, Jerusalem Demsas, Yoni Appelbaum), and Substack (Matthew Yglesias, Noah Smith). Second, the movement has attracted wide public attention, with a best-selling book (“Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson) and features in The American Prospect, Washington Monthly, The Nation, and Boston Review, to name a few. [...] An implicit assumption of the abundance movement is that increased out-migration from distressed places will also help any residents who remain. Labor supply will go down relative to the number of jobs, and jobs in distressed places will be easier to get. Journalist Matthew Yglesias outlined this assumption most clearly:

• How California's excesses inspired the 'abundance' craze - Politico

  The so-called Abundance movement has become all the rage on the left as a means to diagnose the ways in which ineffectual liberal governance and overregulation has wrought political disaster for the Democrats — a conversation thrust into the national spotlight as journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson tour the country to promote their best-selling book of the same title. [...] Abundance is California’s latest ideological export, part of the state’s long tradition of incubating modern political movements before releasing them nationwide. Local political conditions in the Bay Area, on the Central Coast and across Orange County birthed the gay-rights, environmental and anti-tax movements that went on to shape national politics in the late twentieth century. [...] It is, like much in California, a debate that plays out among Democrats, who have had unrivaled control of state government for the past decade and a half and now control all of its major cities. Part of that intraparty soul-searching is the Abundance movement’s push to redefine what constitutes liberal values — and sell it to the persuadable center without too deeply alienating the Democrats’ progressive base.

• Abundance That Works for Workers—and American Democracy

  We agree that abundance is a worthy goal for the progressive movement, as is the project of reforming government to ensure it is delivering goods quickly and effectively. In particular, as two scholars of labor and American political economy, we seek to highlight the role that unions—workers’ best instrument for building collective economic and political voice—can play in the abundance movement. [...] problems facing Americans—and offer a retort to Elon Musk and Donald Trump—with a new policy and politics of “abundance.” Abundance, as Klein describes it, is a political movement of supply: Instead of focusing on the (re)distribution of scarce existing resources, politicians should focus on expanding supply. [...] Likewise, the failure of many abundance advocates to grapple with labor is indicative of a broader neglect of the political economy of policymaking—namely, the role that organized economic interests representing economic elites play in exploiting veto points across levels of governance and the ability of organized workers to serve as a countervailing force to that influence. More frequently, the focus of the abundance movement is on simply eliminating veto points—such as environmental reviews

• Abundance: A Primer | Published Work

  Overall Abundance 10/06/2025 # Abundance: A Primer Abundance: A Primer The abundance movement is gaining momentum across America's political landscape. [...] For those new to the idea, abundance is an approach to identify and dismantle self-imposed scarcity. It offers solutions for some of the most pressing challenges facing our country: building more housing, investing in clean energy, innovating in science and technology, and making government work better for everyone. This framework promotes both high-return public investments and smart deregulatory reform — two tools usually stuck in different partisan silos. [...] But this movement isn’t just about the left critiquing the left. Many market-oriented leaders on the right have broken from conservatives who espouse a zero-sum mentality, recognizing that a limited yet effective federal government can support fast and inclusive growth. This is where Inclusive Abundance comes in. We are working to advance these ideas across the ideological spectrum and forge stronger ties between the abundance factions in both parties.

• Varieties of Abundance - Niskanen Center

  As Rob Saldin and I have argued, the closest analogue to Abundance is the Progressive movement of the early 20th century. Like Abundance, Progressivism covered a very wide range of ideological terrain. Herbert Hoover was a Progressive, but so was Jane Addams. Some Progressives supported breaking up monopolies, while others advocated regulating them in the public interest. Progressives were organized into factions within the Democratic and Republican parties, but they also built institutions and [...] While YIMBYism is a common denominator of all species of Abundance, the movement is the fundamental experience that grounds Liberal Abundance. The YIMBY movement was born in the Bay Area, and it continues to be the strongest organizational manifestation of Liberal Abundance. As UC-Davis law professor Chris Elmendorf has argued, the YIMBY movement began with a recognition of the collective action problem in urban housing. But while many of the libertarians who influenced Liberal Abundance [...] Abundance advocates seek to intervene in this toxic cycle of economic decline by changing the rules to favor market entrants over incumbents, to empower builders, whether public or private, over blockers. They also try to create new forms of participation that mobilize those who would benefit from a societal surplus. In doing so, they take inspiration from the YIMBY movement, which cracked what seemed like an impossible collective action problem by organizing those in favor of new housing over