Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2026

Abstract

Scarcity mars much of American life. Housing prices in our most productive cities are out of control. The nation’s transportation infrastructure is aging and obsolete because it costs so much more to build here than in other developed countries. Meanwhile, China generates nearly three times as much solar energy as the United States, with the gap growing every year.

Why does the richest nation in the history of the world struggle so mightily to get stuff done? That’s the question that propels Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s 2025 bestseller Abundance, which galvanized what may be the hottest and most controversial movement in American politics today.1 Scarcity in America, on the abundance view, is artificial. It is the product of a legal system that rewards obstructionists and has degraded American government’s ability to respond to public demands. What’s needed are reforms that would unlock progress and get us building again.

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© 2026 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies. Published by The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/741134

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