Abundance

Housing, Transportation, Energy, and Health are the four inequalities Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson identify in their book Abundance that will help create the future of technological and resource abundance imagined by many. They find that the bottlenecks of progress are created by the political group that claim to want to foster it. Klein and Thompson call for politicians and citizens to create a new political order that is aimed at fostering progress to solve environmental ruin, homelessness, and inefficient medicine.

Despite the internet making information and people accessible from all over the world, geographic location is still crucial to companies and local economies. California is an obvious example of this. Hollywood and tech companies occupy LA, SF, and Silicon Valley despite the office/living cost being significantly higher than other places like Arizona or Texas. Companies need the workforce located in these areas.

In California especially, there is a home shortage. The cause of this home shortage is in part due to zoning laws. Zoning laws came about to keep municipalities organized. Having certain areas designated for businesses, residences, etc. In order to protect home prices, restrictions expanded on what was allowed to be built in some areas. For example, buildings were required to have a specified number of parking spaces or living space per tenant or other arbitrary requirements. Some laws were made in good faith with the goal of protecting tenants, but these laws decreased the availability of living spaces and affordable housing which led to homelessness.

Working with zoning laws, environmental policy has also slowed progress. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was put into law in 1970 by then Governor Ronald Reagan. It was the start of a trend in environmental policies and agencies like the EPA which sought out to control our impact on the environment in a time when it was becoming increasingly evident that human activity was hurting it. These well-meaning rules delayed building projects and inflated budgets making projects harder to bring to the table.

Process/Rules > Outcomes is the focus for liberal politicians claim Klein and Thompson. In a world of automation, where tasks are accomplished quickly, that might be true. Unfortunately, that isn’t the world we live in. We live in a world where a government funded high speed rail system because government agencies are restricting it. The bureaucracy has become very efficient at attacking itself.

Speaking of efficiencies, clean energy costs are decreasing exceedingly quicker than previous projections although adoption is not coming as quickly as needed. There needs to be significant development in implementing systems like transmission lines, solar panels, and wind turbines for the globe to decarbonize the atmosphere. An interesting point noted is that, historically, as economies grow, they come to use more energy and pollute the environment. As their economy grows, however, they can eventually afford cleaner energy. This can be observed in places like London, NYC, and SF where air pollution and smog have continued to get cleaner than their historic highs. A similar trend is likely to appear in developing economies like New Delhi. Just as with housing, energy projects are being held back by government regulation. Green innovation can’t stop pollution in a timely manner when projects can’t be completed timely.

Klein and Thompson lastly touch on scientific research where paperwork and the grant process in general have stifled innovation and prevent research away from established fields. Katalin Karikó is their remarkable example. Interested in mRNA, Karikó’s research grants was rejected numerous times. This led to her getting demoted and eventually let go from the University of Pennsylvania. mRNA would end up being the innovation needed to create the COVID-19 vaccine. She was later awarded a Nobel Prize. The problem with grants is that committees do not traditionally fund research in moonshots like Karikó’s mRNA interest. Klein and Thompson, along with many other researchers, believe that this has can lead to lengths of time without innovations that would greatly benefit humanity. This Wall Street Journal article summarizes Karikó’s journey.

Historically, it has taken a crisis for the government to get its act together. The vaccine during the pandemic, penicillin during WWII, the space flight during the space race. The political order that America needs right now is one that can act and isn’t so caught up in the process that it inhibits the progress it claims it wants.

Abundance was a good airplane read.