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I finished this book in an afternoon. That alone is praise of a sort. It is plainly written, vigorously argued, and animated by a sincere desire to see the Republic build again.
The authors are correct. A great nation that cannot build homes, bridges, power plants, or railroads is not a great nation for long. A people who know what must be done but cannot do it will soon cease to believe in self government altogether. On this point, I find myself in full agreement.
They understand something essential that many reformers forget. You cannot redistribute what you cannot produce. You cannot protect what you cannot maintain. You cannot govern what you cannot build.
This is sound doctrine.
And yet, as I read on, I found myself asking a question that the book never quite answers.
Who, precisely, benefits from the failure to build?
The authors speak often of process. Of delay. Of veto points. Of overlapping jurisdictions and lawsuits and environmental reviews piled atop one another like cordwood. All of this is real in this 21rst century America. But process does not arise spontaneously. It is built. It is maintained. And it is very often defended by men and institutions who profit from its existence.
In my day, corruption wore a face. It had a name. A railroad trust. A party boss. A financier who believed the nation existed to serve his ledger. We called these things out. We broke them up. We made enemies.
What strikes me about this book is its politeness.
The authors wish to make the system work better. Admirable. But they rarely wish to say who is working it now. They speak as if complexity were a tragic accident, rather than a shelter deliberately constructed by those with the money and time to navigate it.
They call for abundance. I applaud this. I was myself a great believer in national strength, in industry, in expansion, in the vigorous use of our resources. But abundance without moral direction is not progress. It is merely accumulation.
In my administration, we did not simply build. We judged.
We judged monopolies to be dangerous to liberty. We judged conservation to be a duty owed to the future. We judged corruption to be a moral failing, not a technical glitch. We understood that neutrality in the face of power was itself a form of corruption.
I finished this book in an afternoon. That alone is praise of a sort. It is plainly written, vigorously argued, and animated by a sincere desire to see the Republic build again.
The authors are correct. A great nation that cannot build homes, bridges, power plants, or railroads is not a great nation for long. A people who know what must be done but cannot do it will soon cease to believe in self government altogether. On this point, I find myself in full agreement.
They understand something essential that many reformers forget. You cannot redistribute what you cannot produce. You cannot protect what you cannot maintain. You cannot govern what you cannot build.
This is sound doctrine.
And yet, as I read on, I found myself asking a question that the book never quite answers.
Who, precisely, benefits from the failure to build?
The authors speak often of process. Of delay. Of veto points. Of overlapping jurisdictions and lawsuits and environmental reviews piled atop one another like cordwood. All of this is real in this 21rst century America. But process does not arise spontaneously. It is built. It is maintained. And it is very often defended by men and institutions who profit from its existence.
In my day, corruption wore a face. It had a name. A railroad trust. A party boss. A financier who believed the nation existed to serve his ledger. We called these things out. We broke them up. We made enemies.
What strikes me about this book is its politeness.
The authors wish to make the system work better. Admirable. But they rarely wish to say who is working it now. They speak as if complexity were a tragic accident, rather than a shelter deliberately constructed by those with the money and time to navigate it.
They call for abundance. I applaud this. I was myself a great believer in national strength, in industry, in expansion, in the vigorous use of our resources. But abundance without moral direction is not progress. It is merely accumulation.
In my administration, we did not simply build. We judged.
We judged monopolies to be dangerous to liberty. We judged conservation to be a duty owed to the future. We judged corruption to be a moral failing, not a technical glitch. We understood that neutrality in the face of power was itself a form of corruption.
This book prefers to remain polite. That is its chief weakness.
The authors are correct that a politics obsessed with stopping things will rot from within. But a politics obsessed only with building, without the courage to name who blocks, who profits, and who hides behind procedure, will rot just as surely.
The Republic does not suffer merely from a lack of housing or energy or infrastructure. It suffers from a lack of judgment to prioritize what truly matters, a lack of courage to break through barriers, a lack of muscular capacity to execute.
Still, I would recommend this book. It is a necessary corrective to the complacency of the status quo. It reminds Progressives and indeed all Americans that governing means delivering. That ideals without execution are a form of indulgence.
But if the authors wish their abundance to endure, they will need something more than efficiency. They will need the courage to offend. They will need to remember that every invisible government thrives not on the politics of preserving present interests, but on the refusal of good men to name it.
The abundance movement is directionally correct. A republic that cannot build cannot govern, and a politics of permanent scarcity corrodes public trust as surely as corruption does. But building alone will not right the ship. The note is an attempt to test abundance against sturdier stuff—moral judgment, accountability, and a clearer understanding of power—by asking an ostensible Teddy Roosevelt to review Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein's work.
This book prefers to remain polite. That is its chief weakness.
The authors are correct that a politics obsessed with stopping things will rot from within. But a politics obsessed only with building, without the courage to name who blocks, who profits, and who hides behind procedure, will rot just as surely.
The Republic does not suffer merely from a lack of housing or energy or infrastructure. It suffers from a lack of judgment to prioritize what truly matters, a lack of courage to break through barriers, a lack of muscular capacity to execute.
Still, I would recommend this book. It is a necessary corrective to the complacency of the status quo. It reminds Progressives and indeed all Americans that governing means delivering. That ideals without execution are a form of indulgence.
But if the authors wish their abundance to endure, they will need something more than efficiency. They will need the courage to offend. They will need to remember that every invisible government thrives not on the politics of preserving present interests, but on the refusal of good men to name it.
The abundance movement is directionally correct. A republic that cannot build cannot govern, and a politics of permanent scarcity corrodes public trust as surely as corruption does. But building alone will not right the ship. The note is an attempt to test abundance against sturdier stuff—moral judgment, accountability, and a clearer understanding of power—by asking an ostensible Teddy Roosevelt to review Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein's work.
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