Government Efficiency, "Abundance" and More Explored by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson with Lex Fridman

Please post your reactions to the book and the conversation.

I’m on the run at the Bioneers conference in California after a long and wonderful western road trip, but hope to get your reactions to this conversation and the new Klein/Thompson book, which I’ll be reading when I’m back in Maine.

Here’s Lex Fridman’s conversation with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, the co-authors of Abundance, a clarion call, mainly to self-described progressives, to make more room for actual progress. This snippet from the publisher’s blurb captures things:

Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed.

There are a host of book reviews and conversations to explore but I thought this one worth highlighting given that the audience spills over some of the cultural and continentnal divides out there.

• 0:00 – Episode highlight

• 3:08 – Introduction

• 6:37 – Left-wing vs right-wing politics

• 15:58 – Political leaders on the left and the right

• 40:34 – Internal political divisions

• 43:34 – AOC

• 54:54 – Political realignment

• 1:06:37 – Supply-side progressivism

• 1:13:47 – Wealth redistribution

• 1:23:54 – Housing problem

• 1:40:13 – Regulation and deregulation

• 1:56:47 – DOGE, Elon, and Trump

• 2:55:50 – Sam Harris

• 3:05:28 – Future of America