Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s 2025 bestseller, Abundance, kicks off with sharp critiques of Jimmy Carter’s anti-statist declaration that “government cannot solve our problems” and Bill Clinton’s announcement that “the era of Big Government is over.” It concludes with a rousing endorsement of Karl Marx’s famous “fettering” thesis — the idea that capitalism eventually stifles the very productive forces it once unleashed. In spite of these anti-neoliberal flourishes, it has received a surprisingly cool response from some sections of the Left.

The book is, at its core, an argument about the myriad blockages that constrict state capacity — the ability of governments to get things done — and the need for various flavors of industrial policy (a form of economic planning) to overcome market failure (that is, when private firms fail to produce something despite its clear social necessity).