We are constantly told that we can’t live in abundance, especially in America, whether it’s accessible public transportation, low-income housing, cheap medicine and environmentally safe energy. If you advocate for any of these things you’re going to be called a socialist who doesn’t believe in capitalism, that the free market will in time provide all of these things.
This week, however, I have been more open to the idea that we can live in abundance and that our market and government are actively shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly because of their loyalty to the status quo and profit margins. We can have cheap energy, cheap transportation and accessible consumer items, but we are working too slowly and it’ll ultimately bite us.
This idea was initially started by listening to New York Times writer Ezra Klein and The Atlantic’s writer Derek Thompson’s book “Abundance.” This book is mainly about how we have a mismanaged government that is not so bloated that it won’t build cheap energy, high-speed rail, public housing and invest in scientific research. This book primarily focuses on these failures of investment in Democrat-run states, because these states have promised liberal futures but are so beholden to conservative ideas about markets.
These Democrat-run states are messaging as liberals but are in practice conservative. They don’t invest in the things we need more of: abandoning fossil fuels, deregulating the government so we can quickly build public housing. To build anything that is a public good, our government has to jump over so many hurdles, whether it’s regulation agencies, environmental laws or incorporating the private sector. We are beholden to keeping things “the same.” But we can live in abundance.
This book talks a lot about our greatest international peer, China, who lives in an almost exuberant amount of abundance. Darren Jason Watkins Jr., better known as IShowSpeed, is a gaming streamer who has started a series where he spends weeks in a given country and as of this article, he is in China.
This guy is about 20 years old; he’s been a streamer for all of his adult life. It’s not like he’s a political expert or has some great education about technology and the economy. But I’ve been watching him explore China and he keeps emphasizing how it’s a night-and-day difference between there and here. Watkins is blown away by high-speed rail and its accessibility, by electric cars that are quicker and quieter than American cars and by how people live in public housing and have a good quality of life.
Now I’m not saying China does everything right, we all know this. But what China has done is undeniably impressive. In about three decades, China has pivoted towards green energy, built miles and miles of high-speed rail and given funding to the private sector to invest in public goods and infrastructure. They are relentless in their pursuit to live in abundance and it doesn’t take a political expert to recognize that.
Now some of you will see what I said about how often liberals are beholden to inefficiency and bureaucratic overmanagement and say, “Well, vote Republican or right-wing. Look at Texas, which is building houses out the wazoo!” My answer to you is this: to live in abundance, it must not come at the expense of our future.
President Donald Trump shut off global trade with tariffs and gutted public investment in green energy, which makes our future of abundance impossible. We can have accessible public goods and infrastructure without imploding our economy and government. The American right is hell-bent on gutting the government so the American private sector can substitute it and I can promise you that the future of abundance we believe is possible will have more hurdles, more difficulties and more roadblocks to leap through.
Rather, we should use the government as a weapon to build a green future, a new New Deal if you will, one that is sweeping and fast. One that is committed to preserving our planet and uplifting people from poverty, one that is not scared of putting money into research grants for scientists and builders because we believe it’ll pay dividends. We can live in an accessible abundance and we can have people from overseas come here and marvel at how clean our air is, how fast our public transportation is, how everyone has a home, how our science is life-saving.
