A whole new system of thinking about political economy or a simple blueprint to solve all of America’s problems?
In essence, the book examines the reasons behind the lack of progress on ambitious projects in the United States, including those related to affordable housing, infrastructure and climate change.
When government rouses itself- as with the breakneck effort to invent, manufacturer and deploy a Covid vaccine- it can perform miracles. Too often, it doesn’t. Their authors case studies are described with clarity and vigour that characterises their journalism.
They describe California’s high-speed rail, alternative to cars and planes, began 40 years ago. One decade to begin planning in earnest, another 15 years to get funded. One and
a-half decades later, it still doesn’t exist. Procedures erected to prevent every conceivable harm to every stakeholder stymied progression. The environmental review needed just to describe the impact began in 2012, they are still not done, meanwhile the costs keep growing. A sclerosis of the system, can no longer perceive what is in the public system.
Embedded in the book is that liberalism or progressiveness on the left has forgotten how to build the things people want. The writing is good even if at times the arguments are not. That said, it ties together a lot of ideas that have been developed in the policy community to make a whole that is larger than the sum of the parts. The authors, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson summarise “this book is dedicated to a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need. That’s it. That’s the thesis”.
The book is an argument with the de-growthers and that more technology is necessarily the answer to the problems technology has gotten us into. It’s hard to see how some of the problems facing the US will be overcome, not with the current political realities. It’s fanciful, but possible that a movement is likely to take hold and shift the priorities of the majority of the country’s population.
Th authors find that the blame can often be laid at the feet of Democrats and Liberals because actions taken decades ago to address decades-old problems have morphed into different beasts today. Although the talk is ostensibly about government and politics, the authors focus on thoughtful critism of Republicans and Democrats and praise where its due. Seems appropriately timed to Democrats to feel outraged by the actions of the new administration.
In a nutshell, its that Liberalism has been for the last 40-50 years too focussed on stopping things from happening ( to protect the rights and privileges of the individuals) than on building things. We need to be building more- more affordable housing, more clean energy, and more lifesaving medical technology, which after all offers a more prosperous, equitable world for all.
