Abundance and the Left

“Abundance,” the book I co-wrote with Derek Thompson, hit bookstore shelves a little over a month ago, and the response has been beyond anything I could have imagined. And it’s generated a lot of interesting critiques, too, especially from the left. So I wanted to dedicate an episode to talking through some of them.

My guests today are both on the left but have very different perspectives. Zephyr Teachout is a law professor at Fordham University and one of the most prominent voices in the antimonopoly movement. Saikat Chakrabarti is the president and co-founder of New Consensus, a think tank that has been trying to think through what it would take to build at Green New Deal scale and pace. And he is currently running to unseat Nancy Pelosi in Congress.

I found this conversation wonderfully clarifying — both in the places it revealed agreement, and perhaps even more in the places it revealed difference.

Mentioned:

“How the Gentry Won: Property Law’s Embrace of Stasis” by David Schleicher and Roderick M. Hills, Jr.

“The High Cost of Producing Multifamily Housing in California” by Jason M. Ward and Luke Schlake

Zephyr’s Book Recommendations:

The Promise of Politics by Hannah Arendt

The Populist Moment by Lawrence Goodwyn

Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank

Saikat’s Book Recommendations:

Destructive Creation by Mark R. Wilson

Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang

The Defining Moment by Jonathan Alter

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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