68 pages • 2-hour read
Abundance
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Background
Social Context: Housing and Climate Change
Abundance discusses several key societal issues that plague the US today and creates goals to help solve those issues. In the contemporary American social landscape, the key issues that Klein and Thompson identify are the housing/cost of living crisis and the climate change crisis. Klein and Thompson begin to discuss the homelessness and housing crisis in the early chapters of Abundance. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, homelessness is increasing at troubling rates. In 2023, the number of people who experienced homelessness on a single night increased by 12.1%, and between 2019-2023, the number of people who entered an emergency shelter for the first time increased by 23%. This increase in homelessness is directly connected to the rise in housing costs, illustrated by the 12.6% increase in renter households paying more than 50% of their income on rent (Soucy, Daniel, et. al. “State of Homelessness: 2024 Edition.” National Alliance to End Homelessness, 5 Aug. 2024). This increase in housing cost mirrors the current shortage of houses, as the US Chamber of Commerce estimates there is currently a shortage of 4.5 million homes in the US (Hoover, Makinizi, and Isabella Lucy. “The State of Housing in America.” US Chamber of Commerce, 17 Mar. 2025).
Another key social issue Klein and Thompson explore is climate change. According to NASA, the ongoing effects of climate change are potentially on track to become catastrophic. The US sea level will likely rise one to six feet by 2100, impacting coastal communities. Hurricanes will be stronger and more intense, as will droughts, heat waves, and wildfires (“The Effects of Climate Change.” NASA). There is currently 50% more carbon in the atmosphere than during the Industrial Revolution (Lindsey, Rebecca. “Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.” Climate.gov, 9 Apr. 2024) The burning of fossil fuels has led to mankind producing more carbon than the carbon sinks, or natural phenomena that reduce carbon like forests, wetlands, and marshlands, can remove. If climate change continues its current course, the results could be disastrous, which is why Klein and Thompson identify this issue as key to the contemporary age.
Literary Context: Economic and Political Commentary
Abundance is Klein and Thompson’s contribution to the canon of economic and political commentary nonfiction texts. As both Klein and Thompson are journalists, they utilize a blend of investigative journalism and analysis to evaluate the current economic and political state of the United States through the lens of the liberal worldview. The text begins with an economic exploration of scarcity versus abundance and supply-side economics. Modern economics dates back to Adam Smith’s seminal text The Wealth of Nations, a 1776 book which advocated for laissez-faire economics, the prevailing theory of American economics that keeps the market free from government intervention. Laissez-faire economics goes hand-in-hand with supply-side economics; first theorized by Arthur Laffer in the 1970s, supply-side economics informed much right-wing economic legislation in the later decades of the 20th century (Singh, Arjun and Ariella Markowitz. “How Art Laffer Created The Cult Of Reaganomics.” The Lever, 25 Apr. 2025). Economic commentary has grown in the 21st century, and Abundance is an example of economic commentary geared toward a changing political landscape.
Abundance is also an example of political commentary. An early example of American political commentary is Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840, the text explores equality and power in the early years of the US. Like Klein includes vignettes of his experiences investigating the California high-speed rail system, de Tocqueville includes his experiences traveling through the various parts of the US, blending personal narrative and analysis. De Tocqueville also critiques aspects of the US, like Klein and Thompson critique the systems of the US that halt the journey toward abundance. Klein and Thompson offer a political analysis of the current state of the American political landscape, like de Tocqueville did for the 19th-century, fledgling America, illustrating Abundance’s place in the political literary tradition.
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