The Case for an 'Anti-Abundance' Agenda

From junk food to digital trash, we suffer from a crisis of overproduction of bad stuff that hurts us physically and mentally.

- Adrian Wooldridge

Journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's new book, Abundance: How We Build A Better Future, is a rare thing: a serious book on public policy that has also launched a movement. Senior Democratic politicians have taken to name-checking the book (and progressive activists to denouncing it). Abundance clubs have formed in cities across blue America.

I think the argument is sound as far as it goes. Progressive politicians have got in the way of progress by privileging interest groups over the common good and following procedure over achieving goals. The result is a shortage of desirable goods such as housing or infrastructure.

What Mr Klein and Mr Thompson say about the United States is even more true of the United Kingdom, where the average house price is eight-and-a-bit times the median income compared with five-and-a-bit times in the US.

But I would also add that the abundance agenda needs to be balanced by an anti-abundance agenda. For in many significant areas of life, we suffer from a crisis of overproduction rather than underproduction—too much stuff (or stimulation) rather than too little.

GOOD AND BAD CHOLESTEROL

This overproduction is bad for our physical and mental health. And the bizarre combination of too much bad abundance and too little good abundance (like too much bad cholesterol and too little good cholesterol) is at the root of our civilizational malaise.

The obvious physical manifestation of this problem is junk food: We suffer from an oversupply of fat, sugar, salt and food additives piled high in supermarket shelves and served up in fast-food restaurants.

The proportion of US citizens who are clinically obese has increased from 15 per cent in 1980 to about 40 per cent in 2023. Obesity is linked to multiple health problems, including heart disease, depression, hypertension, cancer and diabetes.