California attracts a lot of criticism, with perhaps the most bipartisan criticism focusing on its punitive cost of living. And this bipartisan criticism even extends to agreement on the reason California is too expensive. In their bestselling 2025 book Abundance, authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argued that liberal governance has become too legalistic, bureaucratic, and ideologically committed to politics of scarcity. Throughout their book, California was used as the worst example.
Klein, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, and Thompson, a veteran of The Atlantic, have indisputable liberal, left-of-center bona fides. But their indictment of liberal policies was unsparing. The influence of their book has been seismic. Since its release, and well before the Iran war moved affordability issues firmly into the spotlight, Democrat politicians have adopted abundance and its twin, “affordability,” as a centerpiece of their campaign platforms.
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