Turn interest into action

The policy issues where the abundance frame can have the most impact, such as housing, energy, healthcare, and government effectiveness, are some of the most important problems facing the country. The number of people working on them from an abundance perspective is small enough where one person can truly have a serious impact. At the same time, a lot of people are exposed to abundance ideas through blog posts, podcasts, or books, and buy into them, but are unable to find ways to contribute. We want to bridge that gap and be an entry point into deeper engagement with abundance.

That engagement could mean a job working on abundance policy domains. We know the ecosystem of people and organizations that are doing this work and can make connections between people looking to contribute to the space and the groups that are actually doing the work. We help organizations find great talent that is already bought into abundance while also making it easier for people who are early in their careers or looking to make a change to break into the space.

Engagement is not exclusively for people looking to shift careers, there is a great deal to do that does not involve changing jobs. We offer opportunities for members to run book clubs, organize events based on things they're interested in, and start small projects with other members, and learn skills like how to write for Substack audiences. These are valuable contributions that can help inform people deciding whether working in this space might suit them.

No matter the way people choose to engage, a group of people who understand these ideas well, have worked on them in some way, and know each other well is worth having in preparation for a moment that might call for it.

Break down silos

There are a lot of people working on these issues in DC, but most are siloed in their own policy bubbles. One of the most useful parts of the abundance frame is that it points out how obstacles recur across policy domains that otherwise would not have much in common, which means if a solution works for one policy problem, it has the potential to be effective for another even if they look unrelated on the surface.

For instance, someone working on energy policy can learn from those working on housing. Those working on housing can learn from people working on state capacity. Abundance will have more impact if we work together rather than stick to our own silos.

Debate, Not Doctrine

Abundance is not a settled policy program. There are still many open questions. Some of the policy domains have decades of research behind them; others have significantly less. Even when many people agree on the diagnosis of a policy problem, they often disagree on the policy fix that follows. Hashing out those disagreements matters more to us than winning over converts.

Our programming is designed to be informative but is not intended as a persuasion campaign. We have plenty of room for people who are not sold on the abundance thesis. Many of the best conversations have happened because someone had arrived skeptical and engaged in good faith debate with the group. Even if someone shows up unconvinced and leaves with a sharper version of their objection, they have gotten something real out of the event and so have the people who were pushed to defend their arguments.

Build a community

Interest in policy might be what draws people in, but that alone cannot sustain a group. Communities stay together because people enjoy being a part of them. That is why a big part of our work is to create a real social scene built around these ideas.

DC has no shortage of professional networking, and while that's part of what we do, it is not the entirety. We are also an environment where people can make friends, find new roommates, and get advice from confidants. We think that kind of connection is what gets people to stick around instead of dropping off after a couple events. It is also, at a practical level, where many of the most valuable introductions come from as it is easier for people to vouch for their friends than people they have met in passing at networking events.

State capacity

Government has lost the capacity to do what we ask of it

We argue constantly about what government should do and not enough about whether it can do what we've tasked it to do.

Government projects run late and over budget. The people running it mean well but are working inside systems built for a different era. An agency that needs engineers must spend months in a hiring process or hire a consulting firm with its own bottom line. Public servants get rewarded for following the process even when it produces a bad outcome, and punished for deviating even when it produces a good one. The government views software as something to be bought rather than built iteratively, which has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars. Much of this stems from the lack of engagement between the people who write policy and the people who implement it.

Most of these rules were put in place to stop fraud and favoritism. Now they prevent the government from fixing bridges or making healthcare sign-up websites.

This isn't an argument for more government or less of it. It's that we'd have more of what we need if government could do the things we need it to do.

Artificial scarcity

Some things are hard to get because the law puts a cap on how many of them there can be.

Some things are scarce because they're hard to make. Others are scarce because you need permission to make them, and the people already in the business help decide who gets it.

In about 30 states, opening a clinic means proving that the area needs one. The hospitals already there can lobby to argue it doesn't. It's not only businesses: in Napa, where there are ten babies for every daycare spot, neighbors sued to stop a daycare from expanding into a church building.

These rules usually started with a real purpose. What they sometimes do now is protect whoever got there first. The people who benefit fight hard to keep those rules.

The people who pay higher prices for medical care, roof repair, or haircuts rarely know the rule exists. They just see their lives get more expensive until they must leave the neighborhood they grew up in or switch to a doctor far from their home.