Abundance

Why can’t we have nice things? Why are we heading more toward Mad Max than, say, Star Trek or the Jetsons? This might be the most important question of our time.

There have been a number of books asking versions of this question recently. From Jen Pahlka to Yoni Appelbaum and Marc Dunkelman, a number of people are tackling why we haven’t been making big strides in areas like housing or climate change or delivery of government services. I might add, why is poverty seemingly intractable despite our GDP setting record highs and AI arriving in order to do more and more work on our behalf?

Now, the biggest effort yet to explain our halting progress has arrived in the form of “Abundance” by Ezra Klein of the New York Times and Derek Thompson of the Atlantic. Derek joins me on the podcast this week to discuss.

“Abundance” opens with a vision of the future. ‘The world has changed. Not just the virtual world, that dance of pixels on our screen. The physical world too: its houses, its infrastructure, its medicines, its hard tech.’ Ezra and Derek imagine a world where people work perhaps 3 days a week because AI is doing a lot of the busywork. Energy is clean and food is plentiful because of advances in agriculture and technology.

“We could be making many more scientific advances than we are at present,” Derek observes. “But our researchers are spending up to 40% of their time filling out grant applications rather than actually doing research.” Derek and Ezra have painstakingly gone through the red tape and bureaucracy attendant with scientific research, housing, infrastructure and other areas of opportunity. Their mission is to have liberals focus on results more than rules and innovation more than inaction; indeed, clearing out some of the constraints will be necessary on many fronts.

I love that Derek and Ezra, two of the most prominent thinkers of our time, are setting themselves to a big-picture growth and problem-solving agenda. They are actively trying to transform our politics. “Trump is embodying the politics of scarcity,” Derek says. “The abundance agenda can be the antidote and define the next era of American liberalism, a liberalism that builds.”

We have definitely been constrained for too long by this tit-for-tat red vs. blue dynamic that is not addressing the true challenges of our time. ‘We are attached to a story of American decline that is centered around ideological disagreement,” is how they put it. Perhaps a vision of abundance can set us free.

A lot of people 5 years ago asked me, “Could we really give people universal basic income? Do we have those kinds of resources?” I would respond, “Do you remember anyone asking whether we could afford it when we bailed out Wall Street for $2 trillion? We are the richest, most advanced society in the history of the world; we can afford to address gross poverty, especially because we would get back the investment in people many times over.” In many ways, that was an argument of abundance vs. scarcity.

I started Forward largely to free us from this dysfunctional ideological clash and path to nowhere. As Derek and Ezra write, “Whether government is bigger or smaller is the wrong question. What it needs to be is better. It needs to justify itself not through the rules it follows but through the outcomes it delivers.” If we can make outcomes the measuring stick, big things will be possible. There is now a different political conversation getting started, and I’m eager to help it gain power and energy. Let’s do what we can to share it.

For the Abundance book, click here. For my interview of Derek Thompson of the Atlantic, click here. To join Forward to actually fuel the politics of possibility, click here. The future won’t build itself.

Why Nothing Works

When I was running for President, many were dubious about government’s ability to solve big problems.

Why can’t we get big things done anymore? There have been a number of thinkers who have tackled this question, including Jen Pahlka (bureaucratic rules), Yoni Appelbaum (zoning laws), and now Marc Dunkelman, whom I interview on the podcast this week.

Marc is a fellow at Brown University and the author of “Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress – and How to Bring it Back.” He spent years on Capitol Hill as a Democratic staffer and then as a researcher at a thinktank.

“We used to be able to do big things, from the power grid to the highways to Social Security to the Tennessee Valley Authority. But over the past several decades, things have changed, as many self-described progressives have become concerned about government overreach in various realms. Today, we have a vetocracy where there are a lot of ways to stop things from happening. We seldom do big things successfully anymore, and voters have noticed.”

Marc makes a series of arguments. First, he defines “Progressivism” as a popular movement that wants government to solve problems.

Progressivism, according to Marc, is defined not by one but by two impulses that are in tension with each other. On one hand, the government needs to become more powerful to solve problems, as embodied by Alexander Hamilton. On the other hand, the government must be kept in check because it does bad things and ignores the people, as argued by Thomas Jefferson. These two impulses have waxed and waned in relation to each other over the last 100 years. The version that has emerged since the 1960s – with the Jeffersonian impulse to keep the state from too much power – has become a fundamental political liability for progressives.

“The average liberal voter might have two top priorities if you asked them: climate change and women’s reproductive rights. The first asks government to do big things. The second asks government to be small and stay out of it. We don’t think anything of these preferences but we should realize that they are very different in their vision of the role of government.”

According to Marc, the failures of government over the years have fueled the rise of Trump, because if the institutions aren’t working the way they’re supposed to, you become responsive to a very different type of leadership.

So what can be done now? “This is in some ways good news, because we can focus on things ourselves. We should give communities a voice but not a veto when we want things to get done. Rendering government incompetent is a lousy way to draw voters into a movement to employ government to solve big problems.” Ain’t that the truth.

For my interview of Marc, click here. For his book, click here. To see what Forward is doing for politics, click here. Maybe we can get things working again.

A War of Our Own

“I didn’t think Trump would actually implement tariffs; I thought it was a negotiating tactic.”

I’ve seen this sentiment aired a hundred times both publicly and privately. It has been incredibly frustrating watching Trump launch a trade war. His tariffs are going to be vastly destructive and will raise prices for consumers and manufacturers alike. Agricultural states and the Midwest are going to be hit particularly hard, but every American will feel the pinch when they head to the store. The result has already started to weigh on global stock markets as less trade and more uncertainty make it harder to invest in growth. Trump’s vacillating on what the tariffs cover doesn’t help; who could plan investments not knowing if it’s going to change week to week?

Also, Wednesday was the announcement that US employers announced plans to cut 172,000 jobs in February, the highest number since July 2020 and the 12th highest in 32 years. This included 62,000 federal employees, a number which will obviously increase. Trump’s plans to cut 80,000 workers from the VA alone recently leaked.

One thing that has been supporting the stock market for months is “the AI trade.” Of course, AI itself is a job suppressor; I know a dozen executives who have either cut jobs or didn’t hire workers directly because of AI.

One pattern that recurs is that employers tend not to be in the practice of shedding workers until a recession hits. Then, they look around and become ruthless on headcount, in part because the economic environment gives them cover to do so. Imagine companies in job-cutting mode fueled by AI? That’s fast approaching.

Indeed, February’s layoff numbers as well as a very weak Fed survey indicate that we may be teetering on the edge of a recession right now. The twin spectre of a trade war and widespread federal layoffs that will leave tens of thousands of households in professional and financial limbo are weakening confidence. The NIH and USAID cuts have already had that kind of impact on thousands of researchers and non-profit workers.

Trump seems more than ready to inflict economic pain on the country he leads. It’s bizarre.

This self-inflicted trade war is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. Do I think Trump is leading us into a recession through his tariffs, posturing and erratic leadership? Yes. Yes I do. And I think this one will feel different compared to any of the recent ones we have experienced.

This week on the podcast I sit down with our friend John Avlon to talk policy. Also, a state senator in Utah joined Forward this week, our 47th elected official to affiliate! An article in the Bulwark this week pointed out that a new party could compete in areas that are currently uncompetitive; it’s exactly what the country needs. New people are joining Forward all the time – check out what we are doing in your state.

Are Americans Stuck?

The answer is almost certainly ‘Yes,’ if not in the way that you think.

Back in 2020 I had a policy called ‘Get Americans Moving Again.’ It was meant to address the fact that Americans were relocating for new opportunities less frequently than in times past.

Yoni Appelbaum, the author of ‘Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity,’ believes this is one of the biggest things holding back American prosperity. “For 200 years, Americans moved to the places with faster growing economies, and they weren’t always the same places. Moving to Flint, Michigan in the 1920s was a terrific bet. In the 2020s it is not a terrific bet . . . for 200 years, the gap between the richest places and the poorest places was narrowing because people would move from poor places to rich places.” I interview Yoni about his book on the podcast this week.

The statistics are startling: In the 1800s, Americans were so mobile that one out of 3 moved every year. In the 1960s, about one out of every five Americans moved in any given year, a rate of 20%. In 2023, that was down to one in 13, or about 7.7%.

Why do we move less? Yoni pegs the culprit as zoning laws. Housing became much more expensive in high-growth markets like New York or Boston or San Francisco because of restrictions on building in various areas. “America is often described as suffering from a housing crisis, but that’s not quite right. In many parts of the country, housing is cheap and abundant, but good jobs and good schools are scarce. Other areas are rich in opportunities but short on affordable homes.” He’s right; I spent months traveling to the Midwest and there are very reasonably priced homes anywhere you look. The jobs and growth opportunities might be hundreds of miles away. In high-growth cities and affluent suburbs, however, it’s extraordinarily difficult to build housing for the average family. In Manhattan, 27 percent of all lots are now in historic districts or are otherwise landmarked.

By one estimate, the decline in mobility is costing America $2 trillion each year in lost productivity. The toll is more personal too. “People who have recently changed residences report experiencing more supportive relationships and feeling more optimism, greater sense of purpose, and increased self-respect. Those who want to move and cannot, by contrast, become more cynical and less satisfied with their lives.” More and more, people want to move but never actually do.

So what can be done? I’m an advisor to PadSplit, a company that makes it easier for people to rent a spare bedroom. Yoni makes a couple of recommendations. First, let people build near you and join your neighborhood. Stop stopping new developments. Let people build. Rules should apply uniformly across different neighborhoods and communities. Second, be more tolerant of what growth and change could look like, even if the new buildings don’t look good to you. Third, have an approach of abundance. We need a lot of new supply in attractive regions. Many of these changes will be engendered locally.

Yoni has taken a fascinating lens to an underrated problem in American life – we don’t move enough. If we change that, it would improve our culture and economy immeasurably. Call it Doing the Unstuck.

For my interview of Yoni, click here. For his book, click here. To see what Forward is doing in your community to help improve local policy, click here.

The Upside Down

“So . . . I kind of thought that Russia invaded Ukraine.”

I posted this on X, and it got over 2 million views and 55,000 likes. When the obvious needs defending or restating, we’re in trouble.

A friend of mine from Brown told me, “An engineer in the Coast Guard I know who was there for 20 years was fired this week because he was in a new position for less than 2 years, and was thus considered technically probationary.”

I talked to an academic physician in the Midwest. “All of the researchers at my hospital are freaking out. Most all of them are NIH-funded, studies that have been years in the making could be shut down and the people left high and dry.”

A friend who works in government developing infrastructure in New England said to me, “Everything is being called into question right now, we’re not sure what’s going to be real. It’s an awful environment.”

These are strange times in the U.S. when you can’t take much for granted. The President is upending longstanding alliances and seems to gravitate to strongmen – perhaps because that’s what he aspires to be. Career professionals are cast aside arbitrarily. Health researchers are on the run. Projects that have been on the books for years might get thrown out the window.

I have felt for a long time that our two-party system has devolved into the Democrats as defenders of faltering institutions vs. the ‘burn it down’ crew that has come to define today’s Republican Party. Institutional mistrust and polarization, and Joe Biden overstaying his welcome, led to this past November’s outcome. Meanwhile, most of us are somewhere in the middle, thinking that the institutions do indeed need revamping and modernization but that a chainsaw isn’t the tool of choice.

One thing that I am hearing is that several prominent candidates are running in ’26 as Independents because they think the future lies outside of the two-party system. This choice will become more commonplace as both parties become increasingly unpopular.

Meanwhile, buried under the political news was the fact that inflation in January was stubbornly high and consumer spending is weakening. People are waking up to the fact that Trump doesn’t have some secret plan to lower costs, and if anything his activities – threatening tariffs and mass deportations – tend to be inflationary.

The headwinds are picking up. Uncertainty isn’t a great environment for most people – or markets. And uncertainty may be the most predictable thing for our immediate future. Plan accordingly.

For my convo with Zach over the current Administration’s actions on the podcast this week, click here. To see what Forward is doing click here – I’m in DC this week for a meeting with a Senator who would like to see our politics improve.

Back to School

Hello, I hope that your weekend is going well this Presidents Day. I celebrate this holiday every year by putting on a colonial-era George Washington wig.

I was invited to speak at my alma mater, Brown University, last week. It was my first time on campus since I ran for President.

It was a lot of fun. I’ve spoken at over a dozen universities these past several years, but at Brown there was a sense of camaraderie and pride. The students filled the auditorium and dozens were turned away. The energy was tremendous and heartwarming.

I spoke about my college years, when I was a fairly unremarkable undergraduate. I had very little figured out, though I did mention a couple of courses that impacted my thinking like Labor Economics and Ethics and Public Policy. I traced my steps from Providence all the way to the presidential campaign and making the case for democracy reform today. I tried to make my journey relatable and achievable.

I also talked about my friend Dean Phillips – another Brown alum – and his primary campaign in 2024, which I was proud to support. History has proven Dean to be correct. I tried to end on an invigorating note about how the future will be theirs to shape.

Afterwards, I met and took pictures with dozens of students. One young woman asked me, “Was it all worth it?”

I answered without hesitation, “Of course! I’d do it all over again.”

Another student said to me, “Thank you for being here. My friends and I followed your campaign every day when I was in 8th grade.” It has been 5 years since 2020, and that 8th grader is now a college freshman. Several other students told me that they volunteered for my presidential campaign and showed me pictures to prove it. There were a lot of students who wanted me to run again. Several thanked me for helping them feel better about the current moment.

Meeting with the students was uplifting. They were positive and idealistic and looking for a way to make a difference. I have no doubt that they will. They also reminded me of how much I have to be grateful for. Many of them understood the vision I was campaigning on.

We may not get there as quickly as I hoped five years ago, but there are a lot of dedicated and passionate people who want to see that vision come to pass. The college freshmen of today will be out in the world working before we know it. We have a lot of work to do, but the next generation is on its way.

To see what we are doing with Forward in your area, click here. For my interview of Jo Ling Kent of CBS News about DeepSeek and AI on the podcast this week, click here. Have a great long weekend.

Within and Without

Hello, I hope that you and yours are doing well. What can we do to be better at what we do?

I went to a friend’s book launch party a few weeks ago and met Adam Galinsky. Adam is a Columbia business school professor who studies effective leadership. He wrote a book called “Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others” that came out last week.

I have a few rules for leadership: Try to work on something important that’s bigger than yourself. Compensate people fairly. And care about the people you work with. But Adam is a little more data-driven than that. “I’ve studied what makes leaders effective and it turns out the qualities and attributes are the same across countries and cultures.” Adam joined me for the podcast this week.

So what do leaders do around the world? “There are 3 things that inspiring leaders universally do in different countries. Number one, they’re visionary: that is, they set a vision or goal for others to follow. Number two, they’re exemplars of desired behavior: they act in a way that’s an example for others, often being cool and composed even in the most stressful of situations. Number three, they’re mentors who encourage, empower and elevate others to reach their potential.”

Adam uses copious examples. In one case, there’s a pilot who tells people on a plane with a mechanical failure, “We’re not going down. We are going to Philly.” It keeps everyone calm. She listens to her co-pilot’s advice, lands the plane and comes out to meet with and comfort passengers. On the other hand, there’s a boat captain who doesn’t tell passengers anything as the boat lists and starts sinking. He tries to blame others and deflect responsibility for the mishap, endangering those on the vessel.

Good leadership is infectious. “When I have asked people around the globe to describe the feeling of being inspired, they frequently use words like bright, light, and warmth. Others describe it as a mix of awe, admiration, and wonder. And many recognize it as a wellspring of hope and possibility.”

“The flipside of inspiring leadership is infuriating leadership. It turns out there’s an enduring continuum, and everything falls somewhere between these two extremes.” We’ve all seen and experienced bad leadership. Adam identifies the gatekeeper who seems to delight in using their power in negative ways.

Happily, Adam says that we can actually create more good leaders. “The three dimensions of an inspiring leader are universal because each one fulfills a set of fundamental human needs. Visionary fulfills the human need for meaning and purpose. Exemplar fulfills the human need for protection and passion. Mentor fulfills the human need for support and status.” Adam identifies an ability for people to get better at any of these attributes. “Each of us can learn, nurture and develop the capacity to be better in these respects. There are concrete actions to take and practices to pursue.”

As you know, I constantly have an eye on how we can make the world a better place. But the primary place to start is within ourselves. As Thomas R. Kelly wrote, “We Western people are apt to think our great problems are external, environmental. We are not skilled in the inner life, where the real roots of our problems lie.”

We can’t control what others do, but we can improve what we do. And that, for those in our lives, may be the most important thing.

For Adam’s book on inspiring leadership, click here. For my interview with him, click here. To see what Forward is doing to shift our politics in your state, click here.

The Wobbly Institutions

“There’s too much going on right now – it’s hard to keep track of.”

This is what a friend of mine said to me this week. The most deadly air crash in a generation. Chinese AI coming out at a fraction of the cost. A wave of Executive orders. Federal funds cut off for a day and then restored. Cabinet Secretary nominees undergoing contentious Senate hearings. An offer to 2 million Federal employees to resign. ICE enforcement actions in different cities. There were also a couple of shootings that would have made headlines in other times that barely registered.

One person called the new administration’s approach “Shock and awe.” Another called it, “Flood the zone with shit.”

Also below the radar was the final forum of candidates to chair the DNC. The Party is casting about for leadership and a vision. The proceedings were interrupted by half-a-dozen protests by climate activists. Some are asking, “What do we do to resist the new administration?”

The truth is the time for effective resistance was 13 months ago, when the Democrats were enabling Joe Biden’s disastrous re-election campaign. A competitive primary would have potentially changed the trajectory that led to Trump’s return. The Democrats failed their test and have rendered themselves moot for the next 2 years minimum, quite possibly a good deal longer.

Now, the most important actors are not the minority party, but a handful of Republican Senators who have demonstrated independence and principle in different contexts: Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, John Curtis, and, new to the picture, Mitch McConnell who is now in “I can do whatever I want at the age of 82” mode. Also, deficit-minded fiscal conservatives in the House will be key figures in the upcoming budget negotiations.

Going against Trump will be a difficult task for those within the Republican Party though – it’s one reason why the country is crying out for an independent political movement to shore up those who want to make decisions free of party orthodoxy. You can see that in the fate of Dean Phillips, who challenged Joe Biden and was cast out of DC as a result. You can also see that among the Republican Senators who are clearly struggling with some of Trump’s Cabinet picks.

The defunding of government programs by the OMB in the name of vetting ‘woke’ expenditures was particularly troubling, as it impacted everything from Medicaid to Meals on Wheels and cast hundreds of thousands of Americans into confusion and uncertainty, forcing a walk back just a day later. It evinced a real lack of understanding of the real-world impact of these programs and put ideology over any sort of sensible governance.

Also not good – Trump blaming diversity initiatives for the tragic air collision in D.C. That won’t prevent future collisions in a stressed system.

Institutions are wavering, as those being placed in charge of them don’t actually believe in them. Government led by those who don’t believe in government won’t lead to good places.

We are in the era that I feared we would enter 8 years ago when I decided to enter public life: the time of institutional disintegration.

There are many rational things to do in this time. Unplug. Take care of yourself and those around you. Build new things. Solve problems. Improve your environment. Most of the things in our lives are good or bad regardless of the political-industrial landscape.

I thought that I could help us avoid Trump’s re-election in 2020. My biggest contribution in ’24 was backing up Dean Phillips in his challenge to Joe Biden and then urging Joe to step aside after his disastrous debate.

Forward is working on things for ’25, ’26, and ’28. If you want to link up with people in your state, click here. I’m excited for some developments that I believe are around the corner.

But for those who are saddened by some of the developments of this past week, you’ve got company. The honeymoon is already over.

Taking Risks

Hello, I hope all is great on your end.

I recently read Nate Silver’s latest book, “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.“ The book is about people who take risks for a living: gamblers, investors, entrepreneurs. He contrasts these risk-takers with those who work in academia, media and government, typically more steady and stable environments. One of the points that Nate makes is that most people take too little risk in their career, and that most would benefit from being a bit more edgy.

I have agreed with that perspective for years. I left a high-paying corporate job to co-found a dot-com startup in 2000 that totally flopped. So that risk didn’t work out. But I was 25 years old and recovered over the next number of years. I eventually became the CEO of an education company when I was 30 that was acquired 4 years later.

My risk profile only went up at that point; if you’re 34 and have a nest egg, why not do what you thought was right and take big swings? Plus, at that point I was still unmarried and didn’t have a lot of obligations. I started an entrepreneurship organization and, after concluding that massive changes were needed for the economy to work for most people, ran for President. At each stage, I thought I could leave it all out there and still be fine. Entrepreneurs are optimistic by nature.

And things have worked out! Still married.

One thing I’ve grown to realize though is that I’m wired to be unusually accepting of certain risks; a thought that plagued me when I was young was the risk of looking in the mirror and wondering why I didn’t do more or put myself out there. I’ve tended to be motivated by things other than money. That might not be the priority for a lot of other people in different circumstances. Plus, now that I have a family I have a more nuanced perspective.

This week on the podcast I interview Gunjan Banerji, a Wall Street Journal reporter who spent months visiting with people who have developed a gambling problem on cryptocurrencies or options trading. “I would see these groups of men, many of whom have had their marriages or relationships destroyed due to their becoming addicted to these trading apps and lost their savings. Mind you, I’m talking about investing apps, not gambling apps. Investing has this sense that, ‘Oh, this isn’t addictive like gambling,’ but for many it is, and options trading has similar dynamics to sports betting.”

Gunjan details how she became an options trader for a week for her reporting. “It affected my mood. I became fixated on what was happening to my positions. At one point, I had a trade pay off and it seemed to other people I was high I was so elated. Of course, I had lost on other trades.” Gunjan interviewed dozens of men – it’s almost always men – and believes that this problem is going to get a lot worse. “There is now a very thin line between gambling and investing, and it’s getting thinner all of the time. More and more people are falling prey to it.”

I agree – I think we should regulate sports betting more rigorously. And I believe people should be wary of chasing short-term highs by aggressively investing money that they might need for another purpose. It’s always hard to know when to take it off the table.

Do I still think that people should take on a bit more risk in their own lives? Generally, sure. Life is short and we should go for the gusto. We are more resilient than we think. But I’m much more into risks taken with one’s time than with one’s money. I’m more like, “Ask that person if they want to hang out with you!” or “Try something new!” rather than betting the rent. After all, life is off-screen, not on it.

For my conversation with Gunjan Banerji, click here. For Nate’s book, click here. To see what Forward is doing in your state, click here – we are up to big things.

99% Perspiration

We’ve all heard the Thomas Edison quote, “Genius is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration,” with the point being that an idea is nothing without hard work. It also suggests that if someone shows up and works hard, they can build a good life for themselves.

Is it true?

This week on the podcast I interview Adam Chandler, the author of the new book, “99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life.” “This idea is baked into the ethos of what it means to be an American: if you work hard, you’ll get ahead. But by the numbers it’s not as true anymore, and doubts are picking up. For example, a 2023 Gallup poll found that 39 percent of Americans believed they were working hard but failing to get ahead. In 2002 that number was only 23 percent.”

It's an idea that I’ve been grappling with for some time. My parents immigrated to the US and told me and my brother that if we studied, got a good education and worked hard, things would go our way. And it has been true in our cases. My brother is a successful professor; he’s the more studious and academic of the two of us. I’ve certainly lived a version of the American dream via entrepreneurship that is well beyond what my parents had in mind.

But I’m a numbers guy, and the numbers say that it’s gotten shakier and shakier for Americans to get ahead even if they put their head down and do the right thing. “I interviewed a woman for the book who was the first in her family to graduate from college, was working three jobs, and is wondering, ‘what did I do wrong?’ because she’s just treading water. She didn’t do anything wrong. There are more structural problems now that keep her from getting ahead,” Adam observes.

Most of us know the big ones: housing prices are higher and higher. My parents bought a modest house in Schenectady in the early 70s for about $40,000. That same house might cost $300,000 or more today. The cost of college continues to climb; my peers are trying to squirrel away tuition for two or three kids and the sums blow their minds. And of course, just about everyone tries to avoid the healthcare system because of sky-high costs and overgrown bureaucracy.

“The frontier myth of rugged individualism obscures that there was a lot of public support even in settling the West,” Adam says. “We say it was the individual but it was often acts of policy that would make it possible to build a railroad or clear a pass.” Adam’s book is largely about various points in American history and the mythology that arose, often oversimplifying a more complicated reality.

Here's the thing – I think people ought to have a positive attitude about what they can accomplish with hard work. It’s much more productive to think, “Let me go out there and kick butt and hopefully it will take me someplace good” than to say, “It doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll never get there, the deck is stacked against me.” That’s defeatism, which doesn’t lead anywhere.

But I also 100% endorse Adam’s point that there are policies we can undertake that would make hard work more likely to pay off. “Companies investing in their workers helps everyone and creates a lot of value,” Adam says. “And measures like the child tax credit give families more resources and flexibility.” I, of course, believe that AI is going to eat a lot of work for years.

There are indeed many more policies to pursue. If anything, what we should fear is a country where people think that applying oneself or doing the right thing doesn’t pay off. “People are getting more and more frustrated in the U.S. It’s feeding into our politics in unfortunate ways,” Adam writes. He also argues for a somewhat more enlightened culture where our lives and identities don’t revolve around work to the same degree.

I’d love for us to head in a more positive, people-centered direction economically, no matter who makes it happen. We’re not heading there right now. You know what it’s going to take? A whole lot of us working very hard to get there.

For my interview of Adam, click here. For his new book click here. To see what Forward is doing in your state, click here – we’re growing fast, particularly in California.