Abundance Without Justice Is Just More Injustice: Earthrise Accord’s Divergence from the New Republic’s Critique

In a recent piece in The New Republic, the editorial team takes aim at the so-called “Abundance Agenda”—a policy orientation popularized by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson that urges the American state to build more of everything: more housing, more clean energy, more infrastructure, more capacity. The core idea is that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been stuck in a scarcity mindset—overregulating, over-deliberating, and under-building. In response, abundance thinkers propose a return to a bolder, state-led, supply-side liberalism designed to unlock growth and affordability through streamlined governance.

While this vision has found favor among centrist reformers and some pro-labor progressives, The New Republic rightly warns that abundance—divorced from politics—is not a panacea. Without structural change, they argue, an abundance agenda risks reinforcing the very systems of inequality it seeks to overcome. Building more infrastructure without altering who owns it, who benefits from it, and who is harmed in the process may simply deliver “green neoliberalism”: shiny climate tech layered atop extractive, undemocratic foundations. The article insists that we cannot technocratically build our way out of injustice.

At Earthrise Accord, we couldn’t agree more—and yet we believe the piece misses what’s most urgent today: the need to move from critique to construction without abandoning accountability. Our work builds on the idea of abundance but grounds it in what we call nuclear realism and climate justice. That means confronting not just scarcity, but the specific misinformation campaigns—originating from both fossil fuel interests and anti-nuclear environmental groups—that have actively undermined our capacity to build the clean energy systems we need.

In “Writing Off Upstate,” we document how the ideological war against nuclear power has devastated working-class communities in New York. The closure of Indian Point, driven by pressure from environmental NGOs, didn’t reduce emissions—it raised them, while also raising rates and decimating union energy jobs. The New Republic critique might highlight structural power, but Earthrise insists we name names: it’s not just abstract capital or technocracy, but specific groups and policies that sabotaged energy abundance in the name of purity politics. Climate justice demands we hold them accountable—not just ExxonMobil, but also the Sierra Club and NRDC.

In “Abundance vs. Austerity II,” we lay out a positive vision: a full-scale return to industrial policy rooted in justice. Nuclear energy isn’t an afterthought in our version of the abundance agenda—it’s the centerpiece. Without it, we cannot decarbonize industry, stabilize the grid, or deliver energy sovereignty to developing nations. But we reject any nuclear revival that simply swaps carbon for plutocracy. An Earthrise abundance means community ownership, union labor, reparative investment in Indigenous and frontline communities, and climate litigation to force the hand of obstructionists—left and right alike.

So while The New Republic critiques abundance liberalism for lacking a theory of power, Earthrise Accord offers one. Ours is a theory of recovery: recovery of truth from misinformation, recovery of capacity from sabotage, and recovery of justice from the wreckage of austerity politics. Yes, we must build. But we must build differently, and we must build better. That is the work of Earthrise Accord.

In our vision, abundance isn’t the absence of scarcity. It’s the presence of care, foresight, and integrity—delivered not just at scale, but with soul.