There are people in this world who are determined to give the word ‘abundance’ a bad name. The powerfully influential book of that title, authored by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, hit the moribund centre-left of US politics like a lightning bolt. Its prescription was simple: if you have a shortage of something – whether that’s housing, energy, transport, or whatever – simply flood the market with supply.

This has been imported into the UK by an even more atrophying Labour party and its outriders in a peculiarly miserable, British way: one long moan about red tape, bats and newts. This met its sad nadir in the spectacle of secretary of state Steve Reed attending his party conference in a MAGA-aping red hat, “BUILD BABY BUILD” blazoned across the front of it.

The main practical policy framework for pursuing this sort of politics is a full-frontal attack on the planning system, including the meagre protections for people and the planet. The British prime minister has actively leaned into this, dismissing the legitimate concerns of ordinary citizens as the whining of “blockers” who stand opposed to the “builders”.

It would be one thing if any of this was likely to work on its own terms. In reality, this is an agenda designed to even further deregulate a system in favour of private interests that are already raking in eye-watering profits at the expense of ordinary people. House prices, for example, are not going to magically tumble because private developers get their way more easily. If you just flood the market with supply, you’ll definitely cook the planet, but you won’t necessarily bring down prices if you leave the profit motive intact.

Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell are on hand to give an alternative view of things in Radical Abundance. Their central point is that the current neoliberal economic system is actively creating artificial scarcity for some of life’s essentials. Meanwhile, we are left to suffer what they call the “bullshit abundance” of carbon in the atmosphere, sewage in the waterways, and microplastics in our blood. To reverse this, we need a new economic model that breaks from capital’s dominion over the necessities of life.

The book’s central prescription is a public-commonspartnership (PCP), which breaks from the model of capitalist enterprise. Any commercially generated surplus (by way of profit or goods) is distributed by a democratically elected board, rather than accumulated as private profit. Key to this is the fact that PCPs can exist within the political reality we currently inhabit, but equally have an inherent tendency towards eroding the logic of capital accumulation and transferring power, ownership and resources to ordinary citizens.

This active consideration given to the process of transition is one of the best things about Radical Abundance. Many books content themselves with describing the state of affairs as they stand, and then outlining a preferable way of things, leaving aside any practical consideration of how we might bring that future into being without a magic wand.

Nearly half of the book is given over to case studies of how the authors have been involved in setting up PCPs in areas ranging from agriculture to urban development. While this sometimes means the reading experience tips into feeling a bit like you’re at the AGM of a local cooperative (complete with some bewildering flowcharts outlining governance structures), it’s ultimately an invaluable and convincing overview of how some of this might actually be put into practice.

This is a welcome corrective to the bastardisation of the word ‘abundance’ currently animating centre-left politics on both sides of the Atlantic. While the Labour government gears up to cover the country in runways and roads, decrying the “blockers” who might speak out against this low-growth, high-carbon infrastructure, it’s books like this that orient us towards building something more enduring: an economy and ecology fit for the 21st century.

Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green, Democratic Future by Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell. Pluto Press, 2025. ISBN: 9780745351353

Russell Warfield is Head of Communications at the climate charity Possible.