Ezra Klein

Clean energy, which a lot of the Biden administration's policies were about putting huge subsidies behind the building of more clean energy. But they didn't really do anything to make the permitting, the siting, the state capacity to do all of that capable of building that amount of clean energy at the pace they foresaw us building it, right, that they wanted us to build it.

Clean energy, which a lot of the Biden administration's policies were about putting huge subsidies behind the building of more clean energy. But they didn't really do anything to make the permitting, the siting, the state capacity to do all of that capable of building that amount of clean energy at the pace they foresaw us building it, right, that they wanted us to build it.

And behind this, and I can sort of go into a lot of detail here, but it's a diminishment of state capacity that comes from wrapping the state itself in red tape and regulation.

And behind this, and I can sort of go into a lot of detail here, but it's a diminishment of state capacity that comes from wrapping the state itself in red tape and regulation.

I think we think and have an intuitive way of thinking about the idea of deregulation on the private sector, right, when the government is imposing regulations on private companies and it's making it hard for those companies to act, to do business, etc., But this happens first and foremost on the government itself.

I think we think and have an intuitive way of thinking about the idea of deregulation on the private sector, right, when the government is imposing regulations on private companies and it's making it hard for those companies to act, to do business, etc., But this happens first and foremost on the government itself.

One of my favorite examples I've been using lately, there's a new Rand report that looks at how much it costs to construct a square foot of housing in California, in Texas, in Colorado. And it does it on two kinds of housing, market rate, and it does it on affordable housing subsidized by the public sector.

One of my favorite examples I've been using lately, there's a new Rand report that looks at how much it costs to construct a square foot of housing in California, in Texas, in Colorado. And it does it on two kinds of housing, market rate, and it does it on affordable housing subsidized by the public sector.

And the cost of creating housing in California, market rate is 2x in California what it is in Texas. But when you get into that publicly subsidized housing, where you have all these new standards and rules and regulations being triggered by the addition of public money, it goes up to about 4.4x. And so you have this real problem, I think, in a way of governing that evolved in the 70s, the 80s.

And the cost of creating housing in California, market rate is 2x in California what it is in Texas. But when you get into that publicly subsidized housing, where you have all these new standards and rules and regulations being triggered by the addition of public money, it goes up to about 4.4x. And so you have this real problem, I think, in a way of governing that evolved in the 70s, the 80s.

There's a kind of small government version of the Democratic Party, the new left, more individualistic. Yeah.

There's a kind of small government version of the Democratic Party, the new left, more individualistic. Yeah.

Fukuyama is a great sort of related concept of etocracy, which is that he also got another great concept since we're bringing up Fukuyama, which is that neoliberalism, which we've sort of been talking about here with the WT and other things. He says people think about it as the veneration of the market. But what it is, first and foremost, is the degradation of the state.

Fukuyama is a great sort of related concept of etocracy, which is that he also got another great concept since we're bringing up Fukuyama, which is that neoliberalism, which we've sort of been talking about here with the WT and other things. He says people think about it as the veneration of the market. But what it is, first and foremost, is the degradation of the state.

And I think that explains a lot more about the world we're in than people recognize.

And I think that explains a lot more about the world we're in than people recognize.

End of history and the last man. That's a much more complicated question.

End of history and the last man. That's a much more complicated question.

I think building state capacity is two dimensions. One is what the state can do, and the second is the rules under which it does it. Doge seems to me to be fundamentally destructive of state capacity. First, and this goes again to my endless frustration that I feel like goals are not clearly laid out in the Trump administration.

I think building state capacity is two dimensions. One is what the state can do, and the second is the rules under which it does it. Doge seems to me to be fundamentally destructive of state capacity. First, and this goes again to my endless frustration that I feel like goals are not clearly laid out in the Trump administration.