Why don’t we build?

industrial crane during golden hour
Time to Build blogchain

Marc Andreessen: It’s time to build.

Ezra Klein: The question is why don’t we build? What’s stopping us?

Ezra Klein: Here’s my answer: The institutions through which Americans build have become biased against action rather than toward it. They’ve become, in political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s term, “vetocracies,” in which too many actors have veto rights over what gets built.

I’m not against soliciting more ideas of what to build. But what we need is sustained funding, focus, and organizing to make building in America possible again. And that requires patiently engaging with the kinds of institutions that frustrate builders.

What should we build? We should build institutions biased toward action and ambition, rather than inaction and incrementalism.

At the federal level, I’d get rid of the filibuster, simplify the committee system, democratize elections, and make sure majorities could implement their agendas once elected.

Ezra Klein: The question is why don’t we build? What’s stopping us?

Marc Andreessen: The problem is desire. We need to want these things.

Ken Blanchard: Without a vision people have nothing to serve but themselves.