It's Time to Build the Builders

Introducing my new Substack newsletter

One of the most heartening cultural developments spurred by COVID-19 has been the rising awareness of our urgent need to build, and with it a bipartisan “progress movement” aimed at studying, financing, and valorizing the builders. These efforts have gained momentum in recent months, with the announcement of a new Institute for Progress and a widely circulated Atlantic article calling for an abundance agenda. With this resurgence of intellectual and economic support for the builders, the time is ripe to develop the moral and psychological supports that builders need in order to grow and thrive.

Builders need to be built. Builders aren’t born. No one becomes a builder by default. Becoming the kind of person who can and does regularly engage in building is a profound achievement. This achievement is the chief source of all human abundance and joy; yet, as I suggest here, it is among the least well-understood of all human achievements. And there is currently no credible, comprehensive gui…