Modern societies are wealthy by historical standards, yet increasingly fragile in practice.

• Food systems are productive but vulnerable to shocks.

• Energy systems are technologically advanced but volatile in price.

• Housing systems generate assets efficiently, but shelter poorly.

• Healthcare systems are innovative but strained.

At the same time, the cost of living continues to rise faster than many people’s ability to plan or feel secure.

This combination — high capability, low stability — is not accidental. It reflects how essential systems are now organised.

Abundance exists to address that structural problem, not through ideology or redistribution, but by rebuilding productive capacity in ways that are resilient, broadly owned, and able to compound over time.

The problem is not markets — it is structure

Markets are powerful tools. They are effective at experimentation, price discovery, and innovation.

But markets are not designed to hold essential systems in balance over long periods of time.

When essential goods — food, energy, housing, healthcare tools, data infrastructure — become primarily financial assets, a predictable pattern emerges:

• ownership concentrates

• incentives shift toward short-term returns

• prices rise faster than incomes

• resilience declines

This is not a moral failure. It is a structural one.

Housing illustrates this clearly. When homes are treated primarily as investment vehicles, supply is shaped by return profiles rather than lived need. Even when new housing is built, it often fails to translate into affordability or security.

Similar dynamics increasingly affect farmland, energy infrastructure, and digital systems.

The issue is not that markets exist. It is that there are too few counterbalancing structures designed to ensure essential systems remain affordable, stable, and available over decades rather than quarters.

The limits of the state — and of doing nothing

States play an essential role in regulation, standards, and public safeguards. But modern governments face real constraints:

• short political cycles

• high capital costs

• globalised markets

• limited tolerance for long-term risk

As a result, many states struggle to build and hold productive assets over multiple decades, particularly in fast-moving technological domains.

Doing nothing is not neutral. It allows existing dynamics to continue.

Left unattended, essential systems tend to become more financialised, more centralised, and less responsive to the needs of ordinary people.

Abundance is not a replacement for markets or states. It exists alongside them, filling a gap neither is well suited to occupy on its own.

What public wealth means — in practical terms

Public wealth, as used here, does not mean government ownership, forced participation, or redistribution.

It refers to productive assets that are governed so their output continuously benefits the people who rely on them.

Examples include:

• farmland that produces food at cost rather than maximising rent

• energy systems owned by the people who use them

• shared data and AI infrastructure that remains auditable, reusable, and licensed so that value circulates back into public capacity rather than being permanently enclosed

• platforms that coordinate participation without extracting value

These assets are not symbolic. They perform real economic work.

When governed correctly, they:

• reduce exposure to price shocks

• lower the baseline cost of living

• increase reliability during disruption

• give people greater control over the systems they depend on

Public wealth is not about equality of outcome.
It is about security of access.

Why technology makes this possible now

What distinguishes the present moment is not sentiment, but technology.

Modern systems — software, data, AI models, robotics — have unusual properties:

• they improve with use

• they can be shared without depletion

• their marginal cost declines over time

This means that small contributions, accumulated steadily, can create systems of lasting value.

When paired with cooperative and mission-locked ownership, these technologies allow productive capacity to grow without requiring continual extraction.

This is not theoretical. Many open technical and scientific systems already operate this way when governance is designed carefully.

Abundance applies this logic deliberately to essential domains.

Cost reduction, not income dependence

Much public debate focuses on income: wages, subsidies, transfers, and compensation.

Abundance focuses on cost structures.

If food, energy, housing, and essential services can be produced more efficiently — and governed so that efficiency gains flow back to users — people require less income simply to live securely.

This approach:

• reduces vulnerability to inflation

• lowers dependence on constant wage growth

• increases resilience across economic cycles

It does not eliminate markets or work.
It changes the baseline conditions under which people participate in them.

Voluntary participation, permanent value

Participation in Abundance is voluntary by design.

People contribute when and how they choose:

• time

• expertise

• modest amounts of capital

• or simply by using shared tools and platforms

What matters is that contributions do not disappear.

Work done once — a dataset improved, a tool built, a cooperative established — remains available into the future. Value compounds rather than resetting.

This reflects a simple principle:
people should not be compelled to contribute, but when they do, their effort should last.

In this sense, public wealth is compatible with individual choice and autonomy.

Why compounding systems matter

Public wealth depends less on scale at the outset than on persistence over time.

Systems designed to compound — technically, economically, and institutionally — behave differently from projects optimised for short-term returns. They reward patience, reinvestment, and reuse.

When productive assets are held in common and governed for continuity:

• efficiency gains accumulate rather than being extracted

• learning compounds rather than being lost

• resilience improves as systems grow

This is why structure matters more than intention. Without mechanisms that preserve and reinvest value, even well-intentioned efforts decay.

For a concrete example of how these principles are applied in practice, see What We’re Building.

A foundation, not an ideology

Abundance does not require shared political beliefs.

It rests on a small number of practical assumptions:

• it is good if food is plentiful and affordable

• it is good if energy is reliable and cheap

• it is good if essential systems are resilient rather than fragile

• it is good if people can plan their lives without constant insecurity

These are not partisan positions. They are preconditions for a functioning society.

Public wealth is a way of locking those conditions in structurally, so they do not depend on constant political intervention or market cycles.

A direction, not a promise

Abundance does not guarantee outcomes.

It offers a direction of travel:

• from private risk-hedging toward shared productive capacity

• from rising costs toward cost reduction

• from fragile optimisation toward resilience

• from constant pressure toward greater freedom of time and choice

Whether this direction is realised depends on discipline, governance, and patience.

That is why the work begins narrowly.
Why experts lead.
Why proofs come before scale.

Public wealth is not imagined into existence.
It is built — steadily, carefully, and over time — through systems designed to last.