In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist
extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers
are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the
constraints of democracy.
Look at a map of the
world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But
this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade,
globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free
ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces,
ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to
escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether.
Crack-Up
Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians—from
Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel—around the globe as they search for
the perfect space for capitalism. Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us
from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of
apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the former frontier of
the American West, from the medieval City of London to the gold
vaults of right-wing billionaires, and finally into the world’s
oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate
where market competition is unfettered by democracy.
A masterful work of
economic and intellectual history, Crack-Up Capitalism offers
both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming
threats. Full of rich details and provocative analysis, Crack-Up
Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future.