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Crack-Up Capitalism

Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy

Quinn Slobodian

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Hardback

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English
Allen Lane
01 August 2023
An acclaimed historian of ideas shows how capitalist extremists profit from the collapse of the democratic nation.

Look at a map of the world and you'll see a neat patchwork of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. From the 1990s onwards, globalization has shattered the map, leading to an explosion of new legal entities- tax havens, free ports, city-states, gated enclaves and special economic zones. These new spaces are freed from ordinary forms of regulation, taxation and mutual obligation - and with them, ultracapitalists believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether.

Historian Quinn Slobodian follows the most notorious radical libertarians - from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel - around the globe as they search for the perfect home for their free market fantasy. The hunt leads from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the medieval City of London, and finally into the world's oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where capitalism and democracy can be finally uncoupled.

Crack-Up Capitalism is a propulsive history of the recent past, and an alarming view of our near future.

By:  
Imprint:   Allen Lane
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 240mm,  Width: 162mm,  Spine: 33mm
Weight:   573g
ISBN:   9780241460245
ISBN 10:   0241460247
Pages:   352
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  ELT Advanced ,  Primary
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Quinn Slobodian is a professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley College, and the author of the award-winning Globalists- The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, which has been translated into six languages. A frequent contributor to the Guardian, New Statesman, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Dissent and the Nation, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews for Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy

Ranging from Liechtenstein to Somalia, and from Hong Kong to Silicon Valley, Quinn Slobodian's Crack-Up Capitalism exposes how zones of exception promise capitalism an escape from the confines of the modern state and the constraints of democracy. Revelatory reading. A worthy successor to Slobodian's brilliant Globalists. -- Adam Tooze, author of Crashed In Crack-Up Capitalism, Quinn Slobodian takes us on a wild ride through the fenced-in compounds and failed states of today's capitalist world. This sharp and wickedly entertaining book is a necessary field guide to the LARPers, bloggers, and grifters of the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist world, a warning that they are closer to fulfilling their fantasies than we might think, and a clarion call for collective action to preserve - and greatly expand - democracy as we know it. -- Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back Revelatory. In this head-spinner of a book, Quinn Slobodian shows how zones, islands, micronations, gated communities, and cyber realms are remaking our planet. The capitalist future they portend isn't a borderless utopia but a jurisdictional shatter belt, where democracy is a distant dream. -- Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire A fascinating and important book, which brings to the surface some of the deepest political undercurrents of our times. Crack-Up Capitalism is an exemplary use of history to illuminate the present, forcing us to reassess what we thought we knew about the contemporary world. -- Hari Kunzru, author of Red Pill


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