Crack-Up Capitalism

Timely and important, eye-opening ... Slobodian has done us a great service, identifying a phenomenon that needs unmasking. -- Will Hutton * The Observer * Gonzo brilliance ... Unique and highly entertaining. -- Felix Martin * Financial Times * Excellent ... A new generation of swashbuckling billionaires entertain the prospect of secession, using their money to realize fantasies of escape, whether through seasteading or spaceships. -- Jennifer Szalai * New York Times * After reading historian Quinn Slobodian's new book, you are not likely to think about capitalism the same way ... great fun to read ... an important guide to the current struggle over how the ruling class rules. And Slobodian ultimately raises the question of whether there are cracks in the system, or whether the cracks are the system. -- Max B. Sawicky * Jacobin * An important historical corrective to the myths, fantasies and occlusions that have allowed dystopias such as Dubai to be presented as models for "the west" to learn from. Many of the men whose manifestos and dreams Slobodian surveys simply don't know what they're talking about. One wonders if they ever wanted to learn in the first place. -- William Davies * The Guardian * 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 Slobodian has written a fascinating account of the sheer hubris of the market radicals who have sought to free capitalism from democracy first by transforming the world's political geography and now by abandoning the material world. He tells this important story with verve and considerable insight. -- Helen Thompson Lively ... an engaging and fluently written account of the dreams of many philosophers, economists and, frankly, oddballs who have grown impatient with the shackles of the big state. ... Slobodian is keen to highlight the often anti-democratic impulses of libertarian thinkers. ... While the yearning is simple and admirable, the road map to reaching utopia is quite complicated. -- Kwasi Kwarteng * The Spectator * Compelling ... a challenge not just to traditional narratives of political power, but also to liberal assumptions about freedom. -- Kojo Koram * Times Literary Supplement * 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

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.