
Crack-Up Capitalism
Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
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Narrated by:
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Keith Sellon-Wright
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By:
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Quinn Slobodian
About this listen
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.
A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books.
©2023 Quinn Slobodian (P)2023 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“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, and invites us to imagine a future where the rich have privatized safety, turned working people into a disposable servant class, and bought entire countries outright. 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
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- How the Ocean Works
- By: Helen Czerski
- Narrated by: Helen Czerski
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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All of Earth’s oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials. In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas, and Arctic ice floes. Timely, elegant, and passionately argued, The Blue Machine presents a fresh perspective on what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet.
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Pay to be lectured at
- By J. Luvmour on 10-12-23
By: Helen Czerski
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Nixonland
- The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 36 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of America's most talented historians and winner of a LA Times Book Prize comes a brilliant new account of Richard Nixon that reveals the riveting backstory to the red state/blue state resentments that divide our nation today. Told with urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency.
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A 5-Star Book Injured by the Narrator
- By Frank on 08-12-09
By: Rick Perlstein
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The Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
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Refuting the Chicago School
- By Todd W. Laveen on 06-01-23
By: Naomi Oreskes, and others
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Palo Alto
- A History of California, Capitalism, and the World
- By: Malcolm Harris
- Narrated by: Patrick Harrison
- Length: 28 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In PALO ALTO, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory.
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Yes, it's Marxist. it's also good.
- By Alex halladay on 02-15-23
By: Malcolm Harris
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The Code of Capital
- How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
- By: Katharina Pistor
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.
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Capital's cream rises, and here's just how it does
- By Philo on 10-11-19
By: Katharina Pistor
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Less Is More
- How Degrowth Will Save the World
- By: Jason Hickel
- Narrated by: Ben Crystal, Clifford Samuel
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we must face up to its primary cause. Capitalism demands perpetual expansion, which is devastating the living world. There is only one solution that will lead to meaningful and immediate change: degrowth.
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Interesting
- By SEB24 on 04-13-25
By: Jason Hickel
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The Fund
- Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
- By: Rob Copeland
- Narrated by: Rob Copeland, Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Ray Dalio does not want you to listen to this audiobook. Late last year, when the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund on the planet, announced that he was stepping down from the company he started out of his apartment nearly 50 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio cultivated an aura of international admiration and fame thanks to his company’s eye-popping success, coupled with a mystique he encouraged with frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles.
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Best finance book I've read in years
- By Aaron on 12-16-23
By: Rob Copeland
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The Burning Earth
- A History
- By: Sunil Amrith
- Narrated by: Esh Alladi
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The imperial, globe-spanning pursuit of profit, joined with new forms of energy and new possibilities of freedom from hunger and discomfort, freedom to move and explore, has brought change to every inch of the Earth. Amrith relates in gorgeous prose, and on the largest canvas, a mind-altering epic in which humanity might find the collective wisdom to save itself.
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Environmental grieving
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-25
By: Sunil Amrith
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Money, Lies, and God
- Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy
- By: Katherine Stewart
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down.
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Powerful and Important work.
- By Frank Nance on 02-28-25
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Taking Manhattan
- The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s canny director general.
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VERY INTERESTING Early History of New Netherland/New York
- By Amazon Customer on 04-12-25
By: Russell Shorto
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End Times
- Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration
- By: Peter Turchin
- Narrated by: Robin McAlpine
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Peter Turchin, one of the most interesting social scientists of our age, has infused the study of history with approaches and insights from other fields for more than a quarter century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and what causes them to fall apart, as applied to the current turmoil within the United States.
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Boomer History
- By Kevin on 08-12-23
By: Peter Turchin
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Capitalist Realism
- Is There No Alternative?
- By: Mark Fisher
- Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
- Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system–a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework.
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Mind-blowing
- By John Erlandsen on 10-04-24
By: Mark Fisher
What listeners say about Crack-Up Capitalism
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- TohirT
- 11-09-24
Solid look at what our future might be like
In this divisive and tumultuous time across the US and many developed countries this book explores what the alternative might look like. Just don’t look for the definitive answer, as this book is more of a brainstorm rather than a path to an exact solution.
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- Ernie
- 04-17-25
Insightful read/listening
Intriguing writings shine lights over the role of crackup capitalism played in the fast dissolving and turmoil world with history and facts. Everyone should read it, for at least to know why and to think independently .
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- SaavyConsumer
- 05-20-23
Central to modern debates
A must read for the current thinker. This book covers the basic principles of the neoliberal quagmire we face today.
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- curiousNY
- 08-10-24
Everyone Needs To Read This Book
This book is a well-researched and concise accounting of one of the important ways the capitalist class and corrupt governments are taking over our lives, our resources and our freedoms. Everyone should know about this nefarious paradigm.
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