This week on our untitled, occasional podcast,
of and I hosted our first guest: the mighty Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University.Quinn is the author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, and the forthcoming Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right. He also wrote a recent cover story for The New Statesman entitled “Elon Musk’s hostile takeover: Inside the mind of the billionaire at the heart of American power.”
So, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out why Max and I wanted to talk to Quinn, whose work I’ve followed and admired for several years now. We had a far-ranging and I think quite enlightening conversation about capitalism, speculation, technology, and the general state of things. Hope you enjoy!
During the show we also mentioned:
Murray Rothbard’s 1992 “Right Wing Populism” essay, an important jumping-off point for both Quinn’s and my work
My 2017 Baffler piece on Murray Rothbard
I think i can say two things about the point of crypto currency at this point.
One, it is an attempt to liberate money from state power. It's failing, and perhaps could never have succeeded, but the idea was to get an objective measure of value that is what it is and can't be subjected to state manipulation. I remember saying a few years back that there was likely to be evangelical buy-in because it removes Caesar's name from the coin, if you recall my meaning. And I wonder if that isn't something to do with Trumpcoin failing.
But two, it reminds me of the demand for free silver coinage that was part of the original populist movement. All the conventional economists of the time warned that it would be dangerously inflationary and now the historical verdict seems to say it would have been a good thing, maybe even because it was inflationary. People are hoping for "cheap money" once again.
"attempt to liberate money from state power"
i take issue with that frame because, like so much leftwing criticism of libertarianism, it takes their anti-statism at face value and misses 1) how central the modern state is to a capitalist market economy, and 2) how what libertarians want are their own *private states* along *personalist, premodern* lines, which is why they so often end up at neo-monarchism and neo-feudalism, as well as why they end up *suppressing markets* that undermine their monopoly power or their preferred race and gender hierarchies
ie plutocrats and business oligarchs are central planners and social engineers who oppose precisely those regulatory aspects of the state that safeguard market dynamics and price signals from their manipulation and suppression
That's true as far as it goes, but there is a whole subset of religious libertarians for whom opposition to the state is a genuine facet of their religious belief, and who are linked but not *bound* to MAGA by it. (I think it is related to something discussed in the comments in November and I commented there before realizing that the post was old.)
These people are generally evangelical and belong to churches that intentionally dismantled the hierarchical priesthood early on, so they are not trying to replace the state with a theocracy--at least, not in the ordinary sense. They don't have the organizational capacity to even try. They tend to be fooled by MAGA, but I have encountered some who rejected it as just another form of state authoritarianism.
These churches appear to have been built in the mold of the Rafical Reformation, like the Hussites who turned against the German government before they had finished attacking the clergy. Early Radical Reformation churches were also socialist, but just after the American Civil War the later ones seem to have concluded that it would take a brutal dictatorship to redistribute wealth effectively.
(didn't finish listening yet but...) the Musk 'character' is trying to be The Plague from the movie Hackers right?
Slobodian's essay is good.
"Musk posts repeatedly about his progress up the leaderboard of his current favourites, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred and Path of Exile 2. "
I wonder what he thinks of the fact that the gamers he's trying to court have figured out that Musk is most likely not the one playing these games, and he actually seems unfamiliar with them!
https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1hwxc17/documenting_the_saga_of_elon_musks_account/
I feel unqualified to really be posting on here but times seem urgent and I say unqualified because I don’t totally get everything you’re saying, so here’s my maybe stupid question: do we need a grimes of our own?
Kinda surprised by the positive reference to Adam Curtis, his work has always seemed to me a mix of conspiracy theory and bad imitation of a 70s Peter Greenaway pseudodocumentary.
Not an unpleasant listen (everyone involved is sharp) but I mean… you guys didn’t answer the question or really go anywhere near it? Someone smart needs to explain how Musky went off the deep end and I was hoping this was it
I listened to the podcast. I guess I am not enough of an insider to understand most of it. My interest perked up when you got to comparing Meyer Lansky to Singapore. I have noticed a trend that criticizes capitalism for abandoning the material world and embracing finance. Sure it's easier to invest money and wait for a return, but sooner or later even the rich realize that they cannot survive on paper.
Have I understood the three of you?