Crack-Up Capitalism by Quinn Slobodian: A Book Retelling Series

I just finished reading Crack-Up Capitalism by Quinn Slobodian and honestly, this book messed with how I see the world map.

You know how we all learned about countries in school? Neat borders, flags, anthems, the whole thing. Well, Slobodian basically says: forget all that. The real story of the modern world is about zones - special economic zones, tax havens, free ports, charter cities, and all kinds of weird legal spaces that operate by their own rules inside countries.

What This Book Is About

There are over 5,400 of these zones worldwide. Some are no bigger than a warehouse. Others are entire city-states. And they’re growing fast - about a thousand new ones popped up in just the last decade.

The book traces how a certain kind of radical capitalist thinking - the kind that says democracy and freedom can’t coexist - has been pushing to break nations into smaller and smaller pieces. The goal? Create places where money can move freely, taxes are low or zero, and governments can’t tell you what to do.

Slobodian takes you from Hong Kong to Singapore, from Somalia to Dubai, from apartheid South Africa to Silicon Valley’s dreams of floating cities. It’s wild.

Book Details

• Title: Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
• Author: Quinn Slobodian
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (Macmillan)
• ISBN: 9781250753908
• Published: 2023

What to Expect From This Series

I’m going to retell this book chapter by chapter over the next two weeks. Each post covers one chapter and breaks down the key ideas in plain language.

Here’s the roadmap:

1. Introduction: Shatter the Map - What zones are and why they matter
2. Chapter 1: Two, Three, Many Hong Kongs - How Hong Kong became the model
3. Chapter 2: City in Shards - Hong Kong’s breakup story
4. Chapter 3: The Singapore Solution - Singapore as the libertarian dream
5. Chapter 4: Libertarian Bantustan - South Africa’s zone experiments
6. Chapter 5: The Wonderful Death of a State - When countries fall apart on purpose
7. Chapter 6: Cosplaying the New Middle Ages - Medieval fantasies for modern capitalists
8. Chapter 7: Your Own Private Liechtenstein - Micro-states and tax havens
9. Chapter 8: A Business Clan in Somalia - Free market experiments in a failed state
10. Chapter 9: The Legal Bubble-Domes of Dubai - Dubai’s legal fantasy world
11. Chapter 10: Silicon Valley Colonialism - Tech bros building their own countries
12. Chapter 11: A Cloud Country in the Metaverse - Digital nations and crypto states
13. Conclusion: When Zones Take Over - The big picture
14. Final Thoughts and Takeaways - My closing reflections

Why You Should Care

This isn’t some dry economics textbook. Slobodian writes about real people with real plans to reshape the world. Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, literally said “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” And he’s not alone.

Whether you care about where your tax dollars go, why housing is so expensive, or why some billionaires want to build floating cities - this book connects the dots.

Let’s get into it. Next up: the Introduction.

Next post: Shatter the Map - What Are Zones and Why Do They Matter?