A Complicated System of Traps: On Quinn Slobodian’s “Crack-Up Capitalism” — Cleveland Review of Books

An intense and even violent nationalist reaction centered among those who lose status, income, and power when what they consider to be their “ordinary life” is disrupted by political devolution and new market arrangements. Among the features of this reaction: suspicion of and opposition to globalization, free trade, “foreign” ownership and penetrat

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It is somewhat concerning to us that people seemed, and still seem, to be lining up to both defend and attack “capitalism,” when the object of discussion could hardly be further from any worthwhile meaning of the word but is rather better described as: To boost aimless consumption, primarily with uncollateralized debt, by destroying the price signa

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Peter Zeihan, geopolitical strategist and one of my favorite thinkers, has recently raised the point that the underpinnings of the economy have broken apart. Indeed, what happens when our measurements of the economy (inflation) are no longer accurate, and our tools for controlling the economy (interest rates) no longer work?

When measurements chang

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re-create some value ourselves. Instead of fixing the problem, and reclaiming our ability to generate wealth directly with one another, we seek to prop up institutions whose very purpose remains to usurp this ability from us. We try to repair our economy by bolstering the same institutions that sapped it. In the very best years, corporatism worked

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