Mentioned as a good companion. to Gerstle's "The Rise and Fall of the Liberal Order"

A well-chosen topic, but not the greatest approach to it, I think. Slobodian's subtitle hints at the interesting part of his book: neoliberalism as an approach to the economy and government that was well-suited for states leaving behind their empires. That would have been a great journal article, but here it's buried underneath a lot of information that is more easily available in the many other books about neoliberalism (Dardot & Laval's 'New Way of the World', for instance) and chapters that are kind of relevant but mostly just interesting on their own (the stuff on how the global economy was visualized or rendered into data). There's nothing wrong with the book, but it's just too much of a mess and tries to do too many things. Basically, it's absurdly over-rated. This isn't a slur on Slobodian, or the project. But the book is disappointing. Definitely listen to the interview Slobodian did with the podcast, 'The Dig,' and if that's not enough, maybe flip through a library copy of this one. ( )

I’ve been spiraling around this book since late last fall. Daniel Denver (producer of Jacobin’s “The Dig” podcast) interviewed the author last November in a lengthy conversation revolving around the importance of governance, in all of its many forms and the dogmas that come along with them. Around that time Jonathan Levy reviewed Adam Tooze’s “Crashed” in “n+1” in an article that focused on the threat of liquidity. I also read Anand Giridharas’ “Winners Take All” during this time, which speaks to and about the globalist class.

There are many other books, authors, and thinkers relevant to list in this catalog, but I’ll stop there for now. I rattle through this list to help point to the formation of a school of thought that has been forming in the post-2008 period. Although some might call it the anti-globalism movement, it is actually more globalist than the globalists.

In a way, this is a book about neoliberalism. As defined by Slobodian, neoliberalism has three core tenants:
1. Free trade and closed borders (racism)
2. Minimization of quantification
3. Weak states and encased markets

Common belief appears to hold that neoliberalism is an ideology born out of the United States in the second half of the 20th century. In “Globalists,” Slobodian traces this history back to the first half of the 20th century in Europe. This could be called the Geneva school. It was an intellectualism defined by free trade but strong borders that has endured to our present moment. Along these lines, it is worth calling out that there are two branches of neoliberalism regarding borders: the racists and the non-racists. The first might be called the nationalist branch, or white-supremicist branch, while the second could be called the libertarian branch.

It came as a surprise to me that, in its evolution, neoliberalism has eschewed quantification. Having recently read “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshona Zuboff and “Punished by Rewards” by Alfie Kohn—both books about behaviorism—this came as a bit of a surprise to me. Slobodian pits the neoliberals against the likes of Dana Meadows and the Club of Rome report on the “Limits to Growth.” Their rhetoric revolves around a statement that economies are so vast and complex as to render any form of quantification meaningless. This is at odds with the co-emergent field of cybernetics. In this segment, Slobodian explores the work of F. A. Hayek, including the systems theory that he helped to develop.

Also contrary to popular belief, neoliberalism is not about laissez-faire in the literal sense of “unbridled markets.” Rather, these are encased markets. How can we constitutionally restrict the reach of the state to interfere with the functions of the global economy? This is the epitome of a neoliberal question.

If you’re looking for the cliff notes, turn to page 271 in the conclusion, where Slobodian outlines his fifteen points of neoliberalism.

Slobodian is clearly writing from the left side of the aisle; in that regard, this is an investigation of his opponents. That said, I’m not sure that I can distill a thesis of this book. Maybe this makes it all the more academic, in that Slobodian’s biases are under the surface as opposed to front-and-center.

As I work in the field of cryptocurrency, I’m particularly interested in considering what all of this means for the crypto-sphere. Other authors have given this question some thought, such as David Golombia in his “The Politics of Bitcoin.” When considering the frontiers of economic and governance design, what paradigms are we inheriting? ( )