S11E03: Quinn Slo­bo­di­an on the “New Fusion” of Neolib­er­al­ism and the Far Right (Part 2)

This episode focus­es on Slobodian’s lat­est book, Hayek’s Bas­tards, which reveals how some neolib­er­als forged an alliance with seg­ments of the far right to roll back the pro­gres­sive achieve­ments of the post WWII era, erod­ing the very foun­da­tions of democ­ra­cy. Why did the end of the Cold War trig­ger new fears among them and how did this even­tu­al­ly lead to an illib­er­al, soft author­i­tar­i­an turn? What is the epochal sig­nif­i­cance of fram­ing anti-pro­gres­sive and anti-egal­i­tar­i­an polit­i­cal ide­olo­gies and agen­das in the lan­guage of socio-biol­o­gy and eco­nom­ics. How can ideas about the dereg­u­lat­ed free mar­ket be rec­on­ciled with hard bor­der con­trol and eth­no-racial argu­ments against immi­gra­tion? Tune in to hear Quinn Slo­bo­di­an explain what the neolib­er­al jus­ti­fi­ca­tions of inequal­i­ty and hier­ar­chy mean for the future of our democracies.

Guest fea­tured on this episode:

Quinn Slo­bo­di­an is a Pro­fes­sor of Inter­na­tion­al His­to­ry at the Pardee School of Glob­al Stud­ies at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty. This year, he’s been award­ed the high­ly pres­ti­gious Guggen­heim Fel­low­ship. One of the most excit­ing his­to­ri­ans of eco­nom­ic ideas today, Quinn Slo­bo­di­an is the author of sev­er­al award-win­ning books, many of which have been trans­lat­ed into sev­er­al lan­guages. He pub­lished “Glob­al­ists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neolib­er­al­ism” in 2018, and “Crack-Up Cap­i­tal­ism: Mar­ket Rad­i­cals and the Dream of a World With­out Democ­ra­cy” in 2023. Most recent­ly, he’s pub­lished “Hayek’s Bas­tards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Cap­i­tal­ism of the Far Right.” That’s the book we’ll dis­cuss in our next episode. He’s been a con­tribut­ing writer to New States­men, The Guardian, The New York Times, Boston Review, Dis­sent, and The Nation. His new book on Elon Musk is due to be pub­lished ear­ly next year.