At low noise, capitalism has built its utopia: a world rid of democracy, citizenship and the state, disseminated on a multitude of small territories linked by the mobility of capital and the elites.
The world lacks utopias, we sometimes regret. In reality, some utopias come before our eyes, without our care. In his latest book, the Canadian historian Quinn Slobodian invites his readers to travel to the world dreamed of by a group of neoliberal intellectuals and entrepreneurs, that of capitalism rid of democracy and public power. The peculiarity of this project is not to be embodied in a single place, for example a state guaranteeing a specific model and protected by borders, but in a multitude of micro-territories linked to each other by the mobility of capital and the elites, united by a common rejection of the State and democracy.
The book opens with a thought experience. We used to see the world as if it were divided between 200 sovereign entities, essentially the nation states that appeared during the XXe century on the rubble of empires, which today make up the United Nations. But what if, instead of fixing our attention on the full of the map, we look at its voids, its interstices, its black holes ? Then appears, in negative, a constellation of almost 5,400 “ zones », Small territories quite different from each other (tax havens, free ports, special economic zones, charter cities, GATED Communities,, duty freeoil platforms, etc.), the common point of which is to offer a refuge to capital and reduce democracy to its simplest device, or even simply abolish it. The majority of these areas are found in China, Asia, Africa and Latin America, but we spot it everywhere, in the heart of Europe (Liechtenstein), in Silicon Valley, South America (in Honduras), in Somalia, Dubai, etc.
The elsewhere of democracy already exists, it is on our doors. He thrives in this “ archpelagic capitalism “(An expression forged by the historian Vanessa Ogle) that the author offers us to survey, from Hong Kong to the metarers, in a half-academic, half-journalistic tone. The more we progress in this trip, the more utopia appears for what it really is, namely a terrifying dystopia based on the worship of businessthe relegation of the state and the disappearance of political citizenship such as the XIXe And XXe centuries have bequeathed it to us. Welcome to XXIe century !
Travel in anarcho-capitalist lands
In his previous work, Globalists (Threshold, 2022 ; 2019 for the original edition), Quinn Slobodian had uncovered the intellectual and political origins of the project carried by Friedrich Hayek and those he called the neoliberals of “ The Geneva School ». For these lawyers, economists and philosophers marked by the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, then by the bankruptcy of liberalism in 1929, the priority was then to reconstruct a global economic order based on standards (property rights, competition law, etc.) and protected from the double threat represented by democracy and the nation states. Hence their deep disarray at the end of the Second World War, which devoted the triumph of what they would abhor the most in the world, the State, political sovereignty, redistribution, this famous “ road to bondage That Hayek denounced in his 1944 pamphlet.
THE “ fracture capitalism ” (This Capitalism crack-up which gives its title to the original version of the book) appears as the realization, since the 1980s, of this utopian project carried by Hayek, Milton Friedman and their descendants. We already know the history of the way in which neoliberalism has come to power in several countries (Chile, United Kingdom, United States, etc.) at the turn of the years 1970-1980. The story tells Slobodian is different: it is that of fracturing, of “ perforation »From the world of nation states, by the multiplication of areas characterized by special economic rules, by tax exemption or by banking secrecy. This capitalism ofoffshorethat that a series of scandals and leaks of documents have made it possible to better decipher since the 2008 crisis, is analyzed not simply from an economic and financial angle, but first as a conscious and deliberate political project, the ultimate objective of which is to release capitalism from any form of democratic hold. There “ fracture “Is both the operating mode (you have to cut, shear, diver sovereignty) and the aim sought, that of a” unscrewing »Total of the market, to use the terminology of Karl Polanyi.
Neoliberal authors have always professed great admiration for Hong Kong and Singapore, two development models which correspond well to their ideal of authoritarian capitalism. Milton Friedman Fit of Hong Kong an example to follow in the book and the TV series Free to choose Who devoted his public notoriety in 1980, as was Margaret Thatcher when she encouraged the liberalization of the City’s financial activities. These two examples illustrate for many of the authors mentioned the simple idea according to which economic freedom is all better when political freedom is limited, even non -existent. The case of Singapore is however more complex than it seems, since the state played a central role in the 1960s, under the direction of Lee Kuan Yew, with for example a large public housing sector, still very developed today.
After a first part devoted to these two cases and to the City of London, the book explores less known areas, in South Africa, Somalia or Liechtenstein, which operate according to the same logic. Each time, Slobodian identifies one or more intellectuals and entrepreneurs who belong, directly or indirectly, to the neoliberal movement. Chapter 10 on Honduras thus highlights the figure of economist Paul Romer, recipient of the Sweden Bank Prize in Economic Sciences in 2018, which pleaded in the late 2000s in favor of the creation of “ Charter cities “, Built Ex nihilo To offer volunteer residents, recruited on the basis of a contract, the best possible rules in terms of encouragement to innovation and wealth creation. His ideas were acclaimed by the authoritarian government of Porfirio Lobo, who came to power after a coup in 2009, before being rejected by his successors, there were many protests.
We do not always distinguish what, in the argument of Slobodian, notes utopian projects imagined by the authors which he sometimes presents briefly and policies really implemented. In this regard, it is striking to note that many of the experiences he relates were preceded by science fiction stories, which nourish and widen the imagination of neoliberal thought. Conversely, several of the authors cited refer to ancient historical traditions to justify their vision of the world. The son of Milton Friedman, David Friedman, thus quotes feudal Europe as a possible source of inspiration, characterized by the juxtaposition of innumerable sovereign entities with their own rules, without hegemonic power, and endowed with private settlement systems, before the rise of major monarchical states. Closer to us, these are the capitulations and miller Ottoman, European concessions in Imperial China at XIXe century, the protectorates, which were invoked to appeal to a return to capitalism of yesteryear, closely articulated in imperialism. It is, to put it without detour, “ to abolish the XXe century “, This parenthesis that the neoliberals would have liked to never have to know.
A world without citizens
The neoliberals are not all anti -estaists (recognition of the need for a strong state to institute and preserve the market is even what distinguishes the neoliberalism from Manchesterian liberalism from XIXe century), but there is an anarcho-libertarian vein in them more and more pronounced. Their detestation of the state goes far beyond the criticism of its only economic power. They aspire to fully emancipate from the State to live in enclaves governed by rules of private law, without having to comply with any of the obligations attached to political citizenship. The case of Dubai, studied in Chapter 9, is emblematic. The emirate has experienced an explosion of its number of inhabitants for thirty years, which today reaches more than three million. Among these, more than 85 % are expatriates, mostly Asian origin. Influencers, jet setters, financial and traffickers of all kinds who stay in Dubai accommodate this little authoritarian paradise very well, where they live at the expense of workers without elementary rights. Only counts the protection that money is able to provide.
As this last example suggests, it is not necessary to have read Hayek or to subscribe to the publications of the Cato Institute to wish to take refuge in the enclaves of capitalism without democracy. The most disturbing, no doubt, in the landscape that Slobodian draws comes from the power of seduction which he operates with more and more groups (even if it would deserve to be more precisely supported). Its latest chapter is projected into the virtual space of the metarers, which arouses the enthusiasm of several figures of tech (Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan, etc.), eager to invent new forms of freedom, without state, without centralized power, without citizenship, in a word without politics. The craze aroused by cryptocurrencies participates in this project to build an economic order without sovereignty, like the WorldCoin program launched by Openai, which aims to create a universal system for identifying individuals without intervention of states. L'” sovereign individual », To use the title of the book published in 1997 by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg and that many techies Revere, aspire to get rid of any form of state and collective constraint, to live only under the regime of the contract and the “ individual choice ». The most daring and wealthy will always be able to dream of conquering new spaces elsewhere, on the moon or on Mars, to satisfy their desire for generalized flight.
At the end of the trip, Slobodian’s book draws an imaginary which you never know if it is perfectly whimsical or already solidly anchored in reality. The fine knowledge that the author has of literary and theoretical references of anarcho-capitalists makes it possible to understand the coherence of their vision of the world, which produces undeniable effects on contemporary politics. But this “ fracture capitalism “, As powerful as it is, remains closely embedded in the world which he claims to subvert, that of states, regulation and macroeconomic policies. Despite their desire for escape, libertarian capitalists know very well how to benefit from the resources offered to them by the statements, in the form of subsidies, protections and tax incentives. It is always prudent to have a foot in each world, including to weigh on the political life of “ old -fashioned Political communities, by money or influence.
The secession of capital does not only erode the capacity for action of the States. It transforms space, marginalizes democracy and empties the citizenship of its substance. This trip to dystopia is perhaps excessively pessimistic, and insufficiently attentive to the resilience of “ full From the world. But at least he obliges to take the projects of those who want, in the name of freedom, to end democracy. Better would be worth their ideas to remain at the stadium of utopia.