The starting point of our book is trying to take a depersonalized approach to Musk. The thing that you get when you try to step back from the kind of outrageous behavior and statements of the man himself and try to think about him more broadly is that he actually becomes this really powerful teaching tool where from the vantage point of his life and career, racking it over the decades, you can actually tell a different story about the last 40 to 50 years of global capitalism. These different inflection points in political economy and in particular how they stitched together into a kind of ensemble help explain our present moment.

Quinn Slobodian returns with his co-author, Ben Tarnoff, to discuss their just-published book from Harper Collins, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview.

Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon.

Please rate and review This Is Hell! wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show ascend the algorithm to reach new listeners.

Guest

Ben Tarnoff

Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts and is the author of Internet for the People and the co-author of Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do—And How They Do It. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, and has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New Republic, among other publications.

Ben Tarnoff

Guest

Quinn Slobodian

@zeithistoriker

Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University, and the author or editor of seven books translated into ten languages including, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World without Democracy, and Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism.

Quinn Slobodian

Elon Musk Is a Symptom / Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff

Ben Tarnoff

Quinn Slobodian

Neoliberalism Turning To Nature To Defend Inequality / Quinn Slobodian

Chuck has Covid pt. 2: Technoauthoritarian Frontiers / Quinn Slobodian & Greg Grandin

Listener Picks: Peter Thiel's Dream of Capitalism without Democracy / Quinn Slobodian

Peter Thiel's Dream of Capitalism without Democracy / Quinn Slobodian