14.03.2026
Muskism: Playbook for a Postliberal Age
with Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff
On Saturday March 14 2026 we welcomed two incisive thinkers on technology, capitalism, political imagination and the rise of the populist right: Quinn Slobodian (Crack-Up Capitalism, Hayek’s Bastards) and Ben Tarnoff (Internet for the People, Voices from the Valley). Together, they unpacked their new book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. In this highly anticipated work they examined Elon Musk not as an individual, but as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal age. Musk isn’t a glitch in the system—he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self-reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.
If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty-first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His rockets run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us. Muskism sells itself as the future, but entrenches age-old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It’s libertarian but state-fed, pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary.
Participants
-
Quinn Slobodian
Quinn Slobodian is Professor of International History at Boston University. His previous books include ‘Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism’, ‘Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy’ and ‘Hayek’s Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right’. In 2024 he was named one of the world’s 25 top thinkers by Prospect Magazine.
-
Ben Tarnoff
Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts. He is the author of ‘Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future’ and co-author of ‘Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do – And How They Do It’.
-
Nuria Ribas Costa
Nuria Ribas Costa is a Spanish Journalist and Jurist based between Rotterdam and Ibiza, her homeland. Formerly at OMA, she currently works as an independent researcher and policy analyst in the fields of urbanism and culture. She is part of urbanism agency Humankind, research group Vigla, the Center for Music Ecosystems and De Dépendance. She is interested in the relationships rural-urban, the politics of space and land and intersectionality in urbanism.
Discover
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
12.02.2026
Finitude Capitalism: Neoliberalism’s Predatory Turn
with Arnaud Orain & Caroline de Gruyter