Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed

by Quinn Slobodian

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ONIX annotations:A New Yorker Most Anticipated Book of the Year A Financial Times Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of the Year A Kirkus Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of Spring 2026 A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the YearA pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal ageEveryone's got an Elon take. He's a messiah. A menace; a genius; a clown. The verdicts differ, but they share one theme: they treat him as an individual.Muskism argues otherwise. show more Elon 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 cars 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 pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary. It speaks of humanity but warns against empathy.Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff cut through the hype and the hate to reveal what Musk really represents: a new political economy, where to be "free" means to serve a Technoking. Muskism isn't about the man. It's about the machine that made him-and the world he's making next. show less

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11 Works 724 Members
Quinn Slobodian is a historian of modern international history who writes for the New York Times, Boston Review, and New Statesman. He is Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College and a recent Weatherhead Initiative on Global History Fellow at Harvard University.

Classifications

Genres
Economics, Sociology, Technology, General Nonfiction, Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, History
DDC/MDS
338.0409Social sciencesEconomicsProductionEntrepreneurshipHistory, geographic treatment, biography
LCC
HC102.5 .M88Social sciencesEconomic history and conditionsEconomic history and conditionsBy region or country
BISAC

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Members
37
Popularity
776,133
Rating
½ (4.50)
Languages
English, German
Media
Paper, Audiobook
ISBNs
3
ASINs
1