We often think of the last several decades as a story of increasing connectedness and uniformity of economies across the world, thanks to globalization — a process perhaps delayed or interrupted by political events like the rise of Donald Trump in the United States and the Brexit vote in the UK. But the general course of recent global history has been one of growing economic integration, guided by supranational institutions like the European Union and the World Bank.

In his 2023 book, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, historian Quinn Slobodian argues that the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries have been equally characterized by the growth of subnational special economic zones, in which capitalists and investors are released from the normal constraints imposed by popular sovereignty. The emergence of these zones has happened hand in hand with, and given inspiration to, the development of radically libertarian pro-capitalist ideologies, which have dreamt of doing away with democratic rule altogether in favor of government by private contract.

In an interview for Jacobin Radio podcast the Dig, Daniel Denvir interviewed Slobodian about these zones and the anarcho-capitalists who love them. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.