Summary
Overview
Canadian historian Quinn Slobodian discusses his book 'Muskism' and explores how Elon Musk represents a new form of political economy combining fortress futurism, white supremacist ideology, and monopolistic tech power. The conversation examines Musk's South African roots, his relationship with the state, the techno-feudalist future these 'techno kings' envision, and potential resistance strategies against concentrated tech power.
History as Politics: Teaching in the Age of Musk
Slobodian reflects on how teaching history has changed, particularly at Boston University where students preparing for international relations careers need reminding of perspectives beyond American empire. The field itself is political—not about objective timelines but understanding why ideas from the 1780s speak differently to us in 2025. Current attacks on universities, especially targeting Harvard, represent attempts to control the production of ruling class ideology, though the intensity has subsided as Trump's attention shifted to immigration.
- History isn't settled facts but constantly rehashed politics—first paper was about whether French revolutionaries were true to Rousseau's ideas
- Teaching global studies students who want Foreign Service jobs requires working against imperial worldview taught in international relations
- Post-2008, universities got more economistic with boards populated by finance people who questioned value of humanities
- Trump targets Harvard because it produces ruling elite and he can only remember couple universities at once
" the politics of the present is the craft of history "
" Nobody knows what the story is right now about what the United States is, even the people whose job it is to tell that story "
From Technocracy to Apartheid: Musk's Ideological Roots
Slobodian traces Musk's ideological inheritance from his grandfather Joshua Haldeman, who led the Technocracy movement in Canada before relocating to apartheid South Africa in 1950. This background shaped a unique political economic model of 'fortress futurism'—combining national self-sufficiency with technological modernization. Unlike traditional racist politics, apartheid South Africa used IBM mainframes and industrial planning to exercise racism more efficiently, creating a template for technologically-enabled authoritarianism that resonates in Musk's current approach.
- Musk's grandfather Joshua Haldeman led Technocracy Incorporated, wanting to dissolve democracy and the market to reorganize North America under engineer rule
- Haldeman moved to South Africa in 1950 right when apartheid began, and later gave interviews expressing anti-Semitic opinions and support for breaking free from multiracial ideas
- Apartheid South Africa built its own industrial base including nuclear programs and auto factories, operating as both globalizing and nationally self-sufficient
- They used IBM mainframes to exercise racism more effectively, tracking black populations and assigning them to labor sites—what the book calls 'Fortress Futurism'
" apartheid, even though we might think of it as like a very backward-looking kind of reactionary politics, which it is, economically was actually a very modernizing project "
" they were operating with what we call in the book Fortress Futurism "
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