When Margaret Thatcher was asked what her party believed, legend has it that she slammed a copy of Friedrich von Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty" down on the table and said, "This is what we believe".  Hayek's name has been invoked by thinkers on the right for decades; however, Slobodian believes that such thinkers are ever more misrepresenting Hayek's views.

What he unveils in this book and this talk, is the ideological basis behind much of the right, alt-right and far-right thinking of recent decades.  The tale is told of how, after the fall of communism, there was no celebration in neo-liberal economics, because they believed that things like a focus on inequality and identity politics had taken the place of overt socialism. Slobodian shows how the economic and social model of the craziness of the Trump and Musk era makes sense, in all of its paucity of humanity and compassion.