Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism

by Mike Davis (Editor/Contributor), Daniel Bertrand Monk (Editor/Contributor)

Eclectic thinkers, brought together by the bestselling author of City of Quartz, meditate on future worlds being created by unfettered capitalism.

"Not content with existing offshore tax shelters, multi-millionaires and property developers have aspired to build their own....To defeat the predatory outreach of nations and tides, it is clearly not enough to be offshore: true freedom floats."--from "Floating Utopias" by China Mieville

Evil Paradises, edited by Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk, is a global guidebook to phantasmagoric but real places--alternate realities being constructed as "utopias" in a capitalist era unfettered by unions and state regulation. These developments--in cities, deserts, and in the middle of the sea--are worlds where consumption and inequality surpass our worst nightmares.

Although they read like science fiction, the case studies are shockingly real. In Dubai, where child slavery existed until very recently, a gilded archipelago of private islands known as "The World" is literally being added to the ocean. In Medellin and Kabul, drug lords--in many ways textbook capitalists--are redefining conspicuous consumption in fortified palaces. In Hong Kong, Cairo, and even the Iranian desert, burgeoning communities of nouveaux riches have taken shelter in fantasy Californias, complete with Mickey Mouse statues, while their maids sleep in rooftop chicken coops. Meanwhile, Ted Turner rides herd over his bison in 2 million acres of "private" parkland.

Davis and Monk have assembled an extraordinary group of urbanists, architects, historians, and visionary thinkers to reflect upon the trajectory of a civilization whose deepest ethos seems to be to consume all the resources of the earth within a single lifetime.

Contributors include: Judit Bodnar, Patrick Bond, Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Teddy Cruz, Mike Davis, Joe Day, Marco d'Eramo, Anthony Fontenot, Marina Forti, Forrest Hylton, Sara Lipton, China Mieville, Don Mitchell, Tim Mitchell, Dan Monk, Dennis Rodgers, Laura Ruggeri, Emir Sader, Rebecca Schoenkopf, Jon Wiener.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Sociology, Theory, Essays, Urban Planning

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Mike Davis was a social commentator, urban theorist, historian, and political activist. He was best known for his investigations of power and social class in his native Southern California. He was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award. He lived in San Diego.

Reviews

[David Dinaburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything is a wreck. Is this even hyperbole anymore? We, as a global society, are constantly piling atop our monocultural hegemony a thick framework overloaded with ever-more-tenuous social constructs—what good were the currently marketable skills of search engine optimization or self-actualized life coaching one hundred years ago? Fifty? Ten? How many thousand unstable technologies do these skills depend upon, and how many more ephemeral, transient, or simply foolish threads can be spun upon our improbable Babel-spire of modernity before it collapses from its own weight.

Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism takes this point and runs it through a scrim of voices, perspectives, and examples that all point to the same thing: society is broken, and getting worse. Trust is proven ever more foolish; populism or ecology are bound up in lobbyist supremacy as much as anything else:

Since natural gas prices have more than quadrupled in the last few years, [Ted] Turner’s New Mexico land is potentially worth more than his media holdings ever were. So in 2004 he signed a deal with El Paso Natural Gas to develop more than 1,000 wells in his wilderness. To help assure the future of natural gas, two of Turner’s charitable foundations fund the Energy Future Coalition, which is lobbying Congress to mandate more smog-reducing vehicles—such as city buses that run on natural gas.

The green-leaf iconography and pleasing homeliness of “natural gas”—signifiers of ecological foresight or pluralistic promise—are still based on money; a wealthy man with connections happens to own a lot of natural gas. Now that resource will be sold as environmental to a society hungry for a veneer of change that doesn’t require any sort of sacrifice—pretty pictures, pretty thoughts, dirty world.

The Metropolis-like phantasmagoria of Dubai’s super-skyscrapers or the Olympic megastructures in Beijing arise from the toil of migrant workers whose own homes are fetid barracks and desolate encampments. In the larger perspective, the bright archipelagos of utopian luxury and “supreme lifestyles” are mere parasites on a “planet of slums.”

The beauty of the American dream is the same self-delusional destruction that traps citizens into voting against or not demonstrating for their current interests: you’re not super-rich yet, but you could be, and won’t those megastructures and tax breaks and supreme lifestyles be glorious once you get yours? That the essence of Neoliberalism—allow all of the rules to be broken in hope that one day you’re in the power position that gets to reap the benefits through connection, deception, or luck.

Nearly the same bug infests libertarianism which:

...by contrast, is a theory of and for those who find it hard to avoid their taxes, who are too small, incompetent, or insufficiently connected to win the Iraq-reconstruction contracts, or otherwise chow at the state trough. In its maundering about a mythical ideal-type capitalism, libertarianism betrays its fear of actually existing capitalism, at which it cannot quite succeed. It is a philosophy of capitalist inadequacy....libertarians are political dissidents only in attenuated and narrowly selfish directions.

A society that allows the winner to take all because each person thinks they have a shot to be the winner is either broken or just plain stupid—if the winner is already taking all, why would they ever unentrench themselves? Why would Ted Turner announce that ripping natural gas out of the earth is just as caustic to the environment as drilling for oil, when he owns a fortune—provided he can “chow at the state trough” —in natural gas? Who gives up a livelihood built around a corrupt system voluntarily?

Lawrence Lessig does. Copyright is a system so paradigmatic to the bloat and corruption that even as the preeminent copyright attorney in the country, Lawrence Lessig threw up his hands and walked away. His life now is advocating the removal of money from politics. It’s a crushing indictment of the entire system, akin to the finest sushi chef in the world shuttering his or her restaurant—in recognition of the deleterious effects of overfishing—to found a reform movement showcasing the environmental benefits of veganism. It is Ted Turner saying, “Natural Gas is not as clean as our iconography suggests. Go bike more.” I am always so impressed by Mr. Lessig’s ability to give up all the trappings of success and prestige to do what he felt was needed. Read How to Fix Copyright. Then read So Damn Much Money. Then go protest. Or cry. Or both. Everything is so broken.

It isn’t simply government corruption or high-ideal social justice that is being obliterated by the steady encroachment of neoliberalism:

In fact, looking back, the brief dominance of MTV in the 1990s might be seen as a sort of pop rendition of the then (and still now) triumphant “no alternative” economics of neoliberalism, all outsides being subsumed into the “flat world” logic of market globalization, whether they were geopolitical, economic, or pop cultural.

There isn’t anything but mainstream any longer—fragmented, sure—no way to truly live outside of the system since the system encompasses everything. The whole of the western social world has been connected; even if you are “off” facebook or twitter like you might not have “been into” Nirvana, you’re still living in a society in which each nightly news program requests tweets, each article has a comments section, and each autonomous adult is available to contact invariably:

Why must one travel hours in the car and spend days away from home to escape gadgets that are entirely under our own control? The answer, of course, is that they are not. Information technology is central to contemporary society; integral to the goal of providing the “comfortable and “safe” family that is our society’s primary social value. Without e-mail, Internet, and telephone, few of us could teach our classes, do our homework, write our reports, plan our meetings, contact our customers, track our assets, pay our bills, or, for that matter, reach our friends and family.

We bring the globalized world and its expanded work demands into our family homes well beyond work hours so as to be able to pay for those homes and yet still be “with” those families. The price we pay for our affluence-through-unfettered exchange is allowing the outside world unfettered access into our lives. And, in turn, televisions and ever more elaborate media centers that generate still more noise have become the primary means by which our hard-acquired wealth is displayed, and through which it is enjoyed.

The prevailing zeitgeist seems to be one of increased interdependence; interconnectedness; surveillance. Why—in our digital age: where intrusive police-state tactics such as unmanned aerial drones and NSA eavesdropping via planned backdoors—are we, the voting public, slathering over the concept of putting constant video recording devices on police officers? What happened to the rights carved out by the Handschu Agreement?

None of the answers to these questions will be found in Evil Paradises, which is not new text; it just feels like it.

[DoctorM · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of essays is a clear example of how good ideas can fail to work out in practice. The idea of studying "evil paradises" and "dreamworlds"--- the enclaves and enclosures of kleptocrats and the hidden rich, the theme-park gated communities of the new rich ---is fascinating. And some of the essays here--- on Hong Kong and Cairo ---are well-done, as is the essay on post-cartel Medellin and the account of upscale developments in Iran. China Mieville has a wonderfully snarky takedown of the libertarian idea of a "Freedom Ship" seaborne Randite community. But Daniel Monk seems to have insisted that the articles all be about the evils of "neo-liberalism", which remains maddeningly undefined--- and many of the authors just toss the term in as an afterthought or just as a way to meet the editorial insistence. A couple of the articles--- the unfocused, pointless essay on post-2001 Kabul and an article on "swarm theory" in modern military strategy which manages to be both factually wrong, poorly researched, bad history, and unconnected to the rest of the book ---don't belong here at all.

Peter York's "Dictator Style" covered much of this ground here a decade ago--- and with more wit. One can commend Monk for including a handful of well-done articles about the ecological and political effects of gated communities...and throw up one's hands at all the missed opportunities here.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dystopias aren't just for SciFi. The rich get richer. The poor get hassled. But you knew that, didn't you?

I picked this up because it has an essay by China Miéville about various peoples plans for floating utopian cities free from the laws of the land. I thought he'd have particularly interesting things to say because he has an interesting floating pirate city in The Scar. But I didn't find his essay very enlightening.

Many of these essays are about various ways that the rich or elite segregate themselves into clean and shiny enclaves while the poor and other undesirables are left out. It isn't just private gated communities. Many world cities that are supposedly for everyone are built with the needs of the rich put above everyone else. Many interesting examples, but most of the essays are pretty dry.

I want to think of these practices as evil. But visiting the big city last night on the subway I, myself, can't help but think "I wish I didn't have to see that, and I wish that person weren't sitting so close, and I wish I didn't have to put up with that noise." We are all complicit.

This was published before the 2008 stock market crash. It would be interesting to see what happened afterwards in some of these places.

[Tamara]

Too much economics, not enough geography.

Perhaps because I'm pretty much the choir here, there's nothing terribly interesting in explaining that neoliberalism is a thing which is and which is not nice. This we know. I was hoping for more of an exploration of the actual spaces created, not just the fact of their existence and the ideology behind it. How do these places function? What tools, designs, aesthetics do they use to maintain themselves, and why? What story are they telling the people inside them? The people outside them? What can they tell us about the logic and worldviews of the people who created them? Why are they so often so fucking ugly?

Some of the articles touch on this, but often quickly dodge away again. The best, in this sense, is probably the article on Managua, which discussed the exclusionary functions of that cities new roads. Most of the rest were largely descriptive, showing how capitalism created this or that gated community and what's wrong with it, but not really saying much beyond. The essays were often fun reading (and short,) since describing someone else's appalling taste with one's best acidic quips is a happy sort of thing to do, but still left me wanting a deeper, perhaps bolder, investigation of this issue, that would pay more attention to culture, aesthetics and space itself, and less to the predictable effects of IMF policy.

[Lars Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love reading about the evils of neoliberalism, and I'm attracted to the notion that architecture reflects the ideology that commissions / produces it...so this book should have been right up my street. Sadly, it proved to be a real disappointment. While each of the essays focused on one or another aspect of international dysfunctional neoliberalism, the corrupting influence of this ideology on the built environment was often tacked on as an afterthought. A few essays failed to mention it at all.

It wasn't all bad - the penultimate essay, 'Floating Utopias' by China Miéville stood out, and if the book had ended at that I probably would have been charitably minded to award a generous three stars. But the whole thing was ruined by the final essay, a wantonly pretentious piece of deconstructivist guff about...who knows...a real throw-the-book-on-the-floor ending, hence the two stars. Sorry.

[Edward · Rating 2 out of 5]

The style of writing by many of the contributors takes some getting used to if you’re not familiar with the approaches and language of cultural criticism. Sociologist, psychologists, and cultural theorists of the French Left are quoted often. With the exception of the first three essays, the approaches to the subject are theoretical/philosophical speculations and are at odds with hard facts. The language and style lends itself a theoretical aridness in a fair number of the essays and in some there is an underlying tone of animosity towards those possessing wealth. One has second thoughts as to whether the message being delivered is a consequence of analysis or ideology. However, sufficient evidence is provided to conclude that the evils of neoliberalism are convoluted with a desire to create urban enclaves for those who can afford it but at the expense of the underclass. This disparity is significantly more pronounced in third world countries not having democratic protections. In turn the segregation of communities within the urban environment contributes to a dehumanizing effect on society.

The aspect of politics comingled with crime is brought into the picture with a discussion of the socio-political dynamics in countries where corruption can operate with an unfettered hand. One particularly good example of this situation is Columbian narco-terrorism coincident with neoliberalism in the power struggles of the 1980s & 90s. The breakdown in the static social and economic structure was precipitated by a breakdown in export markets and an unwillingness to share the economic and social benefits with those whose labor was used in obtaining them. Even though specific effects on architecture or urban segregation are not discussed for this case, such examples are provided for major cities in other countries.

One essay provides an interesting reflection on museums but has little if no relevance to the evils of neoliberalism and its impact on the urban structure while another essay discuses floating utopias and raises some interesting points concerning Libertarianism. However, the generous use of hyperbole by the author of the latter, albeit making for colorful verbiage, actually weakens his conclusions which otherwise may have had some validity.

A few of the essays seemed not to fit with the book's theme such as an obvious Leftist screed against The Housewives of Orange County and the final essay trying to make some obscure point concerning swarm theory but failed because it had no thesis or conclusion.

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book of wildly uneven essays. While the first and last were filled with academese--and barely penetrable--they contrasted with the breeziness of one on "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

And I'm not sure what any of the them really revealed. "Evil Paradises" are those almost theme park-like communities the rich build for themselves at the expense of the poor. Well, OK. While I did learn about things going on in Nicaragua, Columbia, and South Africa of which I was unaware (Medellin, for instance, has been transformed since its infamous drug cartel days), all that was illustrated is that the wealthy will glory in their wealth by what they build for themselves and its inevitably at the expense of the poor. But I knew that already. The book was condemnatory of conditions, but what are we to do about them?

One or two essays I thought were a stretch. For instance, one focused on Ted Turner's buying up huge tracts of land in Montana and New Mexico. But with the land being private, somebody was going to own it. Other than the fact that a couple of his neighbors reporting they couldn't now access their own properties (note: they are landowners, too), there wasn't much indication that Turner was a particularly poor steward of the land. In fact, on the scale of things, he might be better than most. Certainly, it would be nice if more land were put into public trust, but that's not going to happen.

The essay I probably liked best was something of an outlier among the others. It's subject was how materially-minded people were taking advantage of religious retreat centers to gain the benefits of their peace and silence, but it being to no nobler end than fortifying themselves for investing themselves in more materially-minded activities. It was the consideration of "retreat" as an activity without any true spiritual or community component--quite the opposite of retreat centers' purpose. But here again, a little more analysis would have been helpful. Why is this now happening? My own experience with retreat centers from some years ago was that, while they never obligated any retreatants to participate in community life, they were intentional in inviting it. Is that not happening anymore? If not, is it because those running retreat centers have themselves become so materially-minded that they've lowered their standards just to get people in to pay the bills? Or are the invitations still made, but those now coming to the centers are just so callous and egocentric they don't care? I would have liked to know more.

[Sheehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I was expecting something a bit different, all Mike Davis...

So when I got a bunch of folks I was suspect and a bit underwhelmed by some of the articles, but generally engaged by the majority...

I would say the first half of the articles about various regional specificities and oddities was the most interesting and informative, but the whole set starts to taper off after the discussions of Sun City and retirement communities...Thereafter I was a bit bored or confused by folks who really wanted me to know they know their critical theory...I'm over it.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be read with Philip Glass music. This is the gritty world underneath the glitzy tourist brochures. The section on Colombia is very telling and can be an archetype of how states will eventually deal with its masses of unemployed young males. The growth of transnational urban centers of power echoes something Niall Ferguson said about a new Dark Age: fortress cities of the affluent in a sea of poverty and tribalism.

[Armand · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great premise, interesting ideas.. Incredibly boring book.

[Michael Brown]

Should be read alongside the much later Crack-up Capitalism by the excellent Quinn Slobodian.

[Isaac Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed reading this collection of essays, as diverse and expansive as the individual parts may be. I agree with some earlier reviews that the focus is more on the larger sociopolitical and economic trends that can be gleaned from observing these “evil paradises” as opposed to a dissection of how these places operate. More big picture stuff, less nuts and bolts, and I wanted a bit more of the latter. Some of the essays are stronger than others, of course, and, of course, Mike Davis’ essay on Dubai is one of the best in the bunch. The book really slows down near the end, especially with the essays “Hubrispace” and “Monastery Chic” (the only two that I had to skip out of desperate boredom). The final piece by the other editor is tacked on and makes no sense in relation to the other essays. I found it kind of funny (and perhaps a bit self-promoting) that other writers refer back to Davis’ work in their own essays. It’s definitely a “Davis studies” kind of book, as another review quipped, but that’s always a good thing. A broader introduction to Davis’ general approach, and I’d recommend it to any interested left-leaning observer, anyone skeptical of the role of private corporate power, or anyone who gives a shit about the way we’re paving the planet over and destroying all that makes it beautiful.

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneven collection of essays doing what I will call "Davis Studies" - examinations of the undersides of late capitalist urban spaces and cities. It's no great surprise that Mike Davis' own essay on Dubai is the standout of this book - applying the same intellectual rigor to "Dubaism" as he applied to Los Angeles in the brillant "City of Quartz," he shows us how that city works, why it works and what lessons it teaches people concerned about social justice in the 21st century. I was delighted to encounter an essay from China Mieville in the collection. A wicked and funny takedown of faux libertarianism assessing the ludicrous "Freedom Ship" project and other sea-based tax haven, anti-statist dodges, Mieville's essay skewers the "Pinochets of Penzance" with alacrity.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starting off with a series of essays about the primary or side effects of "NeoLiberalism" (a term, admittedly I wasn't familiar with yet if this book is any indication it must be as common as the phrase "Global Warming") in sundry distant nations, it seems to break down a bit around the second half when the essays pin-point specific western (and mostly US) things like cruise ships, military strategy theory, mega-malls (what is it with Italian scholars and malls?), and, God forbid, some damned reality show based on a gated community, Orange County, and whatever other hackneyed suburban crap I could care less about. Nonetheless, a decent read generally.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far this book is very interesting. It's a compilation of essays about neoliberal paradises around the world, so there's some unevenness to the writing, but it's quite informative if you're curious about how the world's elite really live. For example, did you know it's common to have your illegal Filipino maid sleep in a chicken coop on your roof in gated Chinese suburbs? I mean, what's wrong with that, right?

[L L · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of essays on the urban and spatial developments of the wealthy in the world. I have read about half the essays-- most of them elucidate not just the stark contrast between the rich and the poor, but also the economic, social, environmental and moral cost of these “dreamworlds” to the poor and to humanity.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book and definitely worth a read (despite the three stars I'd recommend it to almost everyone I know), but written with a very strong slant and requires a lot of additional research for proper contextualization and understanding. If you have even the slightest bit of fiscal conservatism in you, this book will raise your ire (and that's coming from a pretty liberal reviewer).

[Jacob Vigil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love love love Mike Davis. This book explores the excesses and absurdities of modern hyper-capitalism. The plutocratic playgrounds and urban fortresses of the super-rich in a world of unimaginable inequality.

[Jamil · Rating 3 out of 5]

i hear this is how the world ends.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a collection of essays by different people, so it's uneven -- but the high points are very high.

[Laura]

so far, it's awesome.

[Scott Neigh]

Reviewed here.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

Only picked this up from the library because China Miéville was a contributor. Was hoping for something more fun and less academic.

[Max]

I thought this would be more readable to the laywoman and was a little glazed over for a lot of it