Outlaw Capital

Reviews / Votes

Outlaw Capital navigates Ciudad del Este's labyrinthine street economy-its contraband hidden in plain sight-to show how licit and illicit flows of goods become entangled with state power to produce shifting boundaries of (il)legality. This is a first-rate global ethnography that reveals a partially hidden abode of commodity circulation that has become central to capitalist accumulation. -- Nik Theodore * coauthor of Fast Policy: Experimental Statecraft at the Thresholds of Neoliberalism * A story told from the borderlands between Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, Outlaw Capital upends commonsensical notions about capitalism and corruption everywhere. Here is a riveting and beautifully rendered ethnography of contraband trade and the lives of poor, racialized street vendors. It is also an unflinching critique of the powerful politicians and elite financiers who stand most to benefit from economic transgressions and their selective 'whitening' or legalization. A massive contribution to critical corruption studies and the political economy of racial capitalism. -- Malini Ranganathan * coauthor of Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City * With elegant prose and vivid ethnographic detail, Outlaw Capital reveals how the class conflicts at the heart of Paraguay's globalized illicit economies have built nothing less than an entire city. It's a compelling and well-told story. -- Teo Ballve * author of The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia *