Contemporary globalized capitalism is a complex phenomenon—and yet, it gives voice to an ancient desire: order, and freedom from others. As with any reductive ideological aspiration, however, this idealized order is usually illusory. As Alkaitis (and his real-life model Bernie Madoff) demonstrates, such an illusion—represented by orderly, quantitative data sets—beguiles both its victims and its perpetrators. In truth, nothing about Alkaitis’s investment scheme made sense. The scheme could have quickly been unmasked as fraudulent, if the characters had been sincerely relational and communicative. Instead, the individuals in The Glass Hotel barely communicate with one another, locked as they are within self-spun “counterlives,” dwelling on past slights or fantastic future projections. With their self-absorption, the characters have time for neither meaningful personal bonds nor scrutiny of their own investments.

Such an atomized society is not a mere symptom of hypercapitalism, but a precondition for it. Despite modern markets’ complex expressions, capitalism has only a few essential truths, most principally: “Buy low, sell high.” Sometimes, this axiom garners a consistent return for an individual—but that individual (such as Alkaitis) may manipulate both knowledge and resources, at others’ expense.

The characters in Mandel’s novel long for a promised freedom from others, and they use art, marriage, or finance to elevate themselves above the fray.