Extractive Capitalism

How Commodities and Cronyism Drive the Global Economy

An eye-opening survey of how extractive industries power globalisation - and how to fight back

Whether it's pumping oil, mining resources or shipping commodities across oceans, the global economy runs on extraction. Promises of frictionless trade and lucrative speculation are the hallmarks of our era, but the backbone of globalisation is still low-cost labour and rapacious corporate control. Extractive capitalism is what made - and is still making - our unequal world.

Professor Laleh Khalili reflects on the hidden stories behind late capitalism, from seafarers abandoned on debt-ridden container ships to the nefarious reach of consultancy firms and the cronyism that drives record-breaking profits.

Piercing, wry and constantly revealing, Extractive Capitalism brings vividly to light the dark truths behind the world's most voracious industries.

'Laleh Khalili, once more, describes with great clarity and precision the ways in which capitalism extracts, dispossesses and exploits. She traces the colonial roots of extractive capitalism focusing on two primary commodities, oil and sand, and shows the costs for the planet and the human species. She has an eye for details and anecdotes that illuminate the voracity and brutality of that economy. Essential reading, especially in our current time.' - Françoise Vergès, author, A Decolonial Feminism