Commodifying Plunder

Does economic expansion bring commerceand violence, pillage and genocide to less wealthy countries?Contemporary corporations andtheir owners - equipped with wealth, influence, and empowered by dominantstates and global institutions - embody old-style colonial ruthlessness in newforms. Violence riddles global production, through routinised sweatshop labour,environmental degradation, resource grabs, lost livelihoods - behind a veil of'development' and 'civilised' progress.Strip away overt violence,and contemporary trade is still plunder, just neatly commodified and concealed.Lengthy and complex supply chains obscure the conditions in which products aremade. International trade brings income inequality. Labour's share of wealthdeclines. Few of us would steal food from a starving three-year-old or abduct amother to exploit her, and yet our everyday participation in the economy hasthe same effect. This book explains basic concepts of Marxist economic theory.It seeks to be a resource for scholars and activists - accessible whilepreserving depth, serious but not opaque. It has a simple message: This systemdoes not end well unless we end it.