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The looting machine

Tom Burgis

368 pages

A sobering, urgent investigation into the systemic exploitation that keeps a resource-rich continent economically precarious.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like having a veil pulled back on the global economy, revealing a stark and sobering reality. The narrative moves at a brisk, urgent pace, driven by a critical and indignant tone that refuses to look away from systemic exploitation. It immerses the reader in a bleak, precarious atmosphere where prosperity is always on the verge of spilling away. The prose is sharp and investigative, anchoring complex economic conditions and political corruption in striking, accessible metaphors. It is an eye-opening experience that traces a journey from conventional assumptions about global development to a profound understanding of the resource curse. This is a must-read for anyone who devours hard-hitting journalism and wants to understand the hidden mechanisms of global inequality.

Mood
  • sobering
  • bleak
  • precarious
  • tense
Tone
  • urgent
  • critical
  • expository
  • indignant
Pace
brisk
Themes
the resource curse · systemic exploitation · political corruption · global inequality · economic precariousness
The writing
The prose is sharp, investigative, and grounded in stark economic realities and striking metaphors.
The arc
The reader moves from a baseline understanding of global economics to a profound, sobering realization of systemic exploitation.
Who it's for
Readers who devour hard-hitting investigative journalism and want to understand the dark underbelly of global economics and resource extraction.
Content notes
  • systemic exploitation
  • political corruption
  • social disintegration

About the book

The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent. In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline. This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different.

Description from Open Library.

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