Tom Burgis' "The Looting Machine: Exploring the Exploitation of Africa's Wealth by Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, and Smugglers"

Captain K: This dense and massively researched account by a British financial journalist may be a bit out of date but I see no reason to think matters have gotten any better. A common theme is what Burgis calls "the resource curse," fabulous riches found inside desperately poor and usually dysfunctional former colonies. Without a democratic tradition having been instilled prior to independence, they fall prey to strongmen wooed by often shadowy corporations and billionaires. The solution is definitely NOT Marxism; indeed, the Chinese may be among the worst offenders. But not the only ones. Not a light or happy read and one that does not suggest any improvements will ever occur.

United States on Jul 27, 2023

William Clements: Great book, accurate history.

Canada on Jul 01, 2023

Mason: It was as described and informal, this author defiantly wrote a good book.

Canada on Jul 30, 2021

The g Factor: It appears a lot of research went into the writing of this book and it gives us insight into why many Africans are mired in poverty while the continent has enormous mineral wealth.

Australia on Nov 30, 2020

Brownie: Interesting book.

Canada on Oct 01, 2020

Vuthy Chrun: Systematic looting, ethnic conflicts, corruption and patronage is the curse of the sub-Saharan continent.

This excellent book tells the stories of how natural resource-rich sub-Saharan countries are being systematically looted by their kleptocrats, ruling classes, and beyond all foreign companies and some unscrupulous individuals. This book is the result of investigative journalism at its finest, and the product of a scrupulous analysis. I highly commend the author for being so courageous and having produced such a revealing book. A must-read book for anyone who wants to understand why, since the colonization by Western powers, the sub-Saharan continent has been watching the rest of the world marching on the path of progress and prosperity while it remains stuck conflicts and problems of all sorts.

I highly recommend this must-read book, along with the other excellent book titled China's Second Continent by Howard W. french.

After having read this book, one can only come to the conclusion that black Africa, with its states artificially created by Britain, France and Portugal, and rotten with ethnic conflicts and corruption, will continue to be poor for the...

Canada on Jan 25, 2016

Serge J. Van Steenkiste: Tom Burgis thoroughly describes how the Dutch disease or resource curse has undermined many Africa’s “resource-rich” countries that often are disproportionately dependent on the extraction and export of oil, gas, and minerals for their revenue mix. Mr. Burgis adds that both corruption and ethnic violence can compound the misery that the Dutch disease generates in these “resource-rich” countries.

In a nutshell, the resource curse sets in a cycle of economic addiction through an upward revaluation of the currency in “resource-rich” countries. The decay of the local manufacturing and agriculture sectors that results from their non-competitiveness in the global economy increases the dependency of the “addicted” countries on natural resources. The well-connected local elite monopolizes the “economic rent” that the resources business generates, creating an apartheid between them and the rest of the population. This looting machine cannot work properly without the well-understood complicity of foreign governments and companies eager to put their hands on this bounty, preferably on the cheap. China has not many lessons of morality to receive from the West that...

United States on May 16, 2015

Kevin M Quigg: Many people wonder why African countries have stayed poor, after the rest of the world has become more economically viable. The answer is that Western and now Chinese companies are looting Africa of their natural resources. The looting takes place with African allies in the countries. Nigerian and Angolan authorities help the West and the Chinese with their oil needs for huge kickbacks that disappear into far away banks, while the average Nigerian and Angolan subsist on less and less money. To make matters worse, the Chinese steal the clothing market away from Nigerians with their clothing smuggled into Nigeria, destroying a market where the local population made a living. In Ghana, an American company pays a fraction of the profits to the local government after mining gold. The company poisons the environment and the local population gets no benefits except poisoned fish. In the DRC, the Kabila dynasty replaced Mobutu, and now mines lots of materials (bauxite, tantalum) but the local population gets guns to settle ethnic rivalries. The ethnic rivalries are just gangs wanting a piece of the action so that they can make their money. Western and Chinese companies loot the continent...

United States on May 10, 2015

Peter J. Piaseckyj: The author deserves 5 stars for this expose, but unfortunately his skills as a writer are not up to it.

The information about the looting of Africa reads like a prosecutor’s brief. The information is invaluable to our Security Services, our Security and Exchange Commission, the FBI and all other law enforcement agencies in the world, but for a general well read reader this book is a chore.

Having said the above, it is a chore which every citizen in the world must do!

A comparable expose book that was reader friendly was Chrystia Freeland’s, “Plutocrats”.

One of the theses of Tom Burgis’s is the concept of the system of looting. This is universal. All the people involved in the looting are your next door neighbors. As Hannah Arendt, years ago wrote about Otto Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, where she described in her book “the banality of evil”!

This is profound, for example not only in Africa but in Russia, China and many other countries of the world.

I grew up in the inner city of New York and my African American friends said that it was the “MAN” that directed the discrimination against them, when I asked them...

United States on Apr 10, 2015