Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market

by Adam Hanieh

A groundbreaking history of oil and it's importance to US politics, finance, militarism and consumerism from an award-winning author and scholar

This expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse', Crude Capitalism uncovers the surprising ways that oil is woven into the fabric of our modern the rise of an American-centered global order; the breakdown of Empire and anti-colonial rebellion; contemporary finance and US dollar hegemony; debt and militarism; and the emergence of new forms of synthetic consumption.

Much more than an energy source or transport fuel, oil has a foundational place in all aspects of contemporary life - no challenge to the fossil fuel industry can be effective without taking this fact seriously. Crude Capitalism maps the varied geographies of oil, including the rise of OPEC, the importance of revolutionary and Post-Soviet Russia, the crucial role of African upstream reserves, and the new petrochemical circuits that link the Middle East, China, and East Asia.

The book provides an original and fine-grained empirical analysis of corporate ownership and control, including refining and petrochemicals. By exposing these structures of power and placing oil in capitalism, the book makes an essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Economics, Environment, Theory

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 17, 2024

Reviews

[Kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

review in Spectre Magazine: https://spectrejournal.com/review-of-...

[Danica Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read. Fantastic, and also the most terrifying book you'll ever read.

[Mack]

Final chapter on climate disaster…….. it’s not looking good for us 🥴

[Patrick Link · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise overview of the history of the oil industry and market from the early twentieth century to today. The emphasis on the development of petrochemicals was new for me and the depth of the commodities involved will require further reading for me but seems like an interesting topic I may pursue. The change of the market to today’s National Oil Companies and the Megamajors and the changes from long term contracts to futures were conveyed with organized precision. This is the first time I’ve heard of blue hydrogen and it comes off as another clean coal. The end on what is to be done is as clear as it is radical.

[Shruti · Rating 5 out of 5]

a fantastic history of the oil industry—I found the arguments lucid, wide-ranging, and very informative. I learned a lot from it, and I particularly appreciate Hanieh's attentiveness to the changing dynamics within the oil industry as well as the growing centrality of the Middle East to financial capitalism and the new East-East hydrocarbon nexus.

[Ruairí]

Clear, concise, interesting and well-organised. Chapter 9 on petrodollars, their recycling and the consequent interdependencies they created in particular stood out. Hanieh touches on financialisation in one of the later chapters, but I think his analysis of petrodollars maybe suggests this isn’t the best framework for understanding the relationship between finance and production.

[K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book that taught me a lot about the centrality of oil to energy production, commodity production, financial markets, and American power.

I read Fire Weather by John Valliant last year, which is where I began to learn about oil, plastic and the effects of their use on the environment. Because I personally find energy policy tedious, I had let myself be a half assed “environmentalist” by thinking that hey, at least I believe in the mortal peril of global warming, unlike half of my fellow Americans. But I realized that I've got to start both learning more and altering my own behavior. I've been making small changes since last January and I've been pleased to find a lot of my goals naturally complement each other, like supporting my local community and being a mindful consumer for environmental reasons. But plastic has remained a vexing problem. I’d like to reduce my use of it, but it’s EVERYWHERE. As the author points out, plastic (and other petrochemicals) are an often unmentioned but major source of fossil fuel demand, and changing our use of plastic is thus a crucial dimension of combating climate change. (If you're interested in learning how oil is processed to make plastic, I found this article, though the end of it features some of the same misguided optimism that this book critiques. And for how oil is made into gasoline, I found this article from EBSCO.)

This book is ambitious in scope. The author seeks to demonstrate that capitalism's inherent drives for profit, growth, and reduced costs are what has made oil so valuable and imbued it with meaning- rather than any natural property of oil itself.

The author explores how American domination of the oil industry fed into its political and military domination on the world stage, as well as the ubiquity of the American dollar in the financial world.

This book also describes the recent ascendancy of national oil companies in oil producing countries, and the shift to an “east-east hydrocarbon axis” that connects the Middle East and East Asia.

The last chapter of the book argues for “ecosocialism,” a mutually reinforcing combination of worldwide expansions to public services and a shift from a disposability culture to one that centers the environment. I agree with the author that these are inseparable goals, but it also puts fear in me to learn how immense the task ahead of us is.

Things I didn't know were made with oil: asphalt, TNT, pesticides, fertilizer, nylon, Teflon, polyester.

It's hard to remember the last time I read a book where I learned so much about the material objects and social systems in my daily life, and was able to specifically connect it to what role my behavior can play in fighting climate change.

5 / 5 stars.

The following is a lot of notes for my own use.

Ch 1-

Oil became the dominant source of energy after World War II in the mid twentieth century, leading to a huge acceleration of carbon emissions- half the world's emissions have occurred since 1980, and ¾ since 1950.

The “spiral of capitalist production” of commodities to be purchased and consumed, goes hand in hand with increasing demand for energy.

Capitalism tends to replace or enhance human labor with machine labor, which in turn increases energy use.

“...the costs…of these fuels become increasingly bound up with the ebbs and flow of capitalist profitability.”

“Capitalism’s tendency to push beyond all limits means that the capacity of natural sinks… to store and recycle the by-products of fossil fuel consumption (primarily carbon) becomes increasingly strained…this dysregulation of the earth’s systems is an inevitable and predictable outcome of the logic of energy use under capitalist accumulation; it is not a product of errant polluters, too many people, or bad consumer choices.”

While coal’s relative share of global fossil fuel consumption has shrunk over the past century, reaching about 33 per cent in 2022 (down from over 85 per cent in 1925) – overall consumption of coal has more than quadrupled since the beginning of the ‘oil age’ in around 1950. Coal makes up only 33% of global energy consumption today, compared to 85%+ in 1925. But world consumption of coal in absolute terms has quadrupled since 1950. The author writes, “The ever-growing demand for energy throughput under capitalism means that so-called energy transitions are best thought of as a process of addition, not displacement or replacement…”

The world's single organization that consumes the most oil is the US military, which also makes them the largest carbon emitter.

During and after the first World War, oil companies were granted ridiculously huge tax credits and rebates, so that the cost of looking for oil was borne more by the American taxpayer than the oil companies themselves.

Ch 3-

The Iraq Petroleum Company, a partnership between British and American oil companies, became able to restrict the flow of oil to its financial benefit. Firms agreed to limit oil production and transport in a coordinated effort to maximize profits, and America piggybacked on Britain's Middle Eastern colonial empire. By 1938, the top eight firms controlled 50% of oil production, and the top twenty firms controlled 67%.

Ch 4-

The Soviet Union became a major player in the global oil trade in the 1920s. By 1928 oil constituted over a third of the value of Soviet exports, and many Western European countries began importing Russian oil.

US firms also began purchasing shares in Russian oil, seeking control of an oil producing region that could more cheaply supply markets in Asia. American firms began to edge out British ones.

Ch. 5-

In the 1950s and 60s, oil overtook coal to become the most used fossil fuel in the US, Europe and Japan. Oil was used in 3 main ways: for electricity/industry/heating, to power automobiles, and to make petrochemicals like plastic and fertilizer.

The expansion of industry, spurred by new plastic products and cheaper fuel, benefited the US immensely- by 1955 America had 60% of the world's manufacturing output.

After WWII, Western Europe transitioned to primarily using oil over coal, and that oil was mostly purchased from the United States using Marshall Plan funds. To avoid overstraining domestic supply, the US sourced this oil from the Middle East, so that 85% of Europe's oil came from that region by 1960.

As the colonial regimes began to fall apart in the 1950s, Saudi Arabia negotiated to receive 50% of profits from American oil industry activities that took place in its borders. To financially compensate the oil companies for lost revenue, the US government- in a truly extraordinary example of corporate welfare- arranged a scheme whereby tax payments by oil companies to the Saudis could offset taxes owed by those companies to the US government. The American treasury forewent $192 million yearly by 1955, propping up a dictatorial monarchy.

Ch 6-

In 1951, Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, propelled by nationalist protests, attempted to nationalize the foreign owned oil assets within Iran. Following a boycott of Iranian oil and a 99.5% decrease in Iran’s oil exports, Mossadegh was assassinated, and the Pahlavi monarchy was restored as a loyal ally to the US. This represented both a failure of anti-colonialism and a major shift toward American, rather than British, control of Middle Eastern oil reserves and production.

Nationalist movements erupted throughout the Middle East, including in Egypt and Iraq, and Arab states began creating alliances to counter Western power. In 1960, OPEC was created by Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Venezuela, plus 6 more countries added as the decade progressed.

But counter revolutionary rulers returned to power (with US support) in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Indonesia, and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War effectively destroyed the nationalist movement in Egypt. OPEC became a tool for existing elites to enrich themselves further, rather than a means to spread the wealth to the common people of member countries.

Ch 7-

German chemical companies were the industry leaders before WWI, but in 1917 the United States began seizing German assets, including patents. Licenses were granted to American companies to produce these chemicals, and increased demand from the auto industry and the military led to the growth of four major corporations (including Dupont, Dow, and Monsanto).

By the end of WWII, 85% of plastic consumed in the US was made artificially, and the United States went from the world's largest rubber importer to its largest exporter. After Germany's defeat in 1945, the American government cooperated with petrochemical industries to raid German chemical corporations for their research.

Because plastic is made from the byproducts of converting oil into fuel, the manufacturing of material goods essentially became a byproduct of energy production.

Since the manufacture of plastic goods takes so little human input, the growth of petrochemical companies furthered the shift from human labor to machine labor. And because petrochemicals largely replaced natural materials like wood and cotton, there was no longer any limit to the number of commodities produced.

As oil consumption continued to increase dramatically in the 1960s, major US oil firms found themselves with huge cash reserves. They spent much of the money on mergers that further consolidated the oil industry, invested in other industries like gas stations, manufacturing, construction, and petrochemicals.

Ch. 8-

A re-expansion of the Soviet oil industry enabled a resurgence of nationalism in oil producing states. In 1969, Libya- which had become OPEC's fourth largest producer- nationalized its oil concessions, leading to a chain reaction of increasingly favorable terms for oil producing countries. The large American firms lost their ability to control the amount of oil produced.

Since 1944 the US dollar had been used as the main international currency, using a gold standard. Other countries then tended to hoard American dollars, and could demand their value in gold, but the US was overextended and could not honor all those claims. In an attempt to forestall financial disaster, Nixon canceled the gold standard in 1971.

With most oil sales conducted in American dollars, the value of oil producing countries’ holdings began to drop. In 1973-1974 OPEC instituted increased taxes on oil exported from member countries, so the posted price became six times higher, and this was passed on to American consumers in the form of higher prices. However, oil companies actually benefited from the situation- through a series of maneuvers, the profit of foreign oil companies operating in the Middle East tripled after 1973.

Ch. 9-

Through the 1970s, the share of international oil reserves held by Western companies continued to decline, and oil producing countries with growing pools of “petrodollars” sought to invest in Western markets. This led to a major shift in the structure of the finance industry, and a growing interdependence of American and Middle Eastern economies that helped prop up monarchs viewed as Western pawns by nationalist movements.

By 1975, all OPEC members agreed to trade for oil only using American dollars, and the share of oil reserves held in dollars increased from 57% in 1973 to 93% in 1978. Because dollars were required to participate in the oil trade, other countries increased the size of their dollar reserves, cementing the dollar as the international currency of trade.

Further contributing to the internationalization of finance were the “Euromarkets.” The author explains that these markets had “little government oversight, they allowed companies to borrow cheaply, eliminate exchange and transaction costs, and coordinate their global activities across a variety of markets, currencies, and interest rates…Credit supplied in the Euromarkets helped fuel the cross-border activities of such firms seeking to expand their overseas operations…”

Impoverished non-oil producing countries also turned to the Euromarkets, where commercial banks provided 50% of the loans to developing countries by 1979. In 1980, when the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates to 20% in an attempt to halt inflation, the indebtedness of those countries rose dramatically. In exchange for debt relief, developing countries were forced to adopt IMF and World Bank mandated reforms such as trade liberalization and cutbacks to social spending. The author writes, “Debt was thus the weapon used to compel poorer countries to open their industrial, financial, and commercial sectors to international capital.”

Following the Volcker shock of 1980, economic recession led to a staggering drop of 15% in oil demand, and increased oil production from Mexico and the UK led to greater supply. The integrated channels of major oil firms became less central to the oil trade, as commodity trading firms used spot markets rather than long term contracts to trade.

“...the 1985–86 price countershock marked the final denouement for the system of administered prices that had been in place since the early twentieth century…a new market-based system of oil pricing would emerge by 1988. In this system…the reference price of oil would be linked to the price of futures contracts. Tied in this way to the trade of so-called paper barrels, oil was transformed into a financial asset that could be bought and sold regardless of physical
consumption. In subsequent decades, this would open up oil as a prime target for speculative capital flows - a feature of the markets that continues through to the current day.”

Ch. 10-

The oil shock of the mid to late 80s made it more difficult for the Soviet Union to import essential goods like machinery and grain, contributing to the collapse of the USSR.

But during the semi-privatization of the oil industry that followed in the 90s, politicians-turned-tycoons became massively wealthy through a variety of financial maneuvers and crimes.

“...beyond the continued presence of private capital in the oil industry itself, the accumulation of Russian capital in general remains heavily and directly tied to the production and export of oil. All of this illustrates why it is a mistake to counterpose the state and the market as two
separate and antithetical spheres of economic activity. Oil remains the nexus that mutually binds the growth of Russia's billionaire class and the repressive, authoritarian state that Putin has built.”

Ch. 11-

Between the late 70s and the late 00s, major state owned oil firms in western Europe and Canada were privatized, through stock exchanges rather than direct sales. The scale of international investment in oil companies (among other industries) increased, so that by the early 2000s, a third of European stock market assets were foreign owned.

The 00s marked a period of “financialization,” where firms shifted to obtaining funds through stock exchanges rather than bank loans, forcing these companies to be beholden to the short term interests of their shareholders rather than pursuing any other strategy.

This led to share buybacks, the firing of an astounding 60% of oil industry employees from 1980-1997, and a wave of cost reducing mergers. By the early 2000s, the seven mega firms we know today had emerged (ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, ENI, TotalEnergies, and ConocoPhilips). These firms began rebranding themselves as energy companies rather than oil companies, both to profit in expanding markets for natural gas and to whitewash their involvement in the climate crisis.

Oil production on the African continent, especially in Nigeria and Angola, also expanded in the 00s. The weakness and poverty of African states enabled oil firms to get contracts with amazing terms from corrupt government officials. The people at large did not benefit from the wealth hoarded and stolen by elites, and environmental degradation continues to run rampant today.

Ch. 12-

Since 2000, the oil industry has been marked by the growth of national oil companies (NOCs) in countries including Saudi Arabia and China, which operate in a centralized fashion like the former Seven Sisters and contract with many private interests. China is now the center of an East Asian oil refining network, and as Asia industrialized, their energy consumption expanded dramatically- by 2019, Asia consumed one third of the world’s oil.

Oil prices rose from 2000-2014, incentivizing the expansion of costly methods of oil production like fracking, which require higher prices and higher profit to be worth the cost of exploration and extraction. America surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer thanks to this growth of shale oil production in the US.

About ¾ of the shares of the most valuable US oil companies are owned by financial capital like investment banks and asset managers. As the author points out, this implicates a far greater share of American wealth in the global climate crisis than just the oil firms themselves.

Today, most oil production and exports in North America remain in the US-Canada-Mexico region, but the Middle East and East Asia are increasingly linked. By 2022, two thirds of Middle Eastern oil exports were sent to China. Also by 2022, Asia held ⅓ of the world's oil refining capacity, and it has become the new center of petrochemical production and consumption.

The “East-East” axis of oil production has seen an increasing number of investments made in China by Middle Eastern oil interests, and vice versa. In early 2018, China launched an oil futures exchange based on their own currency rather than the US dollar, and though it remains small in absolute terms compared to NYMEX and ICE, it is now the third largest oil exchange in the world.

Though the pandemic in 2020 witnessed a brief reduction in oil demand and drop in prices, a surge began in 2021; oil companies earned their highest profits ever.

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely formative. Everyone must read ASAP

[Filip Mehler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bra sammanfattning. Tas en hel del beklagliga beslut i den här historien....

[Tana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A VERY short summery to what this book has to offer (there's loads more but just giving a flavour).

Chapter 1: Approaching Oil
The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme warned that the climate has never experienced a change as has occurred since modern industrialization.

Capitalisms aim of accumulating more into fewer and fewer hands has exploited people (labour) and nature (using machines to replace labour and thus requiring energy via oil/coal etc) to use those machines.

The Soviet Union was the first type of "OPEC". Baku used to be the oil capital of the world prior to the creation of the Soviet Union.

Brief history of the progress if western energy transition from wind/water to coal and then oil.

Chapter 2: Petro Power: The Rise of the Oil Industry
Brief history on Colonel Drake who in 1859 drilled the first successful American oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

Introduction to the "Seven Sisters": Anglo-Persian Oil Company (a predecessor of BP), Shell plc, three of Chevron's predecessors (Standard Oil of California, Gulf Oil and Texaco), and two of ExxonMobil's predecessors (Jersey Standard and Standard Oil of New York).

Rule of Capture, where oil was dug & captured that's where legal ownership is determined (legally binding due to disputes on oil ownership because oil moves).

Standard Oil was established in 1870 Ohio by John D Rockerfeller and Henry Flager. The company became successful by buying the infrastructure of that goes into extracting oil and moving it around rather than just land where oil appears. In 1879 Standard Oil created a Trust, which turned the company into one of the most powerful by centralising all the affiliated companies into one entity. Other industries followed a similar model, leading to 24 trusts controlling all major sectors in the US by 1890. This led the US Congress to pass the The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, making it illegal to "restrain trade", prevent monopolies and allow free competition.

Standard Oil was dissolved, four companies spun out of the Trust:
1. Standard Oil New Jersey aka SONJ: now Exxon
2. Standard Oil Company of New York: now Mobil
3. Standard Oil Company of California: now Chevron, the second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil
4. Standard Oil of Indiana: merged with BP

The first target of US oil expansion was in Latin America. Juan Vicente Gómez Chacón leader of Venezuela made it a point to have Venezuelan oil to be refined outside of the country to avoid a large Venezuelan workforce who would demand some rights to the proceeds. He seems like a scumbag who took the profits for himself and his associates. The US didn't bother to discourage this illegal and poor behavior. Very short-sighted. Anyway long story short the oil was refined in the Dutch Carribean islands by Exxon, Gulf Oil and Shell.

Chapter 3: The Middle East and the Seven Sisters
Companies began moving into the Middle East e.g. into Iraq with the help of the colonial master (the UK). US & European oil companies dominated the global oil production by the 1930s.

Chapter 4: A Russian Interlude: From Baku to the Bolsheviks
Baku was a global oil power but workers revolted, which led to the oil production becoming nationalised once the Soviets had victory over the caucus.

European oil companies refused to sell Russian/Soviet oil because they considered it "stolen property" by the European business communities such as Henri Wilhelm August Deterding (Royal Dutch Shell chairman) who was also a known Nazi supporter. Subsequently the US was able to infiltrate international markets that were once dominated by Europeans because the US had no problem selling Russian/Soviet oil.

Chapter 5: Post-War Transition I: Europe's Shift to Oil
Post-war reconstruction fueled Europe's shift to oil. The UK's Stirling (currency) declined during this period. Middle eastern monarchies had kept their oil wealth in British Banks thus preserving the Stirling global dominance. many countries were pushing for 50/50 oil ownership (national & private) starting with Venezuela.

Chapter 6: Post-War Transition II: Anti-colonial Revolt and OPEC
OPEC was created as an anti-colonial backlash and gave oil producing countries leverage.

Chapter 7: Petrochemicals and the Emergence of a Synthetic World
Oil production led to further creation of products e.g. Synthetic products such as rubber. The story of rubber illustrates the impact of that petrochemical would have on the American capitalism and the oil industry. By 1950 half of the US output of organic chemicals would be from petrochemicals.

Chapter 8: A Moment of Rupture: Myths and Consequences of the First Oil Shock
Oil price shocks 1973-4 crises and second price spike of 1979-80 following the Islamic Revolution of Iran. Saudi surplus fortified dollar hegemony (PetroDollar).

Chapter 9: US Power, and Global Finance
Volcker shock (Paul Volcker) chair of the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve decided to raise US interest rates to more than 20% devastating impact on poorer oil importing countries.

Chapter 10: Oil and Capital in the Post-Soviet Russia
Soviet Union weakened the Seven Sisters to set Oil prices & control. This led to oil nationalism and OPEC. The CIA 1977 wrongly predicted Russian oil decline. Eastern Europe were largely insulated from 1970s price shocks due to oil subsidies. 1986 price collapse had a big impact on the Soviet Union that was funded by oil. Gorbachev launched a series of market mechanisms and political changes in 1987, including in 1989 of demanding hard currency for oil and no oil subsidies, which helped collapsed the Soviet Union as these allied countries were already in debt. Lots of new oil traders resulted who sold oil abroad and became rich e.g. Gennady Timchenko by creating schemes with foreign oil services. 1988 financial crisis hit Russia, outside of the few billionaires. The rise of Putin and Rosneft, Putin's main challenge was to set up basic state functions e.g. tax collection, economic management etc. Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrested for embezzlement. Once the richest man in Russia. Rosneft, a small state controlled oil company took over the assets of Yukos once dismantled instead of it being sold to other private companies. This helped the government's finances, while still allowing private companies. National Oil Companies (NOC) can help fund state owned initiatives in China, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Chapter 11: A Sorority Reborn: The Western Supermajors, 1990-2005
Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa who tried to fight the Nigerian government and Shell who exploited the Ogoni people, said "For a multinational oil company , Shell, to take over US 30 billion from the small Ogoni people," 1995

"Nigeria was poor despite being Africa's leading oil producer. It has many developmental issues," Shell 1998.

1970s UK winter of discontent, leading to the privatizing companies in 1970s, selling to the internal stock market as the cost was too much for domestic buyers to fund oil exploration in remote areas in the artic.

1990s and 2000s many oil companies would call themselves energy companies over oil because they began selling LNG.

Chapter 12: NOCs and the New East-East Hydrocarbon Axis
Saudi Oil.

Chapter 13: Confronting the Climate Emergency

[OneDimensionalMan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked
- Does a great job of showing from a fairly orthodox Marxist perspective how we misunderstand both the nature of oil and the history of carbon extraction. Never rosy eyed, the pessimistic account does a good job of emphasising the autonomy of OPEC countries, and the importance of oil to the social transformation of the 20th century (although excluding China, which would be interesting to think about.) Oil as a holistic product is the focus here, paints and chemicals every bit as important as fuels. But the deeper question, the fetish quality of oil itself is also rightly brought to the fore. Hanieh convincingly argues that we need to return to Marx to understand our confusion. Thinking about oil as something that has inherent value, rather than a step in the valorisation process creates philosophical and tactical problems if we want to change course from the worst of climate collapse - although the book doesn't leave one hopeful that this will happen.
- There is a nice line from Tim Mitchell's Carbon Democracy - Malm's Fossil Capitalism - to Crude Capitalism that will no doubt become the basis for many courses or bodies of work. They build on each other in fascinating ways that would be worthy of some full analysis.
- It's brilliantly written, convincing, and accessible without sacrificing depth. Tons of interesting details, the minimum necessary amount of acronyms

Frustrations
- Resistance beyond the vertical and horizontal structures of capitalism is broadly overlooked. Hanieh makes fleeting references to indigenous struggles or decolonial struggles but for me they are not sufficient. Nigeria or Indonesia for example should be given more attention. The epistemological Brennerite starting point is, I think, as much as a cause for confusion as it is a grounding approach.
- There's a certain arrogance in Marxist analysis that refuses to acknowledge the ecological humanities as a discipline. Many of the points that Hanieh raises as conclusions are foundational starting points in other schools of thought and it does a bit of disservice to the scholarship to present such a totalising and hegemonic reading. Nevertheless, there are some much needed clarifying remarks in the book. I would have liked a deeper delve in to the ecological/carbon characteristics of WW1 and 2, but it's hardly fair to critique a book for something it is not trying to do.

[Pete Dolack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as we can’t imagine Britain’s rise to dominance in the capitalist system without coal, it is impossible to imagine the rise of the United States as the 20th century successor of Britain without oil. Nor can fossil fuels be disassociated from capitalism. Fossil fuels and capitalism are completely intertwined and that embrace, as tight as ever, threatens to be a deadly grip as global warming has only begun to wreak havoc.

Oil consumption has drastically increased since 1950 — nearly three-quarters of the total increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has occurred since that year and half since 1980. This increasingly steep upward slope must be seen in the context of capitalism. The system’s “internal raison d’être is one of endless accumulation — a drive to continually accumulate money that overrides all other considerations,” Crude Capitalism tells us. “This social logic differs from all preceding human societies and has a profound impact on energy use and energy systems.” Without “foregrounding capitalism as a social system with its own distinct logics, we lack any explanatory reason for why and how oil emerged as the dominant fossil fuel of the twentieth century (and even more importantly, what must be done about it).”

Thus begins a highly interesting and informative discussion, taking the reader through a history of oil, and the control of some of the world’s largest corporations over it, the development of the oil industry as a harbinger of corporate consolidation across industries, the decisive role of oil companies in the development of 20th century economies and geopolitics (even bigger than we might have suspected) and the dynamics of the fossil fuel/capitalism nexus that has throttled all attempts at dealing with the existential crisis of global warming. Humanity surely is capable of meeting the challenge of changing the economy so Earth remains livable but seemingly can’t.

Full review at: https://systemicdisorder.wordpress.co....

[Rashid Yasin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful, expansive, and illuminating - Hanieh's book is a triumph of explaining how oil shapes so much of our world materially, geopolitically, and economically, and the various phases of history that have made that be the case. Reminds me of Mike Davis's works in its clarity and comprehensive nature. Highly recommended and very pertinent.

Here, I would love to include my own summary of the periods presented - discovery and integration into the world economy for transport and industry; the perpetual problem of overproduction tempered by monopoly; the growth of Western colonial control of Arab and African oilfields; the inversion of control in the post-colonial era and the rise of state-owned oil companies; the rise of China as major refiner and consumer for industry; the links between oil as energy and the petrochemical products that we rely on for pharmaceudicals and plastics. But that's very high level and probably has some gaps; I blame being on parental leave with a baby for not being able to do more justice to the broad strokes, but I still want to report it was comprehensible and legible.

The final chapter is a rousing call to ecosocialism which could be potentially condemned as navel-gazing, but it feels deserved after all the prior grounded analysis and even this somewhat-polemical ending is grounded in a material presentation of the challenges ahead of us and the socio-economic/political system that led us to the present and will have to change if the future is to change. I appreciated this step outside pure history; it feels deserved, though I admit that it helps that I agreed with the conclusions.

[Mahamid Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed, rich and sophisticated political economy argument as to the role of oil in capital accummulation over the last century and continuing today.

The insight into the underlying driver of the financialisation of the world economy due to the expansion of oil production and consumption of oil-based products is particularly revealing - capital accumulation driven by oil, led to financialisation, and an overload of debt on the Global South, creating a vicious cycle.

Hanieh, provides a deep insight into the vertically integrated nature of the oil industry, its origins and how this is continuing on a global scale today. The importance of petrochemicals, and in turn the proliferation of synthetic materials to our lives allows the large oil conglomerates to control modes of material production and consumption.

The focus on the International Oil Companies (IOCs) makes sense but needs to shift to the National Oil Companies (NOCs), who are following the same path as the IOCs, but at a larger scale, with Saudi Aramco's investment strategies a key example - vertical integration, takeover of refineries, petrochemical plants and trading hubs.

All in all, this book is essential reading for those interested in the political economy of oil, finance and consumption.

[Gage Hoefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far and away the best book I have read in a while. A materialist analysis of oil and the place it occupies within modern day society, this book has a bit of everything: discussions on economics and global markets, debt, and crises; explanations on environmental science; a birds eye view of political developments in most major countries over the past century; an investigation into petrochemicals and the development of chemical industries; war in the modern age- I could go on and on. Ultimately, the book is trying to understand oil as the central commodity of our time, and what this implies.

"Beyond its central roles as energy and transport fuel, oil and its derivatives underline all forms of commodity production. Our food and our financial systems rest on oil. Oil's centrality stems from what it does for the imperatives of accumulation: its ability to accelerate and expand capital's turnover, cheapen the costs of production (including labor), and knit together an international market. No other commodity plays this role."

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so good. It’s accessibly informative about how oil has served as the perfect medium for capitalism to expand and manipulate global economies and societies over the last 175 years. The author makes clear the destructiveness and insatiability of capitalism by tracking the development of the oil industry, which serves as an important case study for understanding the world in 2025. DJT and his moronic friends should read this to see what they’re messing with when they try to undo globalization. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out given the forces that drive capitalism and how that may be reshaped for the worse either way. The world can’t be saved under capitalism, but Trump’s dismantlement of the US dominated world order will have serious negative consequences as well.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive history of oil and how it shaped and continues to shape geopolitics, economics, and society. This is one of those technical books that takes a while to read and makes you think, but everything is explained fairly clearly. If you've ever been curious about how oil came to define capitalism, how the oil companies became so powerful, how the US dollar became the world's reserve currency, why we live in a world drowning in plastic and where oil permeates every facet of our lives, or the massive steps we need to take to solve the climate crisis, this book explains it.

[Klejton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed lineages of revolt but I can’t say the same thing about this one.

Makes an interesting promise to examine oil not as some sort of resource curse or blessing in and out of itself but as it relates to the capitalist mode of production.

I just genuinely didn’t care about the various hustles and tussles of different companies to gain market control.

[Bernardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how we got to our current climate predicaments and in thinking about ways out of it. An indispensable book. I'll write a more detailed short review later on.

[Kylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential

[Lily Schauwecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

For class. #Fire read. Feeling informed af. 🛢️🔥🌍

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. “US Power, Oil, and Global Finance” is one of the best chapters I’ve read in years.