What I learned from “The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources” by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy

Commodity trading firms are the ultimate middlemen, linking the suppliers of raw materials — often countries that are hotbeds of corruption — with consumers in wealthy and emerging economies. They may earn wafer thin margins, but with large volumes they generate huge revenues. Their unique position means that they have become some of the most influential companies in the world. Yet few outside of the commodity trading world have heard their names (Trafigura, Vitol, Cargill…), far less have the remotest idea of the power that they wield.

Two Bloomberg (and ex-FT) journalists, Javier Blas and Jack Farchy have covered the sector for decades and set out to pull back the veil of secrecy that has covered the sector for so long. The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources is the authoritative account of the emergence of the commodity traders, the power that they have to shape economic and political history, and the challenges to their future that they have faced, and at least until now have overcome. As the book outlines, “They are, in the words of one academic, the visible manifestation of Adam Smith’s invisible hand.”