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The World for Sale
Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources
The World for Sale investigates the private commodity-trading firms that move oil, metals, grain, and other raw materials between producers and buyers. Javier Blas and Jack Farchy show how these firms became essential intermediaries in the global economy while remaining far less visible than banks, oil majors, or governments. Their account follows traders into markets transformed by decolonization, resource nationalization, the rise of OPEC, the Soviet Union’s collapse, China’s economic expansion, sanctions, and civil war. Companies such as Glencore, Vitol, Trafigura, and Cargill emerge not merely as brokers but as financiers, logisticians, intelligence gatherers, and sometimes politically consequential actors. The book’s central significance lies in connecting ordinary consumption to transactions conducted in distant ports, mines, ministries, and financial centers. It presents commodity trading as a form of capitalism built on information, credit, appetite for risk, and a willingness…