In our world today, merchants of commodities of all kinds, such as food, medicine, fuel, metals, electronic products, and others, play major roles through which they have been able to monopolize a great deal of influence and power.
Two journalists - Jacques Farchi and Javier Blass - proceed from this idea, to reveal in a book they published under the title: "The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources), about what goes on behind the scenes in the commodity trade of dubious and often unethical methods.
In
a presentation of the book
, which was published in February 2021, Carlos Roa, managing editor of the American magazine "The National Interest", describes the thesis of journalists Farchi and Blass as frank, that those who trade in goods are not ordinary traders but are key players in the contemporary global economy Thanks to their control over the flow of the world's strategic resources, they have become "powerful political actors".
unknown force
Despite its acquisition of enormous wealth and great influence, this trade remains a relatively unknown force to most people, so that few of them - in the opinion of Carlos Roa in his article reviewing the book - know its history and stages of development, and its adaptation to changing markets and developments in the field of technology, and methods of her job.
The two journalists reveal in their book the names of a number of merchants who became extremely rich by buying and selling land resources.
Interviewing hundreds of current and retired commodity traders, Farshi and Blass delve into the corridors of commodity trading, which they describe as "a world of daredevil merchants and adventurers, African despots, Swiss bankers, and ruthless business empire builders who may hold the future of global geopolitics in their hands".
The book "The World for Sale" deals with the final stages of World War II, which opened the door to an unprecedented boom in raw materials, "an era of peace accompanied by devastated cities and countries in need of rebuilding."
The authors recount how this unprecedented boom helped companies operating in the field of commodity trading - such as: Glencore, Cargill, Vitol and Trafigura - to acquire vast wealth and political influence.
Notable personalities in the field
One of the leaders of this trade was Theodor Weiser, born in Hamburg, Germany, who traveled to the Soviet Union to seek a deal to export diesel and gasoline produced by the communist state at the time to the West.
And there is the American John H. Macmillan, the owner of Cargill, which is engaged in the trade, purchase and distribution of grain.
Then there is Ludwig Jesselson, who fled Nazi Germany to America after the pogrom against the Jews, and in New York he worked in the haberdashery before becoming the de facto founding father of a family that trades in goods, and owns companies - including Glencore - that exist to this day.
These three men are credited with creating business models and the corporate culture that has guided commodity traders for more than 80 years.
Wheat prices rose as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, so bread prices in Egypt rose by 50% (Al-Jazeera)
grand theft grain
The managing editor of the National Interest says in his article that the book "The World for Sale" takes the reader on a quick tour through which he reviews in detail the important events that accompanied the trade of commodities, such as the "Great Theft of Grain" - for example - which the Americans accuse the Soviets of being responsible for.
Suffering from poor harvests between 1971 and 1972, the Soviet Union dispatched the director of the agency responsible for the grain trade, Nikolai Belousov, to the West, with the sole task of securing food supplies for the communist state.
There Belosov met John Macmillan, who had taken the helm of Cargill, and they negotiated an agreement to purchase two million tons of grain.
What Kargill did not know was that the Soviet envoy had met before that the Continental Grain Company, a grain trading company, and completed a deal with it to purchase wheat and basic foodstuffs worth $460 million, a record at the time.
In all, Belousov was able to purchase about 20 million tons of grain and oilseeds from merchants.
Marcel Rich
Among the characters dealt with in the book, a Jewish man who fled the Nazis to America named Marcel David Rich, who began his work as an employee at Philip Brothers for oil and natural gas products.
Rich took advantage of his presence in that company to find his way to fame, after he started working himself in the oil trade, and quietly succeeded in benefiting from the Eilat Ashkelon pipeline project, which was established to transport Iranian oil to Israel after the June 1967 war, and Rich was able to sell Iranian crude to Europe.
By 1974, Rich and a number of other major traders had left the company to found Marc Rich + Co AG.
Through the new company, he was able to save the Jamaican government from collapse, by providing it with about 300,000 barrels of oil within 24 hours in exchange for lucrative deals.
Rich also provided oil supplies to the racist South African government, and bribed several officials in the Central African Republic of Burundi.
Events and stories
The second part of the book "The World for Sale" covers events that accompanied the collapse of Mark Rich's empire around 2021, in addition to stories about Glencore in particular.
However, the background around which all these events revolve may be the most interesting aspect of the story, and the most relevant to what is going on today.
The first of these events was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Varchi and Blass describe as "the largest liquidation sale in history", whose repercussions are still felt now more than ever.
According to the authors, it is the relations between Russian elites - and later the highest officials in the Moscow government - and commodity traders that keep Russia in business.
A relationship that continues despite the ban
In his article, Carlos Roa reveals that commodity traders continue to deal with the Kremlin and provide Moscow with an "invaluable economic lifeline", despite the intensification of battles in the current war between Russia and Ukraine.
According to the journalists, Flachy and Blass, the lessons learned from the transactions of commodity traders led to the emergence of the wealthy Russian elites.
However, the other fundamental change that occurred in the world order and shook the trade of goods, was the rise of the People's Republic of China.
China's explosive growth, increasing cross-border capital flows, as well as rising demand for goods have contributed;
Increasing profits for companies such as Cargill, Vitol, and Glencore by more than $76 billion over the 2000s through 2011.
Obscene wealth and errors
Thanks to these huge increases, commodity traders have achieved enormous wealth, but these companies have stumbled on the way and are proceeding to achieve those huge profits, as they have made many mistakes.
Among those mistakes: Glencore accused in 2016 of plunging Chad into a sovereign debt crisis, due to a huge loan provided by the company to N'Djamena in exchange for crude oil.
Flashy and Blass point out that China discovered the huge potential in commodity trade and its huge returns on profits, which prompted it to build its own capabilities in this field.
The two journalists cited the example of the China Petroleum and Foodstuff Corporation, which has spent $4 billion since 2014 establishing a global arm for trade in food commodities.
In the later parts of their book, the authors note that commodity traders are increasingly serving as a link between international financial markets, and conduits for transferring dollars from pension funds and other investors to distant countries.
The National Interest article concludes that the sheer scale of power and influence means that if some commodity traders collapse, entire countries could collapse with them.