How do extractive industries work with the US military? (Picture: flickr/arbyreed)
Laleh Khalili’s Extractive Capitalism is a collection of stories. It takes you through the exploitative world where cronyism, extractivism and empire merge.
It’s a world where oil firms act as colonial proxies, military officers become self-help authors and consultancy companies dismantle public goods for private profit.
Khalili uses damning case studies to analyse capitalism’s architects. A prime example is United States military general Stanley McChrystal. After overseeing atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, he wrote three business self-help manuals and sits on corporate boards.
Khalili lucidly shows the links between the US military and extractive industries. “It’s an indictment…that military leaders can go from upholding the West’s dominion over resource-producing countries to advising its business elite.”
They “expand the reach of corporations which require military backing to secure control over new resources”.
Consultancies such as McKinsey face sharp critique. Khalili exposes how McKinsey’s client list, from Big Tobacco to Big Oil, reveals its predatory role. These firms hollow out consumer protections, cripple regulators and increase worker exploitation.
She is equally scathing of commodity traders like Glencore. She writes, “Traders and merchants have always, willingly or reluctantly, been used as the advance guard for powerful states, and often in order to accumulate extractive capitalism.” She traces their history back to the Levant Company in London in 1592.
The book examines corporate giants such as BP, which served as Britain’s colonial enforcer, turning Gulf states into energy plantations.
When nationalisation disrupted British control, the US stepped in—not to end extraction but to rebrand it as “global security”.
Khalili writes, “Western Europe was dependent for energy on Britain’s protectorates control of the Gulf—ever since, it has relied on the US to maintain global oil flows.”
Yet Khalili finds hope in resistance. She highlights the diplomats nationalising oil, workers striking in dangerous refineries and Indigenous communities blocking pipelines—all fighting colonial systems.
She sees attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes by the Houthis, the Yemeni resistance group, as a form of strategic disruption. Their target isn’t just the ships themselves, but Israel’s economic arteries.
Extractive Capitalism powerfully exposes how capital and coercion intertwine while showing that defiance persists.
The book reveals extractive capitalism as a system where violence gets rebranded as business, and resistance becomes survival. The stories are insightful, though at times dense or loosely connected, and they require familiarity with the geopolitical terrain.
Still, it’s a compelling collection—sharpened by Khalili’s wry and sarcastic tone.
Everything on ‘Goodbye Small Head’ is immediate. Every choice is intentional.
Every song drives full speed, right towards the point like Thelma and Louise hurtling towards the inevitable. Even the slow songs don’t mess around.
The more introspective songs feel more like having a strong word with yourself, mid-air in the rear view mirror as opposed to maudlin navel gazing.
As this is her tenth album, Ms Ezra Furman is clearly an artist who knows her strengths. But there is a tonal shift in production and songwriting compared to previous work. Grand Mal, the lead-off single and opener of the album showcases this new moody sensibility and expanded production.
Another highlight is Sudden Storm. Its dreamy harmonies and looping, psychedelic bass feels like Dear Prudence throwing itself out of the car door doing 90 on the motorway. And that’s meant as a compliment.
Even with all these new frills added to her music, the core of it is still those chugging, bluesy, guitar driven songs.
She’ll be playing a chord structure your grandad would recognise but with woman-on-the-edge energy, bringing a 21st century angle.
Furman talks about the main theme of the album—losing control or losing yourself, no longer being at the wheel.
In complete contrast to that, Furman as an artist has gotten to the core of what she wants to say and exactly how she wants to say it. This awareness is growing in the face of a world more hostile to anyone who doesn’t fall into strictly defined ideas of gender and sexuality.
Even the music itself is an antidote to the cultural lurch towards conservatism, the old and the new are here together in a gloriously unique mix.
Simon Birch
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