Blood Oil

Natural resources like oil and minerals are the largest source of unaccountable power in the world. Petrocrats like Putin and the Saudis spend resource money on weapons and oppression; militants in Iraq and in the Congo spend resource money on radicalization and ammunition. Resource-fueled authoritarians and extremists present endless crises to the West-and the source of their resource power is ultimately ordinary consumers, doing their everyday shopping at the gasstation and the mall.In this sweeping book, one of today's leading political philosophers, Leif Wenar, goes behind the headlines in search of the hidden global rule that thwarts democracy and development-and that puts shoppers into business with some of today's most dangerous men. Wenar discovers a rule that once licensed the slave trade and apartheid and genocide, a rule whose abolition has marked some of humanity's greatest triumphs—yet a rule that still enflames tyranny and war and terrorism through today'smulti-trillion dollar resource trade.Blood Oil shows how the West can now lead a peaceful revolution by ending its dependence on authoritarian oil, and by getting consumers out of business with the men of blood. The book describes practical strategies for upgrading world trade: for choosing new rules that will make us more secure at home, more trusted abroad, and better able to solve pressing global problems like climate change. Blood Oil shows citizens, consumers, and leaders how we can act together today tocreate a more united human future.

Philosophers rarely write big books that could change the world, but Blood Oil is such a book. Wenar does not shy away from the horrific consequences of current trade practices, nor from the philosophical arguments needed to show that this trade rests on ethically indefensible assumptions. Yet instead of leaving us to despair, he offers realistic ways of bringing about change that would make the world a better and fairer place.", Have you ever worried that your spending might be supporting the 'sociopathic rulers and sadistic militias' that blight so many countries in Africa and around the world? Or that your purchases of oil are supporting injustice and oppression, just as British purchases of sugar once supported the enslavement of Africans? Leif Wenar has written the indispensable guide, combining politics, economics, and ethics to tell us just how and why we are all involved, and what we ought to do to make the world a better place.", This book is one of those rare manifestos that awaken people to a pressing ethical issue by changing the way they see the world. Whether or not its recommendations are practicable today, Blood Oil is a fantastically stimulating read: analytic, informative, rationally optimistic, and written with erudition and panache.", Leif Wenar's objective is to devise ways in which the vicious circle at heart of many development failures can be broken, so that odious regimes can be prevented from appropriating natural resources to their own advantage and saddling future generation with much diminished national wealth. Most importantly the book derives practical proposals on how such objectives are to be achieved. The book's conclusions will be of great interest to all those working in international development, and particularly to national governments and international organizations.", It is time that we woke up to the fact that the level of our dependence on certain resources means that we let ourselves be blackmailed by tyrants. Our comfort is purchased by collusion with regimes that are responsible for high levels of human misery, injustice and bigotry. This courageous and forceful book challenges us to make the hard decision that might change this worsening situation. It is a serious and urgent appeal to the conscience of the West."

Leif Wenar holds the Chair of Philosophy and Law at King's College London. He earned his degrees in Philosophy from Stanford and from Harvard, where he worked with John Rawls and with Robert Nozick. He has been a Visiting Professor at Princeton and at Stanford, and has been a Fellow of the Carnegie Council Program in Justice and the World Economy.