(The Black Book of Capitalism) is a 1998 French book published in reaction to The Black Book of Communism (1997). Unlike the earlier work, Le livre noir du capitalismes primary goal is not to try to attribute a number of victims to the political system in question. Rather, the body of the book comprises a series of independent works from various writers who each voice their critique on various aspects of capitalism. Topics covered range from the African slave trade to the effects of globalization.
An appendix provides an incomplete list of 20th-century death-tolls which editor Gilles Perrault attributes to the capitalist system. The list includes certain death-tolls covering the two World Wars, colonial wars, anti-communist campaigns, repressions and mass killings, ethnic conflicts, and victims of famines or malnutrition; bringing the incomplete total to 100 million deaths attributed to capitalism in the 20th century.
Contributors
Contributors to the book include historians, sociologists, economists, trade unionists and writers such as:
Caroline Andréani
François Arzalier
Roger Bordier
Maurice Buttin
François Chesnais
Maurice Cury
François Delpla
François Derivery
André Devriendt
Pierre Durand
Jean-Pierre Fléchard
Yves Frémion
Yves Grenet
Jacques Jurquet
Jean Laïlle
Maurice Moissonnier
Robert Pac
Philippe Paraire
Paco Peña
André Prenant
Maurice Rajsfus
Jean Suret-Canale
Subhi Toma
Monique and Roland Weyl
Claude Willard
Jean Ziegler
Translations of the book have appeared in Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Czech.