Le Livre Noir Du Capitalisme

Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme (The Black Book of Capitalism) is a French book published in 1998, in reaction to The Black Book of Communism (1997). Unlike the latter however, Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme does not attempt to provide a comprehensive tally of victims of the politico-economic system in question. Rather, the book is composed of a series of independent essays commissioned from various writers who were given free rein to write on any aspect of capitalism they chose. Topics covered range from the African slave trade to the era of financial globalization.

An appendix provides an incomplete list of 20th century death tolls which editor Gilles Perrault attributes to the capitalist system. The list, which includes both combatant and noncombatant dead, includes an estimated 58 million dead from the First and Second World Wars, plus death tolls from various colonial wars, anticommunist wars and repressions, ethnic conflicts, and some victims of famines or malnutrition, which brings the incomplete list to a combined total of about 100 million deaths attributed to capitalism in the 20th century.

Edited by Gilles Perrault, the other contributors to the book include historians, sociologists, economists, trade unionists and writers: 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 and Jean Ziegler. The book has been translated into Greek, Italian and Czech.