Price Wars

“CHAOS THEORY TEACHES US THAT TRIGGERING EVENTS CAN BE COMPLETELY INSIGNIFICANT. LIKE THE FLAP OF A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS.” Dirty children playing in the streets of Mosul, Iraq. Neglected pensioners in the ruins of their homes in eastern Ukraine. Venezuelan women undergoing sterilisation because of an uncertain future... A young Kenyan competing for resources in a drying landscape... These are images from travels around the 21st-century world. Price Wars is a reportage travelogue that spans the globe, seeking to understand the wave of chaos that has engulfed the world since 2010. It is a fascinating and groundbreaking look at how commodity traders in New York and London have destabilised societies worldwide, leaving the most vulnerable at the mercy of hunger, chaos, and war. It reveals that the unrest in Tunisia, Iraq, Venezuela, East Africa, Central America, and even Ukraine was triggered by dramatic and surprising swings in the prices of basic commodities. The deregulation of commodity markets means that food prices can skyrocket even in years of abundant harvests, sparking hunger and protests. Oil prices can suddenly rise even when supplies are normal, bringing wealth and emboldening dictators. It is this instability, further exacerbated by banks and investment funds in distant New York and London, that has toppled regimes and unsettled the West. I found that: - when prices suddenly change, order falls apart and chaos erupts, - things we thought were stable disappear, - price can create a tsunami of hunger, an exodus of refugees, and a whole new class of oligarchs, - price can trigger riots, revolutions and wars, - prices can fund palaces, police states, and foreign invasions, - prices unlock cages and unleash monsters. Rupert Russell