Christopher Marquis, the Sinyi professor of Chinese management at Cambridge Judge Business School, has had an incredible few months following the publication of his revelatory new book, The Profiteers.
A run of US successes has resulted in the title, published by PublicAffairs – an imprint of Hachette – being selected as one of the top 24 books of 2024 by Next Big Idea Club.
Contrail message
The Profiteers is a devastating exposé of how corporations extract profit from a business model which is underpinned by environmental damage, low wages, systemic discrimination, and cheap goods.
Subtitled ‘Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs’, the book rips away the facade of charm that is business’ go-to mask and documents less palatable truths. The Profiteers catalogues the offences being committed right under our noses, not least devastating new waves of damage unleashed by AI, data exploitation, and unfettered tax evasion.
Recasting the costs of companies’ environmental and ethical excesses as being the responsibility of consumers rather than the supply chains that serve up the products has been a hugely successful marketing coup, we learn. It means the huge amount of plastic, chemicals and other waste that companies produce – and the cost of cleaning them up – is kept off the balance sheets.
Chris Marquis, the Sinyi professor of Chinese management at Cambridge Judge Business School Picture: Keith Heppell
For instance, in the fast-fashion industry – which by all accounts is quite far along on the ‘obscene’ scale – we are told that the retailer Zara produces 840 million items of clothes a year for sale in 6,000 stores globally.
“The company is a huge business success, but its model socialises costs and privatises its profits,” writes Prof Marquis. “Where it can, Zara pays its manufacturing-centre workers wages that are significantly below the poverty line.”
We are informed that tens of thousands of Zara workers live lives of “excruciating” poverty so that a few hundred can live in wealth far beyond their value to society. Nor is it only people that Zara and similar fast-fashion models disrespect – it’s also their land. Rivers, mountains, forests and soil are turned into “biological dead zones full of carcinogenic chemicals…[and] little thought [is given] to who is paying for the waste and pollution that result”.
The reason disposal costs and environmental damages are not on the balance sheet is a policy choice – companies “would rather settle lawsuits than invest in large-scale, long-term change”. Change brings costs, and those costs impact the ROI in the short and medium term. Lawsuits take years, even decades, to get to court, and by that time another management team will be in place. So the can is kicked down the road.
The Profiteers highlights the price paid by these negligent business practices. The hidden costs which nations are left struggling to pay off remain under the radar and all too often out of sight – taxes go unpaid, wealth gushes ever upwards (‘trickle-down economics’ was always just a scam), and the niceties of democracy and international law aren’t just being trampled on, they’re being buried.
Protest at pollution of River Cam by by Anglian Water. Picture: Terry Macalister
The way late-stage capitalism is being inflicted on apparently helpless populations results in lower overall national wealth, reduced tax revenues and poorer public services. Wealth is exited from national economies into supra-national corporations whose only allegiance is to shareholders, rather than customers, workers or citizens. The costs for a country being thus hollowed out include endemic poverty, poor education, decaying infrastructure, declining mental health, earlier death rates and rising crime.
It’s clear the existing economic model is generating problems that will eventually destroy large swathes of life on Earth, and it’s becoming apparent that the industrial model’s inbuilt doom loop – endless growth isn’t possible on a planet with finite and fast-dwindling resources – may already have short-circuited our self-preservation instinct. But Prof Marquis isn’t quitting.
“We should all consider our carbon footprints,” he says, “but more than 70 per cent of emissions in the past half century have been produced by only 100 companies.”
Pipeline – damage from the 2025 fires in California won’t be paid for by fossil fuel companies
These top 100 polluters include the big fossil fuel firms, currently enjoying a new and surely final renaissance.
“Surely, they bear the primary responsibility, but they are not bearing the costs.”
The solutions proposed so far – including environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles which reduce negative impacts and increase positive ones – are seen as largely window dressing because we’re so far behind where we should be at this point in terms of bringing the profiteers to book.
“Carbon neutrality or net zero is still just a dream,” Prof Marquis writes. “For many companies, it is just a marketing gimmick. An egregious example is ExxonMobil, which has committed to being net zero by 2050. How is it possible for a fossil fuel company to be net zero?”
As well as the gap between aspiration and reality, there’s a more immediate evasion. “The gaps between what companies… claim about their environmental damage and what they should be held accountable for is huge”.
Selective accounting and the use of offsets gives the public only a partial view of what’s going on – a bit like the Environment Agency testing the “designated bathing water” at Sheep’s Green once a week, in that it doesn’t tell us what’s going on in other parts of the river….
Climate protest
At the back of his mind, it’s almost as though the author can’t believe it’s happening himself – the disservice being carried out to what he calls “the Commons” is so apparent, so in-your-face, that surely its hypocrisies and destructive intent should have long ago been identified and brought to heel, he seems to be saying. And the madness is still going on – just this week we learned that Elon Musk – whose net worth is north of $400billion – has been subsidised by the UK taxpayer to the tune of £190m since 2016.
This is Prof Marquis’ third book and his 2024 US tour was one of the highlights of the year, with coast-to-coast book signings, talks and launches. Audiences were clearly uplifted. Prof Marquis cheers on businesses “that are taking responsibility for emissions through their entire value chain, from end to end, which is an important principle if we are to hold companies accountable for their environmental impacts”.
The Profiteers showcases the writer’s deft skill at reassembling narrative components into a shape you hadn’t seen before. He combines a finely tuned ear for corporate bravado (bs!) with a light, occasionally almost jocular, take on the heinous corporate power structures currently inhibiting the world from being able to save itself. And he does it all with the general reader in mind.
The Profiteers is a stunning masterclass and Chris Marquis is entirely peerless.