Unlike the earlier work, Le livre noir du capitalisme's 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.
[1] 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.