Book
review: Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man – By John Perkins
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins is an extraordinary book that reveals very
important information about the beginnings of the globalization process, which
spread inside the economies of many countries all over the world and continues
until today. John Perkins describes himself as a former Economic Hit Man, who
was responsible for ensuring the cooperation of so-called strategic countries
with the United States’ most important economic players, such as General
Electric, Bechtel or general Motors, as well as other important oil companies,
international banks and government. His main role was to report the status of
the economy and to analyze the vulnerabilities of the foreign government,
companies, and banks and to use such information to blackmail the countries
into accepting contracts that would eventually benefit the United States’
strategic interests and other American companies and few rich families that
controlled the natural resources of the world. The most stunning idea that
reflects from the book is that armed wars are out dated and less powerful than
economic and strategic wars that eventually control the country without its
citizen even knowing it. The details provided by John Perkins are by far close
to fiction because it is almost impossible to believe that the main
corporations, governments or banks would let such valuable information slip
away to the public so easily and without any repercussions on the author. Nevertheless,
the information is so well and easy to verify in the real world that it cannot
be ignored and has to be trusted, even if it is only for the educational
purpose of learning from hypothetical examples.
John Perkins starts his book
with a rather short confession about the reasons behind him writing this book
and the long process that eventually led to the publication of his memoirs.
Even though Perkins is very convincing, the way he presents the process of
writing the book, one question remains in the mind of the reader all the way to
the end of the book: Why would all the actors of this conspiracy let such
information go public? Of course, Perkins avoids the term “conspiracy” and
prefers a more complex and maybe complete word, corporatocracy. Perkins says
that corporatocracy is not a conspiracy, even though its members share common
goals and values. One of the most important functions of a corporatocracy is to
perpetuate, extend and consolidate this system of constant consumption on a
permanent basis. This is what gives life to corporatocracy: constant
consumption, oversized lives, car, offices and all that means economy.
Everything has to be large scaled, inter-dependable and most important,
controllable.
Diagnosing
the past and contemporary strategic decisions
The author has a special way
of telling the story of his life and of what his job used to be. He is often
very straightforward when he characterizes himself and his business partners,
as well as the actions he took that were often in the disadvantage of the
countries that he was sent to sell out to the corporatocracy. The way he
describes his actions are close to the way someone writes in a private journal,
but by addressing the viewer, he manages to create a stronger connection
between the facts that often seem taken out of James Bond movies and the
feelings he had during the events he describes. Many of the strategies John
Perkins describes are not so hard to image as being possible, such as the strategies
adopted by the United States to work towards becoming a global empire, in the
way presidents Nixon and Johnson dreamed: “it would have to employ strategies modelled
on Roosevelt’s Iranian example,” which would also be “the only way to beat the
Soviets without the threat of nuclear war” (Perkins 18).
Perkins cites Jim Garrison, the president of the State of the
world forum to explain how only a few economic players control the
globalization process and how they decide the faith of many nations:
Taken cumulatively, the
integration of the world as a whole, particularly in terms of economic
globalization and the mythic qualities of “free market” capitalism, represent a
veritable “empire” in its own right... No nation on earth has been able to
resist the compelling magnetism of globalization. Few have been able to escape
the structural adjustments and “contitionalities” of the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, or the arbitrations of the World Trade
Organization, those international financial institutions that, however
inadequate, still determine what economic globalization means, that the rules
are, and who is rewarded for submission and punished for infractions. Such is
the power of globalization that within our lifetime we are likely to see the
integration, even is unevenly, of all national economies in the world into a
single global, free market system” (Perkins 170).
Perkins’ presentation of
past strategies is in some way logical because it is known that from the very
beginnings, the world power was disputed between a few countries. It would be
equally logical that the same countries would be the home countries of the most
powerful companies in the energy field. The strategies to gain control over
less developed countries that had strategic and economic advantages for the
United States, such as Panama, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia or Iraq,
were rather complicated, but Perkins describes them in a very simple and
understandable manner for all kinds of readers. Corporations like MAIN, who
were hiding behind engineering activities had spies in the less developed
countries that had to create reports that would show how a certain loan would benefit
that county, and how it would contribute to the development of the
infrastructure. After the country would sign for the loan, the money would go
back to the United State corporations, while the country would continue to pay
incredible amounts of money to the World Bank or other credit institution,
until it became incapable of payment. That is when the control over the country
was possible. The same strategy was used for Panama or Indonesia, which were
both important countries because of their oil-rich soil and low level of
development of the main infrastructures, such as education, health or
transportation (Perkins 62).
The future strategies of the
main economic players are not hard to spot because they have remained unchanged
since the creation of the Roman Empire and they have been perpetuated from
generation to generation of interest groups that controlled the Cashflow and
the natural resources. Perkins acknowledges that if the present strategies to
control the less developed countries and to increase their debt to unthinkable
amounts will continue, the results would be beyond our imagination. Destruction
of natural richness, such as animals and plants populations, as well as
indigenous cultures would lead eventually to the destruction of our human
souls. The intention of financial organizations is not to get their money back
from the country, or at least not through the classic way, but to bring them in
such a position that they are willing to sell their natural resources,
especially oil on very low prices, or to surrender the political and economic
control to American “puppets” that are able to act according to the desire for
the United States (Perkins 210).
New strategic directions for the individual and the society as a
whole
John Perkins does more than confess his “sins.” He also creates a
sort of guide to fight back the strategic giants of the world that plan to
control as much as they can and to create the global Empire where the economy
is constructed on credit and consumption and where less developed countries are
the ones that are getting poorer and poorer with every loan contract they make.
The recommendations are toward consuming less and reducing the quantities of
the goods people use at home or at the office. Perkins invites to a green
protest, to reduction of consumption and to rethinking the size of our lives
under all aspects, starting from cars, homes and wardrobes, and ending with
shopping and consumption habits: “The next time you are tempted to go shopping,
read a book instead or meditate. Downsize your home, wardrobe, car, office and
most everything else in your life” (Perkins 221). The author also insists on an
aspect that is rather surprising, considering his former job. Perkins invites
the readers to “protest against free trade agreements and against companies
that exploit the desperate people in sweatshops or that pillage the
environment” (Perkins 221). I also agree with Perkins when he insists on the
idea that each institution that is part of the corporatocracy is not bad in
itself and that only the way the “perceptions of the manner in which they
function” (Perkins 221).
Personal
opinion
I believe the story told by Perking because even though the
elements seem to be a bit too close to conspiracy, the way the economy present
its self at this point, and the economic events all over the world, especially
in conflict areas in the Middle East are too easy to explain from the point of
views depicted by Perkins. Economic interests have always been stronger than
political interest and money have always been a method of control and of
obtaining power in all aspects.
The only aspect that is a little suspicious about Perkins’ book is
the reasons he was left alive, considering that he revealed information that is
so valuable and so obvious in so many ways. I can only conclude that the reason
he was allowed to live, and was not killed by the same people who killed the
presidents of Panama or Ecuador, was that this way people can doubt his words
and question his judgment and not believe everything a being real. I am almost
sure that this was the strategy of the CIA, NSA, US government and the rest of
the corporations, including MAIN. If John Perkins would have been killed, or
his family would have suffered, I am sure that some kind of authorities would
have started investigations on his death and convict at least someone as
responsible with his death. I am sure that all the corporatocracy members have
thought about this option. This explanation seems simple, but it is obvious,
because John Perkins himself said that he tried to publish the book several
times and he was often retained by blackmail or bribery from taking his plan to
completion.
Something else made me question if Perkins really was an economic
Hit Man, although as I stated before, the real facts and events that occurred
in the past few years, the continuation of the conflicts in the Middle East and
other economic disasters make give some credibility to the stories presented. Toward
the end of the book, John Perkins addresses the reader again, this time in a
more concise manner and gives advice on how to stand up to the globalization
process and how to contribute to the salvation of the lives we dear so much. This
set of recommendations is a bit too “green” to come from a so-called economic
hit man but if considering his previously detailed stories about the pollution
in Ecuador for example, where rivers and forests were practically destroyed by
the American oil pipes, then I can assume that they know what he is talking
about. Moreover, all his recommendations make sense for everyone, especially in
the context of decreasing energy and food supply and the economic crisis that
determined all types of countries to use external loans to cover their internal
debt.
John Perkins’ book is necessary read, even if it would be taken as
fiction story for some. The book offers great perspective on the past, present
and on the future in the same time because it discusses events that occurred
already, it puts them in the present world economic context and creates
strategic recommendations for the future to reduce the power of the
corporatocracy.
Therefore, even if there are some aspects that are still unclear
for me as a reader, Perkins’ arguments that he was indeed an economic hit man,
an assassin paid to sell out countries’ souls and resources, I must agree with
him and with the concepts he present in the book. Maybe the most important
argument that convinced me, was the fact he describes the power the United
States was having in 2003, that of printing out money without any back up in
gold. I tend to believe that this was also an important contributor to the
world financial crises that is still happening now all over the world. Even in
globalization has it advantages, Perkins’ nook come to destroy almost any hope
that a global world can exists without the thing price of in-chain reaction
when it is the case of a financial problem or a health problem, such as it is
the latest flu.
Works Cited
Perkins, John. Confessions of an economic hit man.
San Francisco: Berrett-Koeheler, 2004.
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