Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
John Perkins (2004)
Non-Fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5
A couple of years ago, I participated in a small book group that had a globalization theme. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble and just read Perkins' Confessions. Of course, the problem with that is that we probably would have thought that Perkins was a crank, or at least an accomplished liar.
The story he tells - his own experience as a consultant for private corporation, where he was explicitly instructed to inflate economic forecasts for large international development projects, thus insuring that the countries about to receive loans could never pay them back and would be in perpetual debt to the US - is like a paranoid fantasy. Really, if you just picked this book up and knew almost nothing about globalization, I don't think you'd believe a word of it (Perkins' odd writing style doesn't help his credibility).
But, after having read some dozen other books on globalization, Perkins' account of his 10 years of ripping off other countries, sinking them into permanent debt, and his detailed knowledge of clandestine US actions attempting to overthrow (or eliminate) foreign leaders, seems all too realistic.
I don't think of myself as some kind of Pollyanna, but I did find myself shocked at how mafia-like our country has been to countries in the developing world (particularly ones with oil). The facts around US action in Iran to install the Shah are well known. Perkins builds from there to explain how the US built on success there at overthrowing that government and installing their own lackey in later years. Later years where he played an integral role in creating the servitude of Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Columbia, and Indonesia, plus the mutually agreed upon bilking of Saudi Arabia.
Is it all true, though? Parts of it seem to have been verified. Perkins' old boss originally verified it, then later recanted his verification (but not completely). He worked at the company he said he did, and he was well respected in that industry. The projects he said he worked on happened. The companies (the Bechtels, Halliburtons, etc of the world) got huge construction projects that make the rich even richer and made the poor even poorer - none of that is in doubt. Former World Bank officials, such as Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (in his Globalization and Its Discontents) seem to have corroborated the basic view that the World Bank intentionally structures projects to increase indebtedness so that later leverage can be applied to enforce radical free markets in the developing world. But are US corporations intentionally collaborating with the US government to destabilize and indebt the developing world? It seems crazy, but it just might be true.
Read the New York Times recent article, and one in Boston Magazine if you want more background and more dissenting (and corroborating) views.
However, as I lead with, I'm inclined to believe the basic premises of this book. Again, this is only after reading over a dozen books on globalization, like those by Stiglitz, that seem to leave no doubt that the financiers of international development are more concerned with lining their own pockets (and perhaps trying to keep the US ascendant) than helping the citizens of those developing countries.
This book left me feeling very sad. Sad that greed seems to rule so many people's lives. Sad that those charged with leading our nations and our institutions seem to take the view that for the US to succeed, everyone else must be suppressed and kept in servitude. And I have to say I was startled by how all of this happened in my lifetime. OK, I was a teenager in the 1970s, but how could I have know almost none of this? Although to some extent I can blame the media for under- or non-reporting, but the responsibility is also mine.
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