Book Review - Confessions of an economic hit man

Book Review - Confessions of an economic hit man
Written by – John Perkins
No. of Pages – 250
Price – 7.99$ , 391.40 Rs.
Published by
Paperback edition 2006
Ebury Press
Random House
20, Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SWIV2SA
First published in United States in 2004 by Berrett Koehler.

Reviewed by Prof. Monika Chaudhary
Faculty ICFAI Business School, Jaipur

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is written by Mr.John Perkins who worked for a US based energy consulting firm called Chas T. MAIN. The book is about confessions of a professional who worked for an energy consulting company, but his main job was to further the cause of a ‘Global Empire’. ‘The Global Empire’ is a term which is used to explain a world dominated and ruled by United States. The author worked as an ‘Economic Hit Man’, who is a highly qualified professional and who persuades less developed countries to take huge loans from World Bank or IMF or large banks in United States for infrastructural development- energy generating plants, highways, ports, airports or industrial parks. Subsequently, it helps in providing huge contracts of Infrastructural Projects to US engineering and construction companies. The author argues that once such loans are accepted by these countries the projects are given to US companies and the money coming out of ‘banking offices in Washington’ goes to ‘engineering offices in New York, Houston and San-Francisco’. However, the poor countries pay back these loans out of their own limited resources for years. The author negotiated these kind of projects with the governments of Ecuador, Panama and Indonesia.

In the seventies and the eighties ‘Economic Hit Men’ were paid high salaries to accomplish the tasks they were given and they drew their salary from private sector but actually did the work of promoting the government policy. When the author worked for MAIN as a chief economist, his main job was to convince the Head of States in less developed countries to agree to take huge loans for infrastructural projects, by making highly optimistic economic forecasts about the economic growth that the country was likely to achieve as a result of implementation of huge projects. Most of these projects were likely to have serious environmental hazards and destroyed the ecology of the country. The author negotiated such projects for his company MAIN in Equador, Panama and Indonesia. If the ‘EHMs’ failed to convince the governments, the ‘jackals’ emerged and the ‘heads of state were overthrown or died in violent accidents’. When the jackals also failed, ‘like they failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, young Americans were sent in to kill and to die’. The objective of all these people was clear and same - world domination and the extension of the Global Empire.

Mr. John Perkins was given a clandestine training in 1971, shortly after he joined MAIN, by a women named Claudine Martine to prepare him for his job as an EHM. He writes that Claudine related the history of the profession to him. “Throughout most of the history, empires were built largely through military force or the threat of it. But with the end of World War II, the emergence of Soviet Union and the spectre of nuclear holocaust the military solution became just too risky”. With the end of Vietnam war the US government realized that it was difficult to extend the empire by resorting to military operations. However it was more easily done by resorting to economic imperialism. The first economic hit man was Kermit Roosevelt who prepared a coup to abdicate Mohhamed Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime-Minister of Iran in 1951.

Mr. Perkins’ confessions are compelling and his story reads like a fictional novel. It is written in a style that makes a reader easily understand the functions of Multinational Banks, Big Corporate Houses, International Politics or complex economic theory. As he relates what he calls the ‘James Bondish’ part of his story, he also gives a meaningful insight to the deeper causes of the problems faced by the world today. He asserts that the root cause of many of our current problems like terrorism is, ‘the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and the greater the growth, the more widespread its benefits’. In their drive to advance the global empire, corporations, banks and governments (collectively the corporatocracy), support this fallacious idea. “One of Corporatocracy’s most important functions is to perpetuate and continually expand the system. When men and women are rewarded for greed, greed becomes a motivating factor”, argues the author.

The book is also a ride through some major events of history like the Panama Canal negotiations, the Oil Embargo in the seventies, the formation of OPEC, the Vietnam War, the abdication of the Shah of Iran and the first and the second Gulf War. The author gives a first hand account of his involvement in the US negotiations in Saudi Arabia in 1974 which involved persuading Saudi Arabia to use its petrodollars to purchase US securities and promising in return that US would build infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, by spending the interest income earned on US securities; which he refers to as a ‘money laundering affair’. He delves into the reasons of the Gulf War and writes, “Saddam would still be in charge if he played the game as the Saudis did, he would have his missiles and chemical plants.”

The book brings about an argument that the US dependence on oil has been a major reason for the current problems in the middle-east and the rise of Osama bin Laden. A nexus between the Saudi royal family and the US government ensured a constant supply of money and arms to Osama and his people fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviet troops. The author also confesses that a major reason that forced him to write the book was the 9/11 attacks in New York, which were a result of US government policies in the middle east in the last three decades of the twentieth century .

Mr. John Perkins talks about a nexus of big corporations and the US government formed towards achieving one aim the ‘Global Empire’. He cites examples of big corporate leaders like George Schultz (President, Bechtel), Casper Weinberger (Vice President, Bechtel), Richard Cheney(President Halliburton), Robert McNamara (President Ford) who finally sought top jobs in the US Government and ran the country and important organizations like the World Bank. He writes, “Robert McNamara’s greatest and most sinister contribution to history was to jockey the World Bank into becoming an agent of Global Empire on a scale never before witnessed”. However, he points to a caveat, ‘a single factor that would cause history’s first truly global empire to self-destruct’.

The author argues that the strength of the US economy lies in the strength of Dollar which is backed not by gold but by the worldwide confidence in the American Economy to do well. If this confidence is lost then the US economy will crash down. The US economy itself is burdened today with a huge debt. Much of this debt is owed to Asian countries like China and Japan, who purchase US Treasury securities with funds accumulated through sale of consumer goods to US and worldwide markets. He writes, “The ability to print currency gives us immense power. However, if another currency should come along to replace the dollar, and if someone of the United States’ creditors should decide to call in their debts, the situation should change drastically”.

The reader craves for more detail throughout the book. The details have been hinted at and left for the reader’s imagination to access them. The author instead explains in detail the process of his disillusionment with the system he was working for, which does not sound very convincing at many places. The book could have been much more objective in its approach. However, a personal account of the author’s relationships with Omar Torrijos the president of Panama, James Roldos the president of Equador and his involvement in the high level diplomatic talks makes a reader comprehend the deeper issues involved therein. Mr. Perkin’s tenure as an EHM it seems ended as soon as he left MAIN in 1980. He makes his observations and comments on the major events in world history after 1980, but he is unable to deliver a first hand account of them. It was a challenge for him to make his book topical. As he writes, ‘I started writing once again, and as I did so, it seemed to me that my story was too old. Somehow, I needed to bring it up to date’. He accomplishes the task successfully by making his observations about the world events after 1980 and relating them to the past. He is successful in retaining the reader’s interest throughout the book.

The book has been written for an average American Reader who is generally ill-informed about what is happening in the rest of the world. The book is an attempt to let him understand the world events and the opportunities and threat before the nation; to change the way he reads the news and to help him to read between the lines. The book is a sort of a SWOT analysis of a philosophy, which the author defines as ‘Corporatocracy’. Nevertheless, the book would make an interesting reading for a reader who is interested in world politics, economics and the underlying issues in any other country. While the books makes no mention of India the recent events of our own history, the assassination of two Prime-Ministers, the economic crisis of 1990, lurk in the mind of the reader as he reads the book. Mr. John Perkins however, ends the book on an optimistic note as he writes, “We live in a time of terrible crisis - and tremendous opportunity”.
Explaining that United States can make the world a better place to live by changing its policies, Mr. Perkins writes “for the first time in history, one nation has the ability, the money, and the power to change all this.”