By John Perkins
Preface
Economic hit men (EHMs)
are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of
trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, U.S. Agency for
International Development, and other foreign “aid” organizations into the
coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who
control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial
reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game
as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during
this time of globalization.
I should know; I was an
EHM.
I wrote that in 1982, as
the beginning of a book with the working title
Conscience of an
Economic Hit Man.
The book was dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been my
clients, whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits—Jaime Roldós,
president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died
in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated
because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads
whose goal is global empire. We EHMs failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around,
and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right
behind us, stepped in.
I was persuaded to stop
writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On
each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world
events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and
the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes always convinced me to
stop.
In 2003, the president of
a major publishing house that is owned by a powerful international corporation
read a draft of what had now become
Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man.
He described it as “a riveting story that needs to be told.” Then he smiled
sadly, shook his head, and told me that since the executives at world
headquarters might object, he could not afford to risk publishing it. He advised
me to fictionalize it. “We could market you in the mold of a novelist like John
Le Carre or Graham Greene.”
But this is not fiction.
It is the true story of my life. Amore courageous publisher, one not owned by an
international corporation, has agreed to help me tell it.
This story must be told.
We live in a time of terrible crisis—and tremendous opportunity. The story of
this particular economic hit man is the story of how we got to where we are and
why we currently face crises that seem insurmountable. This story must be told
because only through understanding our past mistakes will we be able to take
advantage of future opportunities, because 9/11 happened and so did the second
war in Iraq, because in addition to the three thousand people who died on
September 11 at the hands of terrorists, another twenty-four thousand died from
hunger and hunger-related causes. In fact, twenty-four thousand people die every
single day because they are unable to obtain life-sustaining food. Most
importantly, this story must be told because today, for the first time in
history, one nation has the ability, the money, and the power to change all
this. It is the nation where I was born and the one I served as an EHM: the
United States of America.
What finally convinced me
to ignore the threats and bribes?
The short answer is that
my only child, Jessica, graduated from college and went out into the world on
her own. When I recently told her that I was considering publishing this book
and shared my fears with her, she said, “Don’t worry, dad. If they get you, I’ll
take over where you left off. We need to do this for the grandchildren I hope to
give you someday!”
The longer
version relates to my dedication to the country where I was raised, my love for
the ideals expressed by our founding fathers, my deep commitment to the American
republic that today promises “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for
all people, everywhere, and to my determination after 9/11 not to sit idly by
any longer while EHMs turn that republic into a global empire. That is the
skeleton version of the long answer; the flesh and blood are added during the
chapters that follow.
This is a true story. I
lived every minute of it. The sights, the people, the conversations, and the
feelings I describe were all a part of my life. It is my personal story and yet
it happened within the larger context of world events that have shaped our history, brought
us to where we are today, and form the foundation for our children’s futures. I
have made every effort to present
these experiences, people, and conversations accurately. Whenever I discuss
historical events or re-create conversations with other people, I do so with the
help of several tools, including published documents; personal records and
notes; recollections—my own and those of others who participated; the five
manuscripts I began previously; and historical accounts by other authors, most
notably recently published ones that disclose information that formerly was
classified or otherwise unavailable. Footnotes and references are provided to
allow interested readers to pursue these subjects in more depth.
My publisher asked whether
we actually referred to ourselves as economic hit men. I assured him that we
did, although usually only by the initials. In fact, on the day in 1971 when I
began working with my teacher Claudine, she informed me, “My assignment is to
mold you into an economic hit man. No one can know about your involvement—not
even your wife.” Then she turned serious. “Once you’re in, you’re in for life.”
After that she seldom used the full name, we were simply EHMs.
Claudine’s role is a
fascinating example of the manipulation that underlies the business I had
entered. Beautiful and intelligent, she was highly effective; she understood my
weaknesses and used them to her greatest advantage. Her job was typical of the
cogs that keep the system on track. Claudine pulled no punches when describing
what I would be called upon to do. My job, she said, was “to encourage world
leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial
interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that
ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire—to satisfy our
political, economic, or military needs. In turn, they bolster their political
positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their
people. The owners of U.S. engineering and construction companies become
fabulously wealthy.”
Today we see the results of
this system run amok. Executives at our most respected companies hire people at
near-slave wages to toil under inhuman conditions in Asian sweatshops. Oil
companies wantonly pump toxins down rain forest rivers, consciously killing
people, animals, and plants and committing genocide among ancient cultures. The
pharmaceutical industry denies life-saving medicines to millions of HIV-infected
Africans. Twelve million families in our own United States worry about their
next meal. The energy industry creates an Enron. The accounting industry creates
an Andersen. The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world’s population in the
wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30:1 in 1960 to
74:1 in 1995. The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq
while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could
provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to
every person on the planet.
And we wonder why
terrorists attack us?
Some would blame our
current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it were so simple. Members
of a conspiracy can be rooted out and brought to justice. This system, however,
is fueled by something far more dangerous than conspiracy. It is driven not by a
small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea
that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the
more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those
people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and
rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation.
The concept is, of course,
erroneous. We know that in many countries economic growth benefits only a small
portion of the population and may in fact result in increasingly desperate
circumstances for the majority. This effect is reinforced by the corollary
belief that the captains of industry who drive this system should enjoy a
special status, a belief that is the root of many of our current problems and
perhaps is also the reason that conspiracy theories abound. When men and woman
are rewarded for greed, greed becomes a corrupting motivator. When we equate the
gluttonous consumption of the earth’s resources with a status approaching
sainthood, when we teach our children to emulate people who live unbalanced
lives, and when we define huge sections of the population as subservient to an
elite minority, we ask for trouble. And we get it.
In their drive to advance
the global empire, corporations, banks, and governments (collectively the
corporatocracy) use their financial and political muscle to ensure that our
schools, businesses, and the media support both the fallacious concept and its
corollary. They have brought us to a point where our global culture is a
monstrous machine that requires exponentially increasing amounts of fuel and
maintenance, so much so that in the end it will have consumed everything in
sight and will be left with no choice but to devour itself.
The corporatocracy is not a
conspiracy, but its members do endorse common values and goals. One of
corporatocracy’s most important functions is to perpetuate and continually
expand and strengthen the system. The lives of those who “make it,” and
their accouterments—their mansions, yachts, and private jets—are presented as
models to inspire us all to consume,
consume, consume. Every opportunity is taken to convince us that purchasing
things is our civic duty, that pillaging the
earth is good for the economy and therefore serves our higher interests. People
like me are paid outrageously high
salaries to do the system’s bidding. If we falter, a more malicious form of hit
man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if
the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.
This book is the
confession of a man who, back when he was an EHM, was part of a relatively small
group. People who play similar roles are more abundant now. They have more
euphemistic titles, and they walk the corridors of Monsanto, General Electric,
Nike, General Motors, Wal-Mart, and nearly every other major corporation in the
world. In a very real sense,
Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man
is their story, as well
as mine.
It is your story too, the
story of your world and mine, of the first truly global empire. History tells us
that unless we modify this story, it is guaranteed to end tragically. Empires
never last. Every one of them has failed terribly. They destroy many cultures as
they race toward greater domination, and then they themselves fall. No country
or combination of them can thrive in the long term by exploiting others.
This book was written so
that we may take heed and remold our story. I am certain that when enough of us
become aware of how we are being exploited by the economic engine that creates
an insatiable appetite for the world’s resources and that results in systems
that foster slavery, we will no longer tolerate it. We will reassess our role in
a world where a few swim in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution,
and violence. We will commit ourselves to navigating a course toward compassion,
democracy, and social justice for all.
Admitting to a problem is
the first step toward finding a solution. Confessing a sin is the beginning of
redemption. Let this book, then, be the start of our salvation. Let it inspire
us to new levels of dedication, and drive us to realize our dream for balanced
and honorable societies.
