Ryan and Debi Cragun’s Blog

Author:

John Perkins

Publisher:

Plume

Date of Publication:

2005

ISBN:

0452287081

Rating:

3

Summary:

I picked this up (as an audio book) after hearing an interview with the author on NPR. I was really excited about the book as I believed it was going to go into depth about how large corporations, in conjunction with the federal government of the United States, use loans and development packages to manipulate and control foreign governments. I also thought it was going to be full of amazing stories about the “hits” of the author. I was partially right on the first count, less so on the second.

The book begins with the author, John Perkins, describing how he ended up getting involved in international economic forecasting. He got a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Boston College in the 1960s (or 1970s, I don’t remember the exact dates), then spent a few years in the Peace Corps working in South America, where he picked up Spanish. After that, via some connections through his spouse at the time and the NSA, he was recruited by an “engineering” firm in Boston, Chas T. Main, that is similar to Halliburton in that it often bid for contracts with foreign governments.

Perkins then explains that his job at the company was to develop relatively fictitious economic forecasts for these countries so as to support the contracts and loans the countries wanted from different development banks, including the World Bank. The contracts were extremely lucrative for Perkins, his company, and the U.S. Government, which, Perkins claims, basically used the ridiculously large loans to bludgeon the governments of these countries into step with American interests.

The basic premise is that Perkins was specifically trained (cloak and dagger style) to do whatever was necessary to make the loans possible. The idea being, once the loan was in place to the foreign government wouldn’t be able to pay back the loan. And, of course, the loans were always contingent upon the foreign governments hiring U.S. contractors to do almost all of the work, keeping the money in the hands of U.S. corporations, who bribed the federal government to sponsor all of this. Once the foreign government defaulted on the loan, it would become beholden to the U.S. government and would essentially have to do its bidding – whether that meant cheaper imports to the U.S. or voting in accordance with the U.S.’s demands at the UN, the idea was basically “empire building” through economic warfare rather than traditional warfare.

Of course, Perkins also claims that economic warfare was just the first assault – if that failed, there were two additional options – CIA assassinations (he calls them “the jackals”) or traditional war. He cites numerous instances when leaders of countries “mysteriously” died in helicopter and plane crashes after refusing to cooperate with the U.S. on these loans, as well as the invasion of Panama to bolster his claims.

Ultimately, Perkins decides that his role in this enormous conspiracy to make the U.S. an empire is unethical, so he leaves. He went on to start his own energy and consulting company and write a number of books on New Age religion, shamanism, and pop-psychology. Eventually he decided he was distanced enough from his former role that he felt he could write this book, describing his role in burdening several countries with unbearable debt, including: Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, and Panama.

Review:

I really was excited to read this book as the interview I heard with him made it seem as though this was an insider who decided to rat out a corrupt and unethical system. But as I listened to the book, I became increasingly disappointed. There are a lot of problems…

First and foremost, many of the stories the author tells seem so far-fetched as to be not quite believable. Don’t get me wrong, I think there probably is a lot of unethical finagling of loans and debts to bring countries in line. That basic claim probably has some merit. I don’t know how much, and reading this book didn’t give me a good sense of how much, but it probably happens. We know, in fact, there is corruption in international contracts, as seen in Iraq with the no bid contracts of contracting companies like Halliburton. So, there is reason to believe this kind of thing happens. But the way John Perkins describes things makes me skeptical of at least some of his claims.

Interestingly, this is actually a two-fold criticism of the book. When the book does seem believable (e.g., meeting with foreign leaders, talking with other business people, etc.), what he describes seems utterly believable and, in fact, very quotidian. It’s basically like he is describing a boring business meeting – no high drama cloak and dagger at all. About ¼ of the book describes these kinds of boring meetings. When he does start describing cloak and dagger type stuff (e.g., secret meetings with dissidents and revolutionaries, secret training from other hit men, etc.), it just doesn’t seem believable. I don’t want to claim that Mr. Perkins is a liar, but an exaggerator? Probably. For instance, he tells one story about a puppet show he attended in Indonesia where the puppeteer depicted Richard Nixon as devouring countries, including Indonesia, with the intention of controlling them. It was as though this puppeteer had all of the insights of John Perkins as he performed the puppet show, which is awfully convenient if you are trying to make a point about the mistreatment of people in developing countries by the federal government of the U.S.

Additionally, the author depicts himself as having a nagging conscience about what he is doing from day one. His depiction of his own activities is generally positive, as though he was the one moral character afloat in a sea of immoral, greedy assassins. I don’t buy it. I think he is depicting his past in a way that corresponds better with how he thinks about himself today, a tendency we all have. By the end of the book I was utterly disappointed; I couldn’t tell what was true and what was not. (As a help to readers, check out this short entry in Wikipedia on the book, which describes the book as classic “conspiracy theory”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man).

Strangely, while I think he exaggerates much of what he claims happened, he also doesn’t ever talk about the results of his machinations. He says he set up Indonesia, Ecuador, Panama, and even Saudi Arabia to be controlled by the U.S., but he never says what happened. Why? I understand he was writing to describe his (alleged) role in setting up the loans, but why not describe what resulted from his efforts. Oh, and get this: Perkins only worked at Chas T. Main for about seven years in the 1970s. He left the company at the beginning of the 1980s and basically got out of the “hit man” game. Apparently seven years in a field is all the time you need to know how everything works. He published this memoir about 25 years later; I wonder just how good his memory is…

In addition to the big criticism of just not knowing what was and was not true, there are a lot of other problems. For instance, there is a lot of preaching in this book. I’d say at least half of the book is Mr. Perkins going on and on about what he thinks is right and wrong (his system is based on the convenience moral philosophy of, “whatever I do and did is right, whatever I didn’t do or don’t do is wrong). This, in turn, means that probably less than half the book actually describes his exploits as an economic hit man. Since I didn’t read the book to be preached to, I wasn’t all that impressed with this part of the book. Add the ½ preaching to ¼ boring stories about quotidian business life, and what you are left with is ¼ of a book made up of cloak and dagger stories that are of questionable accuracy and authenticity. Disappointment indeed.

So what is all his preaching about? Well, he’s definitely anti-corporations. I recognize this is a tricky issue, especially for me, a sociologist, to consider. Many liberals and progressives in the U.S. today are very anti-corporatism. I can understand the reasons and I empathize with some of these ideas. Corporations, according to this line of thinking, are: greedy, with their own interests at heart; they are inconsiderate of people’s wants and needs; they are corrupting; they destroy culture and traditions; they exploit and manipulate; they are too powerful. I think it is accurate to say there are corporations that have done each of the above, and that is, in my opinion, not a good thing. But I also have to recognize the enormous benefits that stem from large corporations. I’m typing this on a laptop built by Acer, a multi-national corporation with offices and manufacturing centers all around the world. No matter how hard you try to get around it, the only groups with the resources to build a laptop are large corporations. The only groups with the resources to manufacture and produce much of what we use to criticize corporations are multi-national corporations. Without them, we would not have many of the conveniences and even necessities of modern life. Mom and pop stores don’t have the resources to make LCD screens, laptops, solar cells, etc. That takes corporations. Are they perfect? No. Max Weber and Karl Marx saw the imperfections over 100 years ago. But are they necessary? Unless we all want to go back to living like undeveloped aboriginal groups, then yes, they are necessary. The only other option at present is communism, but what is that if not a corrupted variation of corporatism? (I am, of course, referring to the various forms of communism that have actually been implemented, not to Karl Marx’s understanding of communism that did not include an elite ruling class). So, Mr. Perkins, who actually ran a large corporation of his own, has jumped on the anti-corporatism bandwagon.

He also attacks education. Well, it’s not so much an attack as it is a dismissal. As I mentioned in the summary, Mr. Perkins has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. At one point in the book he goes off on one of his many diatribes, this one talking about how he knows far more about economics than almost any PhD ever will because he lived and participated in the manipulation of macro economics. Ergo, a PhD is basically worthless because all you deal with is theories, not the reality of macro economics. The irony in this, of course, is that he continuously harps about how he does have a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, as though that makes him qualified to do what he did. I again got the sense that whatever Mr. Perkins had or did was basically the best and ideal thing. Whatever he didn’t have or didn’t do was not a good thing. Ergo, if you have a BA in Business, you’ve gone as far as you need. Any thing more than a BA, according to Mr. Perkins, and all you’re good for is doing the bidding of the people with BAs. Seems a little short-sighted and naïve to me, but then, I have a PhD. He’s biased; I’m biased…

As if his BA in Business Administration wasn’t enough to qualify him to write this book (along with his experience as an economic hit man, of course), he also seems to think that his previous pop-psychology and New Age books about Shamanism make him qualified to write a book about macro economics. In my opinion, they go far beyond making him qualified; they reveal his tendencies and proclivities – Mr. Perkins writes these books not to educate people but to make money. And how are you going to sell copies of a (supposedly) non-fiction book about macro-economics? Why, how else but to embellish it and turn it into a diatribe against multi-national corporations. His previous “experience” writing books like “The World is As You Dream It” don’t increase my confidence in him as an author. If anything, they have the opposite effect. The world isn’t as you dream it; life doesn’t magically adjust to what we want. Anyone who claims it does is probably selling you something, like a book filled with preaching and exaggerations…

The book wraps up with an epilogue filled with platitudes and recommendations for the future. Mr. Perkins is full of ideas of what people should do. “Do as I say, not as I do” comes to mind here. This is especially ironic given the fact that Perkins made hundreds of thousands of dollars (if you can believe him) fiddling around as an economic hit man. He got his, now he doesn’t want anyone else to do it. Hmmm…. Does that seem hypocritical to anyone else? His ideas are pretty lame and the epilogue would have been better spent talking about what resulted in the countries where he worked.

Lest people come away from the book thinking it is completely awful, I want to point out one idea I thought was actually kind of insightful, in a weird way. Mr. Perkins talks about how he sees the business people of today as a new kind of army – they travel around the world doing the bidding of multi-national corporations and think of themselves as upstanding citizens. In fact, and this is a fact of corporations regardless of your view toward corporations, what those people are doing is spreading economic exploitation. I don’t know that there is any way around that exploitation, but what makes this idea kind of intriguing is the point Mr. Perkins makes about these individuals being viewed as upstanding, moral individuals, even though they are spreading exploitation and doing the bidding of their corporate overlords. Like I said, this is probably inevitable and I don’t have a good alternative, but it is a little disturbing when you think about it this way: the exploiters are the moral ones…

Overall, I don’t recommend this book. I think it is apparent enough from a close reading of the news that corporations and governments collude to benefit each other. Mr. Perkins doesn’t really add much to that understanding, not even great cloak and dagger stories. Add to that his preaching, New Age and pop-psychology platitudes and anti-education and anti-corporatism attitudes and this just isn’t worth the time or money. It’s an interesting idea, but ineptly excuted.

(Note: I listened to this book as an MP3.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 9:19 am and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.