The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

  Then it struck me in the gut — a resurgence of guilt. What about the people I’d corrupted? The threats and bribes? The resources I’d plundered in the name of progress? How did this compare with the killing, maiming, and raping? How did extortion and the ravaging of rain forests measure against land mines, flattened temples, and children running naked, screaming, through flaming villages? I was mulling over these questions and the horror of it all, my guilt, when I heard a noise that set my nerves on edge.

  A door slammed. The sound echoed throughout the Hanoi Hilton. A metal door. I jumped to my feet, panicked by the prospect of being shut in this place alone for the night. Then I made myself calm down. I leaned into the cold cement of the wall and assured myself that the attendant would not abandon me. After all, I was an American.

  And that realization — that I was an American and therefore would not be shut up in this place — brought another jab to the gut. Why should Americans feel so privileged? We, who had tried to destroy this country, somehow had the right to feel assured that we wouldn’t be abandoned for the night in a prison-turned-museum. Where was the justice in that? And I, of all people, a man who had enslaved countries through debt, who had threatened and corrupted presidents . . . what right did I have to feel secure anywhere?

  The cold cement of the wall sent another shiver through me. How could I compare what I’d done as an EHM with the actions of soldiers and torturers? Then I realized that comparison was not the issue. The one supported the other. Economic hit men counted on their marks knowing that the military waited in the wings. In the end, the only thing that really mattered was that we had to change, that there had to be a better way. Human beings had to find another means of dealing with our fears and with our urge to possess more territory, more resources. We simply had to move out of our dysfunctional patterns of exploitation and mayhem. We had to awaken from our stupor.

  I turned off my light. Sitting there in the darkness of a prison where so many people had suffered for so many years, I thought about the tools used by EHMs and jackals, and about how these had changed since the days when the Vietnam War was ending and my EHM career was beginning.

  CHAPTER 40

  Istanbul: Tools of Modern Empire

  In the 1970s, economic hit men were executives and consultants at a few multinational corporations and consulting companies. Today’s EHMs are executives and consultants at thousands of multinational corporations, consulting companies, investment funds, industry groups, and associations — as well as an army of lobbyists that represents all of these.

  The similarities of the EHMs of the past to those of the present, as well as the differences between them, were on my mind in April 2013. It was less than a month after my Vietnam trip. I stood at the window of my hotel in Istanbul and looked out at the ancient buildings and minarets of this city that has been both the seat and the victim of empires for centuries. After the publication of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, I had been invited to Istanbul a number of times to speak at conferences of business executives. This historic city had become a center for international conferences.

  I thought about the core tools we EHMs used in my day: false economics that included distorted financial analyses, inflated projections, and rigged accounting books; secrecy, deception, threats, bribes, and extortion; false promises that we never intended to honor; and enslavement through debt and fear. These same tools are used today. Now, as then, many elements are present in each “hit,” although that likely is evident only to someone willing to delve deeply into the story behind the story. Now, as then, the glue that holds all of this together is the belief that any means are justified to achieve the desired ends.

  A major change is that this EHM system, today, is also at work in the United States and other economically developed countries. It is everywhere. And there are many more variations on each of these tools. There are hundreds of thousands more EHMs spread around the world. They have created a truly global empire. They are working in the open as well as in the shadows. This system has become so widely and deeply entrenched that it is the normal way of doing business and therefore is not alarming to most people.

  These men and women convince government officials to give them favorable tax and regulatory treatment. They force countries to compete against one another for the opportunity to host their facilities. Their ability to locate their production plants in one country, their tax-sheltered banking in a second, their phone call centers in a third, and their headquarters in a fourth gives them immense leverage. Countries must vie with one another to offer the most lenient environmental and social regulations and the lowest wage and tax rates. In many cases, governments swamp themselves with debt so they can offer perks to subsidize corporations. In the past decade we’ve watched this happen to countries such as Iceland, Spain, Ireland, and Greece, in addition to the economically developing countries, where it has been going on longer. When the subtler approaches fail, government officials learn that some damaging aspect of their personal lives, which they thought was secret, will be exposed or even, in some cases, fabricated.

  Another change is evident in the justification used for the EHM tactics. Then, it was protecting the world from Communist take-over, from the Vietcong and other revolutionary groups, or from threats to our affluent American way of life. Today, the justification is stopping terrorists, fighting Islamic extremists, promoting economic growth, or saving our affluent way of life.

  Later that day, I left my hotel to meet with Uluç Özülker, Turkey’s former ambassador to Libya, the country’s representative to both the European Union and the Organisation for Economic CoOperation and Development (OECD), and a highly regarded diplomat and scholar.

  We ordered Turkish coffee on the outdoor patio of a bistro with a spectacular view of the Bosporus, the waterway that allows transportation between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and separates Asia from Europe. We talked about the critical role the Bosporus played as an avenue of commerce for ancient Greece, Persia, and Rome.

  “You spell it out in your book,” Uluç said. “Economics is the key to power.”

  I pointed at a passing freighter. “Trade.”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “And debt.” He took a sip of the strong, dark coffee that had been delivered by a waiter while we chatted. “You emphasize that your job was to bind countries with debt.” He peered over the rim of his cup. “Fear and debt. The two most powerful tools of empire.” He set the cup down on the table. “Most everybody thinks military might is the driver of empire, but war’s important because it — and the threat of it — instills fear. People are terrified into parting with their money. They take on more debt.” He smiled. “Whether we owe money or favors, debt shackles us. That’s why the economic hit man approach is so effective. More so than war.”

  When I asked about his experiences in Libya, he said that Muammar Gadhafi provided an excellent case study in modern empire building. “He was a harsh dictator, and yet, in my opinion, he made most of his people better off. Unlike many of the other leaders you write about — in Indonesia, Ecuador, and other places — he used Libya’s oil money to improve conditions. But his Soviet leanings upset the US.” Uluç went on to explain that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gadhafi found himself isolated and in a very precarious position. As a consequence, Gadhafi decided to reconcile his differences with the West. “He sold out to England and the US when he acknowledged Libya’s role in the bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. He also assured London and Washington that their companies would get his country’s oil. That ended most of the economic sanctions against him.”

  “Why did the US and England side with the rebels who fought him, then?”

  “It’s complex and entangled.” Uluç took another sip of coffee. “Short version: the French resented the new Anglo–American–Libyan ties and the fact that Paris lost out on oil deals.” He described how President Sarkozy had offered support to disgruntled tribal leaders and factions from
Egypt and other Arab countries, as well as within Libya itself, who were attempting to depose Gadhafi. Eventually, the United Kingdom and the United States saw that defending Gadhafi’s regime — one they had strongly denounced in the past — was resulting in worldwide condemnation. “Besides,” he added, “Gadhafi encouraged other Arab countries to sell oil for Libya’s gold dinar instead of dollars.”

  “Echoes of Saddam Hussein — and now Iran.”

  “Yes. As you know, Washington and Wall Street view attacks on the dollar and the Federal Reserve practically as acts of war. So, the US and Britain joined France and the other NATO countries in a ‘civil war’ that eventually overthrew and assassinated Gadhafi. It was a classic case of the very things you write about, Mr. Perkins. Economic hit men, jackals, and the military, all working together in ways that were at first subtle and then overt.”

  He watched a passing ship. “It happened here, too, you know. The US played a deciding role in the 1980 coup in my country.” We talked about how President Carter had sent three thousand troops to support the coup, and $4 billion in aid. In typical EHM fashion, some of the money had been filtered through NATO and the OECD. Following the coup, not surprisingly, the IMF stepped in to support privatization and takeovers by big business. “Turkey,” Uluç said, “bought into the game of what you call the corporatocracy.”

  I pointed out that the globalizing corporate network had destabilized the world economy, building it on wars or the threat of war, debt, and abuse of the earth’s resources — a death economy. “Less than 5 percent of the world’s population,” I said, “lives in the US, and we consume more than 25 percent of the resources, while half the world suffers from desperate poverty. That’s not a model. It can’t be replicated — not by China, India, Brazil, Turkey, or any other country, no matter how hard they try.”1

  “Yes,” he said. “Fear, debt, and another very important strategy: divide and conquer.” He talked about the schism between Sunnis and Shiites and about how civil wars and tribal factions create power vacuums that open the doors to exploitation. “In such disputes,” he continued, “both parties take on more debt, buy more arms, destroy resources and infrastructure, and then accept even more debt to finance reconstruction. We’re seeing it throughout the Middle East, in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan . . . So many countries are the building blocks for billionaires.”

  I asked what he thought it would take to transform the death economy into a life economy. “You have to go after the businessmen, the CEOs and major stockholders of the multinationals that run the world. They are the roots of the problem.”

  The next day, flying home from Istanbul, looking down on the Mediterranean, I found that, in addition to guilt, I felt a growing sense of anger. Our business and government leaders were taking the EHM system way beyond anything imaginable in my time — or in the era of the feudal emperors who, during the so-called Dark Ages, ruled the lands beneath my plane.

  I couldn’t help suspecting that future historians would look back on the post-9/11 era as an even darker age.

  My anger mounted at the realization that we in the United States are told that we must fear scarcity, that we should buy more, work harder, keep accumulating, bury ourselves in more and more debt. This mentality goes beyond the personal to become an aspect of national patriotism — our country must amass increasing amounts of the world’s resources. We are assured that the debt used to finance the military is necessary for our own good — the same argument that had been used on the subjects of those feudal emperors.

  It was particularly infuriating to recall that, when we point out that military spending reduces our benefits, we are told that social programs encourage indolence, whereas programs that support armies, subsidize windfall profits, and encourage corporate barons to speculate with our tax dollars fuel the engines of economic growth — that top-down economics works, despite the overwhelming evidence of the past decade to the contrary.

  As I looked down at the English Channel, once the dividing line between archenemies Protestant England and Catholic France, I was struck by how much stronger this system has become since my EHM days, and how, after 9/11, the EHM system came home to roost. The use of debt and fear, the Patriot Act, the militarization of police forces, a vast array of new surveillance technologies, the infiltration and sabotage of the Occupy movement, and the dramatic expansion of privatized prisons have strengthened the US government’s ability to marginalize those who oppose it. Giant, corporate-funded political action committees (PACs), reinforced by Citizens United and other court decisions, and billionaires like the Koch brothers, who finance groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), subvert the democratic process and win elections by flooding the media with propaganda. They hire cadres of lawyers, lobbyists, and strategists to legalize corruption and to influence every level of government.

  When I arrived back in the United States, I discovered something that reinforced my anger. Although Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, had survived the coup attempt and had announced that Ecuador would auction off oil rights in its Amazon region, he was once again under attack by one of those divide-and-conquer campaigns. He was being strangled by those “roots of the problem” that Uluç had described — the people who control the big corporations.

  CHAPTER 41

  A Coup against Fundación Pachamama

  Although the attempted coup against Correa had failed, on another level it had succeeded. I figured the jackals had learned from that other “failed” coup in Seychelles that sometimes it is better to let a president survive. Sufficiently scared, he or she then plays the game, joins the ranks of all those other heads of state who know that to resist is futile. In any case, Correa had reversed his previous position and had posted “for sale to oil companies” signs on more than six million acres in thirteen areas of the Amazon, known as “blocks.”

  Yet, something had gone wrong. The opposition to the oil auction had weakened Correa’s resolve — or at least forced him to change his plans. He had vacillated. He had postponed the auction twice since November 2012.

  By the time I returned from Vietnam and Istanbul, the oil companies and their public relations people had swung into action. The articles I read online, in the Spanish newspapers and blogs, shook me to the core. They were reminiscent of articles that had appeared during the Roldós presidency. They were aimed at convincing the Ecuadorian people who lived in the heavily populated Andean and coastal regions that the only way their country could finance better schools and hospitals and build the infrastructure needed to develop energy, transportation, water, and sewer systems — the only way it could raise itself from poverty — was through exploitation of its Amazonian oil. The argument was made, over and over, that although Ecuador was one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the hemisphere, roughly a third of the country was sparsely populated. That third happened to be a rain forest rich with oil.

  I traveled the spectacular road from Quito to Shell and, from there, by small plane and canoe, deep into Achuar territory, in the summer of 2013. I found that the Achuar and their neighbors — the Huaorani, Kichwa, Sápara, Shiwiar, and Shuar — were frightened, incensed, and most of all, determined to protect their lands. They understood the immense value of the rain forest — not just to them but also to life on this planet. They referred to the forest as both the heart and the lungs of the earth. They pointed out that, in addition to being worth protecting for its own sake, the forest is one of the most biodiverse places on earth, a defense against carbon dioxide poisoning of the atmosphere, and a place where as-yet-unidentified plant species offer potential cures for cancer and other diseases.

  Bill Twist and the staffs of the Pachamama Alliance and Fundación Pachamama were spending lots of time, energy, and money supporting the indigenous people of the region. They let those people know that many of us who are the biggest consumers of oil were on their side, that we were trying to convince Americans and Europeans to consume less and to
pressure oil companies to stay out of the Amazon basin.

  For me, it was another opportunity to redeem the sins of my past. I’d heard the false stories in the late 1960s about how Texaco would benefit the country. I’d been one of the EHMs who had encouraged the military dictators of the 1970s to swamp their countries with debt. I’d tried to woo Jaime Roldós into our ranks. I’d felt the horrible pangs of guilt; now I’d committed to action. One of those actions was to increase my involvement with the Pachamama Alliance.

  I joined Bill, Lynne, and some of our key supporters in developing a plan to help Correa. We understood that he was in a difficult position. We hoped to organize a summit that would be hosted by the president and that would show him to be a reasonable man who wanted to find alternatives to the oil auction.

  During this same period, the indigenous people launched their own campaigns. Supported by Fundación Pachamama, they marched from their rain forests over the Andes to the capital, picketed the presidential palace, and demanded that Correa cancel the oil auction. The protests were reported by media around the world. None of the efforts deterred Correa. He went ahead with the auction in November 2013.

  However, something miraculous happened. Most oil companies stayed away. Not a single US-based one showed up. Bids were placed on only four of the thirteen blocks. As an oil company executive admitted to me, “It just isn’t worth the risk of all the bad publicity.”

  Ecuadorians living on the heavily populated coast and in the Andes, those who had come to believe that oil was the catalyst for economic growth, were disappointed and outraged. So were the EHMs and the CIA. Corporate moguls everywhere took notice. What had happened in Ecuador was just one more sign that consciousness was changing and that when poor people who had been marginalized in the past united, they had power.