The Book- The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World

The Author- John Perkins

The Important Publishing Information–

ISBN#-0452289572

Publishing Company- The Penguin Group

Printing Company- Plume

Copyright- 2007

Websites for further information–

www.penguin.com

www.johnperkins.org

About the Book

What you need to know to start off? The book wasn’t written by someone writing on theory, the book was written by someone who lived the life they wrote about. John Perkins was an “Economic Hit Man”: a smooth talking business man who bribed and strategized his way into deals that benefitted the companies he represented. Realizing the negative implications of his actions, and the actions of others like him, he now writes about the affects that big business has on nations that are struggling to become industrialized. When you are reading this book it feels like you are reading confessions, not only of John Perkins, but the others who came to him with their stories as well.

The book is split up into sixty-five chapters and five sections. Instead of describing the book to you in terms of the chapters I am going to do so in terms of sections, it will get less confusing that way (because the timeline isn’t consistent throughout the book.) The five sections are: Asia, Latin America, The Middle East, Africa, and Changing the World.

Asia

• The work of women. The section on Asia started with discussion of Indonesia and Geishas. What do Geishas have to do with anything? The first two chapters aren’t the only portions of the book that mention Geishas, and other women being used as power plays. But they establish exactly what the women are used for: to gain information, influence, and favor.
• A company’s dirty work. This section also included a chapter entitled “Sweatshops”; a title that explains itself to some extent. This chapter focuses on Indonesia, and Nike’s business practices there: focusing on exploitive practices that do not pay the workers enough for them to live outside of poverty and exhaustion (practices that occurred after Nike claimed they had improved.) Later in the section sweatshops are encountered again on a very real level. It was discussed that the minimum wage had risen, but that hadn’t helped the workers any, because just like the minimum wage, the cost of food was on the rise as well, and unfortunately so was the cost of oil. Which meant that workers often had less than what they had before the wage hike.
• Death in the name of control. Another theme that you will notice that appeared throughout the book is: our government supporting governments in the less developed nations that do not have the best interest of their citizens in mind. East Timber was one of the first instances of this that was discussed. East Timber had just regained its independence (from Portugal) only to have it snatch away brutally by Indonesia. In an action that took the lives of two hundred thousand people, an action not only supported by the U.S. in word, but also in action, as it was the U.S. that provided the weapons.
• Making money off of disasters. In a chapter entitled “Tsunami Profiteering” Perkins discusses how the tsunami of 2004 affected the people of a placed called Aceh (Indonesia) in both a human and economic sense. Before the tsunami the local people formed a movement (GAM), and had been fighting against companies who were taking their resources and not allocating them in a manner that helped the local community. Before the tsunami they had been making progress, after the tsunami with their numbers waining, and the number of military increasing, their progress and movement met its end.
• Money, money, money. John Perkins, as a former Economic Hit Man, seems to be no stranger to the bribery that happens behind the scenes of business deals. At one point he was contacted on how best to bribe people in Indonesia, in a legal sense. Perkins explained methods of legal bribery; most of them involved extra money exchanging hands for services, or sending a young adult to U.S. college for free. But there wasn’t any acknowledged method for legally handing someone a large sum of cash right away.
• Bold conquering. A lot of this book is about what happens “under the table”. As we reach the end of the section on Asia we briefly read about the opposite situation: China and their obvious and consistently present military presence in Tibet. This seems to be to prepare us for future chapters of the book.
• In review. What did we gain from this section? This section provided us with information on the inner workings of big business, and how companies get what they want from people/communities.

Latin America

• The Latin America: full of violence. In the first chapter we learn about the overtaking of a government, and the deaths of thousands of people. We will also find a lot of influence from the United States in this portion of the book. It starts with Guatemala. A company that wished to pursue business in Guatemala, called United Fruits, wasn’t getting what they wanted. So it campaigned against the current leader of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, calling him a communist (during a time when the USSR still existed.) The CIA got involved, and with violence, Arbenz was replace with a dictator. After this occurred thousands of people were killed by a militant government.
• What it was like when Perkins visited: men with guns, would be the best way to describe it. The main point I took away from Perkins’ visit to Guatemala was that there was a certain warfare between the native people of Guatemala (the Mayans) and the current people with power an influence (people trying to make money). Because in order to make money they had to obtain resources that the Mayans held claim to.
• Bolivia, more people exploited. Outside corporations were getting money from native people for utilities. This is another direct experience that the author had; John Perkins, was courted as the main candidate to be president of such a utility company. When he went to Bolivia he witnessed poor people standing in a long line in rain just to pay the company. He also witnessed an amazing project that had been done there, that provided power from the river without damming and flooding, but was told for the sake of money a project like that wouldn’t occur again. He didn’t take the job.
• Venezuela, Hugo Chavez: down and back again. President Chavez did what a lot of men in power wouldn’t do, instead of allowing the country’s resources to be taken with no regard to the people, he put profits back in community to help teach and benefit the people. He also helped other countries within South America when they were in need. This didn’t bode well for the oil industry. Because of this the jackals were called in: jackals are essentially the muscle behind corporations, or the thugs. Chavez was driven out of power, but only temporarily. He came back into power and back into control of the oil, and with his win gave hope to people that things could change.
  
• Ecuador: death and betrayal. The section on Ecuador starts with the assassination of a president, Jaime Roldos. A president who also tried to bring his country’s resources back to its people. His death, an accused assassination, set his country back. Chavez was spreading hope though, so when Lucio Gutierrez seemed to talk the “Chavez talk” he was elected by the people of Ecuador. Unfortunately, his talk was just that, talk. After he was elected he didn’t represent the best interest of his people.
• Another Chavez? We’ve talked about Bolivia before, so I’ll keep this short and sweet.  Bolivia was having issues that a lot of countries were having. They weren’t in control of their resources, companies were, and only the companies were seeming to profit from it: a theme throughout this section. They also had a leader rise up against this practice. This leader being Evo Morales. Of course he was countered, because what he was preaching was dangerous to profits. Evo Morales had a connection to coca crops, and by association cocaine. It was used to attack him, his character, and Bolivia. But those attacks were not successful. With that corporations lost their grip in Bolivia.
• In review. What is important about this section? To me, it shows the lengths that corporations and big business are willing to go to gain control of what we have learned to refer to as the “commanding heights”. It also showcases situation where people have fought back and gained leaders that respected their right to benefit from their resources.

The Middle East

• Lebanon, confrontation that can’t be stopped. Lebanon was one of the places the Palestinians fled when their land was essentially given away as reparation. This created tensions in Lebanon between the pre-existing Christian people and the immigrated Muslims.
• The difficult parts to sort through. This section is interesting to navigate, because it seems like Perkins has less direct experience in the region. It is also fairly short compared to the others. The parts that he does bring from personal experience involve interactions with high ranking business men. Before he was sent to the Middle East he was given a pep talk that is rather striking about the value of Egypt, not only to Africa, but also to the Middle East.
• Egypt, the middle ground. When Perkins was in Egypt he found it particularly difficult to get the population info he needed. So he moved up the chain of command until he could find it. This led him to someone who had studied in the United States, Dr. Asim.  Perkins needed the data to secure money for Egypt. Asim was extremely hostile with him, giving him what he wanted, but brutally tearing him down in the process. Perkins discussed how he felt the source of Asim’s anger was his inability to stop companies from plotting down their own empires onto Egyptian soil.
• Building the Empire. Perkins also discussed a trip he took to Iran. Within this section it is the people he encounters that are the most interesting. Within this particular chapter it was an Iranian engineer, who essentially directly told him what Dr. Asim’s anger had alluded to: that the land and the countries of the Middle East were going to be warped by the intentions of other countries. In this context the engineer seemed to be discussing the countryside turning into a city landscape with hotels and other signs of the outside moving in.
• In review. What was the point of this section? This section was about conflict and shaping. The conflict of the religions within the area was brought up in multiple portions of the section, but especially in reference to Lebanon. To me this discussion of religious conflict existed within this book to show us what was keeping the people from uniting against corporations, and changes, in their countries. The changes were noticed, and seemed to make the people feel helpless, but no actions against it are noted.

Africa

• Jackals in Africa. Here we encounter a friend of the author who became a jackal, Jack Corbin. Jack had a rough start in Lebanon, where Jack’s father lived and worked as a corporate executive. It was in Lebanon where Jack was desensitized to violence. Down the line he found himself in Africa over his head. This occurred when France-Albert Rene did something in Seychelles, an island off the coast of South Africa, that looked a lot like what we have already learned about in the section on Latin America. He attempted to make the areas resources work for the people. Which, as we previously read about, doesn’t end well. Sure enough Jack Corbin was called in to help take him out. The plan however fell to shambles, and turned into a mess of fighting that ended when some of the would-be assassins got on a plane that landed at the airport (in which the conflict was occurring) and flew off. They might not have killed the president, but they seemed to have scared him into being more open to cooperation.
• More on African assassinations. The book paints assassinations in Africa as something that happens commonly. Another assassination that was referenced was the hanging death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his associates, all who were fighting to protect the environment in Nigeria.
• Does charity work help? The description of the “non-govermental organizations” reminded me of putting a bandaid on a festering wound, and feeling helpful afterward. What I got from the chapter on it is; they are there because they feel they should help in some way, but the things that are being done are just elongating the problem by not providing the right aid.
• Tantalum and other money making resources. Things in the Congo have gotten heated in the battle over resources. Not resources that are useful in any sense to the people, but resources that are useful in making money; things like Tantalum, a resource used in production of all our favorite electronic devices, and diamonds. What is comes down to it they are fighting in Africa because of demands that we have here in the United States.
• In Review. What did this section give us? Most of the themes that we encountered in the book were reiterated within this section. The use of jackals was highlighted within the section, so we learned more about the practices they used, and the situations they used them in. We also encountered how our consumption directly causes violence in regions.

Changing the World

• The most important section in the book? This section talks about what we can do to stop the practices of the Economic Hit Men and the Jackals, or the need for those practices all together. There were four main questions that Perkins put forth that I am going to simplify in my own way. They were; do we believe in our ability to have an effect? Do we really want things to be different? Is the change we want clouded by personal belief, or is it something everyone can stand behind? And, what is it that I can personally do to bring about change?
• Has change been forced before? The answers to the questions, in my opinion, have to inspire great emotions in people to get them to want to work for change, and by extension force change. The author showcases some groups in the last section full of people who seem truly inspired. One of the first he brought up is the Rainforest Action Network (RAN.) RAN was successful in convincing branches of Mitsubishi that are found in America to change their policies on the environment. This represents a big company listening to the voices of people. RAN forces hands a lot by bringing attention to the problem at the source. They target businesses that are a problem and then they loudly inform the people (consumers) of what is going on. That gets attention. There are other ways to get the attention of corporations as well. A group called Amnesty International buys stock so that they can have a say in what goes on. Another group (inspired by Perkins) called The Pachamama Alliance works to help native people get back or maintain their land, and their resources, by providing teaching and means of communication.
• The List, among other things. One of the things I enjoyed about this section is that Perkins considers how daunting this all must seem. He lets us know that he is aware it is scary, but that we have to do something anyway. He has given enough speeches to know that fear is a response. When talking with a crowd about what they can do he encountered a teacher who wanted to know what she could do. He told her to teach and inspire her classes. He also touched on things that we can all do in our lives in his last chapter. A lot of them involve our behavior whilst shopping containing things like; only purchase what you need, don’t shop just for the sake of shopping, use the things you have for as long as possible, and shop at thrift stores, or farmers markets, or even the local mom-and-pop. Some of the things on the list involve behaviors; riding a bike instead of taking your car to places when you can, donate to organizations that are doing things, write to the companies whose practices you don’t like or to the companies whose practices you want to see continue, talk about the problems and issues wherever you can, and vote with the ideals in mind.
• In review. What did the final section tell us? It told us that we can be agents of change. That if we didn’t like what we read we should do something about, and then it gave us options of things we can do.

What the Author wants you to know.

If you were only to read one section of the book the Author would want you to read, “Changing the World”. All of the sections that come before it focus on the corruption of big businesses, and big governments. Their purpose seems to be to inspire the reader to do something. The last section focuses on what we the people can do to battle big businesses and the negative effects they have on other countries. This book seemed to be his call for action, and the fifth portion describes the action he wants to see.

The back of the book contained links to the organizations that were mentioned in the book for their efforts to fight big business and the negative effects caused by it. Here they are if you are interested.

www.amnesty.org, www.dreamchange.org, www.ran.org, www.pachamama.org

 

Why is it relevant in terms of our class?

Income inequality and standards of living are the two main topics we discuss in this class that are found within this book. Standard of living was one of the main focuses of the book. We’ve talked a lot about third world, or lesser developed nations, but it is hard to put that into context considering the lives that we lead. In the section about Asia the book discussed Indonesia and the living conditions of factory workers there. In the book there is an account of two documentary makers who went to Indonesia and lived on the wages that factory workers make, which meant they were living on a dollar and twenty-five cents a day. They lived in a cement box with no common comforts like furniture, and ate two meals a day. If they wanted to purchase something else they had to take it out of their food allowance. This made an alternative standard of living real. It described what it would be like to go to work after sleeping on a hard floor for barely enough money to eat rice. Income inequality was also mentioned, it was brought up particularly in the case of Lebanon. The Palestinians there were the group that made significantly less on average. During his trip to Lebanon, John Perkins saw slums that the Palestinians resided in. He saw the differences between the groups, like there was some sort of stigma keeping the Palestinians in a lower class within Lebanon.

What I learned.

Before reading this book I didn’t know what Economic Hit Men (EHM) and jackals were. When I was reading I felt quite ignorant. I didn’t think about the native people who were losing their resources to companies that took their profits to other portions of the world. I learned just how important unity is in terms of getting what you want. Countries like Bolivia showed the power of unity in their fight against resource leeches. The section on the Middle East showed what happened if the opposite situation was in affect, if there was no unity. I didn’t just learn about the definition of terms, or about theory, I learned about the “people factor”.

What was missing?

The fifth section of the book “Changing the World” wasn’t powerful enough for me. The entire book was pushing up to that moment, the moment where we learned how we could help. Yet somehow when I put the book down I felt less inspired and empowered than I did when I was reading through the first four sections. Maybe it was because it made me feel a little helpless. The wins that were brought up in the last section seemed trivial compared to all of the damages that were listed in the first four. I also felt that some of the sections, mainly the Middle East and Africa, were lacking the same substance that powerfully drove the chapters on Asia and Latin America. It felt like if the author lacked direct experience he hesitated to write about it in depth, which I can appreciate, but it still affected the buildup. He definitely started out with his strongest arguments and points, which also made the end feel weaker.

How has it changed me?

I will definitely think twice before I go out and buy a Nike running jacket, or a new pair of “Free Runs”. Reading a book like this changes how you feel when you walk into a store, or when you watch the news. You start to think about the source of things more; the “wheres” and the “whys”. Where did my computer come from? Why does Russia want control of Crimea? Last week when I did the grocery shopping I calculated how much it cost for the three meals and snacks that I ate in a day. Then I thought about all the other things I use in a day; my toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, toilet paper, and food for my dogs. Thinking about attempting to live on $1.25, without my bed, or car, just thinking about it was humbling.

The Bottom-line. 

Would I recommend it to my friends? Yes. I have already. And I plan to read John Perkins’ other book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. His personal experience gave real emotion to the topics he wrote on. I also like his writing style.