Hoodwinked

by John Perkins

John Perkins tries to explain the emerging problem of ‘corporatocracy’ and ‘predatory capitalism’ through a blend historical events and personal anecdotes. He is a self proclaimed EHM, or Economic Hit Man who has supposedly been in the forefront of multinational corporations exploiting undeveloped nations. While he now feels remorse and guilt for his dark history, he attempts to explain how these multinational corporations weasel their way in to these small nations and proposes some hope for the future. Through his unbelievable life happenings and recollections on encounters with people, both perceivably good and bad, his work really opens your mind up to some new concepts and makes you go..huh?

Mr. Perkins easily gets you in to the mood to start questioning things and quickly starts weaving a tale of an almost James Bond lifestyle. At a young age he got a job for a Consulting Firm and worked his way up the ladder at a fast pace. He starts the intrigue quickly with the story of being confronted in a clandestine encounter with a fellow MAIN (his consulting firm) employee. This confrontation is with an extremely beautiful and seductive lady who swears him to secrecy. She sets up private meetings with him to have sex and ‘train’ him in the ways of the world. His training is to infiltrate political leaders of undeveloped nations and bribe, manipulate and coerce the leaders in to paving an easy path for multinational corporations to come in and set up shop. Basically through loans and austerity the corps come in and exploit, exploit, exploit, basically the same things we learn in Unit 5. He does admit that these corps are bigger than any one nation and that if leaders give them trouble, then the CIA or other large institutions basically kill the rebels or other such means to shut them up (house arrests, military coups, assassinations). While this stuff leads the reader to feel dismay, betrayal and anger, one has to wonder how they could ever fact check what he says. He does a fine job of presenting the facts of scenarios to back up his claims. Perkins goes on to list famous person after famous person that is extremely rich and connects the wealth these people have with the political power they gain through philanthropy and diversifying their affairs. He claims the American people were asleep and that we admired these peoples lifestyles instead of questioning the power they were gaining. He definitely has a Keynesian outlook and frowns on all things free market.

The real meat of the matter came when he started bringing up the toil and wreckage that these corporations leave behind in undeveloped nations and their classification of ‘externalities’. The economic aid that was supposed to strengthen their economies and help the people prosper, basically turns in to helping the corps rip resources from the country cheaply. The climax was his descriptions of Ecuador. Finding huge deposits of oil, Ecuador could have used these profits to help it’s own people. Instead it was privatized, and Texaco came in and got it and destroyed the land and it’s people. Huge pools of oil sitting for decades. Local people becoming diseased from the contaminated water. Animals killed. All for profit. Many costs were never taken into account when Texaco determined the price of oil that we consume. This price, the social and environmental costs are called ‘externalities’.

There are a few chapters of people high positions in dismay at the enormous power the predatory capitalists are gaining and the dismay at what America once was compare to now. The book then shifts forward to the future and Perkins lets us know it’s not all lost. Hope is still there. He attempts to use the second half of his book to explore his solutions of social and environmental responsibility that we consumers have. He insists that we have the power to change the economy and state of affairs with choosing sound purchases that were made in responsible ways. Paying extra is an investment in the future. He also goes in to great depth at how responsible China is how he feels their values of family are much stronger than ours. At the end I felt like his solutions were actually a solution to make his book longer. I think he may have had a little bit of material he wanted to add to his earlier book, but needed to pontificate the end to make it buyable. The first half was really a shocker though, especially to see how premeditated our ‘global’ events are. On a side note, I may have been let down half way through the book, because I perused his website, where it explains how he is a world renowned Shaman and spiritual guide. It took down points in street cred for me.