The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

These executives fanned out across the planet. They sought the cheapest labor pools, the most accessible resources, and the largest markets. They were ruthless in their approach. Like the EHMs who had gone before them — like me, in Indonesia, in Panama, and in Colombia — they found ways to rationalize their misdeeds.

And like us, they ensnared communities and countries. They promised affluence, a way for countries to use the private sector to dig themselves out of debt.

In the end, however, if they found cheaper workers or more accessible resourc...

When they abandoned a community whose hopes they had raised, the consequences...

No nation on earth has been able to resist the compelling magnetism of globalization.

Few have been able to escape the “structural adjustments” and “conditionalities” of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or the arbitrations of the World Trade Organization, those international financial institutions that, however inadequate, still determine what economic globalization means, what the rules are, and who is rewarded for submission and punished for infractions. Such is the power of globalization that within our lifetime we are likely to see the integration, even if unevenly, of all national economies in the world into a single global, free market system.1

The day he hired me, the CEO of SWEC took me out to a private lunch.

We chatted informally for some time, and as we did so, I realized that a side of me was eager to get back into the consulting business,

discussed my interest in writing. He looked me squarely in the eye. “Do you intend to write books about our profession?” he asked. My stomach tightened. Suddenly I understood what this was all about. I recalled the threats. I did not hesitate. “No,” I said. “I’ve been writing a book about the way indigenous people manage stress, but I don’t intend to try to publish any books about this business.”

However, it goes without saying that you’ll never mention the name of this company in your books, and that you will not write about anything that touches on the nature of our business here, or the work you did at MAIN. You will not mention political subjects or any dealings with international banks and development projects.” He peered at me. “Simply a matter of confidentiality.”

I understood the real reason I was being hired. He offered me a consultant’s retainer that was equivalent to a top executive’s annual salary.

And yet, I told myself, I had little choice. I knew that if I had not

accepted this bribe, the jackals would not hesitate to kill my daughter, me, and anyone else who threatened to expose the stories behind the “facts” that the EHM system presented to the world.

Manuel Noriega became Torrijos’s de facto successor, and at first he appeared committed to following in his mentor’s footsteps. I never met Noriega personally, but by all accounts, he initially endeavored to further the cause of Latin America’s poor and oppressed. One of his most important projects was the continued exploration of prospects for building a new canal, to be financed and constructed by the Japanese. Predictably, he encountered a great deal of resistance

from Washington and from private US companies. As Noriega himself writes:

The Reagan and Bush administrations feared the possibility that Japan might dominate an eventual canal construction project; not only was there a misplaced concern about security, there was also the question of commercial rivalry. US construction firms stood to lose billions of dollars.