by John Perkins
4. Demand responsible investments. Insist that your pension funds, mutual funds, and other investments be dedicated to serving the public interest and creating an environmentally sustainable, resource regenerative, socially just world. Let the funds and corporations where you own stock know that you want them to be successful, and that this means participating in the creation of a life economy.
5. Participate in or create campaigns that affect government, politics, and corporate policies. Run for office or support candidates who do, join consumer movements, or take whatever path draws you to be a full participant in the democratic process. Realize that this is not just part of being a true advocate of democracy; it also is deeply rewarding and fun.
6. Share your story. Tell others, especially younger people, about your life and the world you grew up in — how it worked, where it failed, and what needs to be done now to create societies that are resilient and that honor all life. Do this in small family or community gatherings as well as before larger bodies such as service clubs, and through writing, film, art, music, or whatever vehicles work best for you. Tap your unique gifts and talents.
NINE THINGS PEOPLE BETWEEN STUDENT AGE AND RETIREMENT AGE CAN DO
1. Be aware of what is going on in your community and around the world. Dig beneath the surface. Don’t allow yourself to be duped by the media, politicians, corporations, or governments.
2. Develop communications skills to help everyone around you gain greater awareness of what is going on. Realize that being dogmatic or judgmental usually does not work. “Did you know that . . . ?” is more effective than “Don’t you know that . . . ?” Also, remember to ask questions that spark people’s curiosity and creativity. This can be more effective than overwhelming people with your own ideas and information. Use whatever channels are easiest for you: talking, writing, e-mailing, texting, posting on Facebook and Twitter . . . the list goes on.
3. Demand economic and tax reforms, such as accounting practices that internalize costs, strict oversight of Wall Street and big banks, and tax laws that force the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share and that encourage socially and environmentally beneficial technologies. Vote only for candidates who support these, buy only from businesses that comply with and promote such reforms, and let the candidates and businesses know. Write letters to editors and blogs, post on Facebook and Twitter, and so on.
4. Form or join consumer movements, nonprofits, and nongovernmental organizations that promote businesses that serve a public interest — the 99.99 percent rather than the 0.01 percent. Call and/or send e-mails to your local and national representatives, urging them to support these movements and to vote for such reforms.
5. Help form and/or support community-based businesses such as consumer co-ops, community corporations, Certified B Corporations, local public banks, and worker-owned businesses.
6. Join demonstrations, protests, and worker/student/civil movements that fight for better social and environmental conditions. Actively participate, or give them financial and social media support.
7. Develop an awareness of your own biases around race, religion, financial status, immigration, gender, and other issues, and work toward overcoming those biases.
8. Teach younger people to be activists with soul. Help them to understand that democracy is based on being informed and educated about what is going on in the world, and taking inspired action.
9. If you work for a corporation or own stock, speak out. Make it known that you want the company where you work or where you own stock to be successful, and that the successful businesses of the future will be those that nourish a healthy, resilient natural environment and that contribute to the joy, harmony, and equality of their employees and of the communities they serve. See also the next section, “Eleven Things Corporations Can Do.”
ELEVEN THINGS CORPORATIONS CAN DO (AND THAT CONSUMERS CAN INSIST THEY DO)
1. Include in your goals and mission statement a commitment to serving the public, the natural environment, social harmony, and justice. Of course, this must be tailored to the corporation’s specific goods and services. It should be the driving force behind all activities, and an integrated and powerful aspect of all marketing programs. Let it be known that this corporation is looking out for the future as well as the present, and that those who support it as customers or investors are making the world a better place.
2. Convince your owners (stockholders), executives, employees, and other stakeholders that the mission outlined in item 1 will serve the corporation’s long-term best interests. Help all stakeholders understand that we really have entered a new era in human evolution and that the companies that will survive and succeed are those that wake up to and honor the transition to a life economy.
3. Launch programs to ensure that the inputs for all goods and services are sustainably produced. Raw materials and supplies should come from sources that either are recycled or are produced in ways that enable them to regenerate and that do not violate the rights of animals or of nature. Every person in the company should be aware of where materials come from, how the source is replenished, and how the company tangibly supports and honors our living Earth.
4. Implement policies that ensure fair, living, and equitable compensation for all employees and other workers. Establish wage, bonus, and other compensation standards that minimize the gap between the lowest- and the highest-paid employees (for example, the highest-paid employee receives no more than three times the salary of the lowest-paid employee). Confirm that people working for partner, contractor, subcontractor, and supplier companies, or for offshore factories, receive fair and equitable living wages, and that the conditions in which they work meet the highest standards.
5. Recognize that to hire and retain the best and the brightest, the corporation must be dedicated to a life economy. Increasingly, employees want to work for companies that are doing good work. Research shows that members of generations X and Y desire to be part of creative endeavors that will support a living Earth for them and for future generations. Hire and nurture people who thrive on innovation and socially and environmentally responsible change, not the status quo.
6. Create management systems that encourage creativity, joy, and a sense of camaraderie and community. Make the transition from the command-and-control leadership paradigm to collaborative decision-making models. The trend toward management systems that are less hierarchical (or even nonhierarchical) has proven highly rewarding for individuals and organizations alike. Although this must be tailored to the specific company, it is important to recognize that traditional, linear management structures may not be effective in systems that are moving from a death economy to a life economy. Life thrives in diversity and community.
7. Invest wisely in full employment and in the community where the company operates, instead of in stock buybacks and other ventures that only help Wall Street. Invest in internal operations, such as updating data security systems to protect employee confidentiality and proprietary product information; finance companies that can contribute to your corporation’s supply or marketing chain; and support recreational facilities, parks, and other projects that benefit the community.
8. Take criticism from legitimate sources seriously. Treat environmental and social criticisms and proposals from the media, stockholders, and other sources with respect and appreciation, and commit to taking actions that facilitate constant improvement. Encourage deep evaluation of all activities, recognizing that legitimate criticism, introspection, evaluation, and improvement benefit everyone and the company.
9. Commit to diversity and inclusion throughout the company. Embrace variety and diversity among employees, the board of directors, and the management team; in goods and services; and throughout the stakeholder community. Insist that all partner organizations and suppliers do the same. Recognize that monocultures seldom succeed and that diversity and inclusion will be the hallmark of future success stories.
10. Support a cultur
e of ethical behavior and accountability. Encourage transparency and whistle-blowing rather than blind obedience and silence.
11. Include in all your messaging the corporation’s commitment to its mission of serving the public interest and manifesting a life economy. This will become a powerful promotional tool. In addition to advancing the company’s self-interest, it also will inspire, encourage, and empower others to do the same.
FIVE THINGS ENTREPRENEURS CAN DO
1. Follow your heart. Choose an endeavor that fulfills your strongest passions and employs your greatest skills. Don’t be swayed by the opinions of “experts,” parents, teachers, or others who never tried to do what you know in your heart you want to do. Don’t be afraid to offer something radically different from what you see around you, especially if it has the potential to improve current products or approaches. Dare to be great, and trust that greatness will channel through you!
2. Get started. The earlier the better. Recognize that the difference between a person who fails and one who succeeds is that the latter tried one more time. There are no mistakes, just lessons and opportunities to refine your approach, clarify your goals, and deepen your inspiration.
3. Build communities and networks that support you and a more holistic worldview (B Corps, Benefit Corps, social venture networks, for-profit/not-for-profit partnerships, and the like). Use these to inspire and encourage you and to help improve your supply chains, recruitment campaigns, and marketing. Enlist and empower other entrepreneurs. When college classmates, friends, and family see entrepreneurs thriving, it emboldens them to pursue their own passions.
4. Be the company you envision for the future. By establishing an inspirational approach to a sustainable business you manifest your own dream and set an example that will empower others. Approaches for doing this include the way you hire and retain employees, the products and services you offer, the resources you use, the commitment you make to encouraging activities which regenerate depleted resources and ravaged environments, and the contributions you make to your community.
5. Undertake the eleven actions outlined in “Eleven Things Corporations Can Do,” once you find yourself running a company.
Documentation of Economic Hit Man Activity, 2004–2015
The aim of this section is to supply chronological documentation of the scope and reach of the EHM system in the years since Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was first published. Among the following items are reports by nonprofit organizations and government bodies, leaked documents and other confidential materials, journalistic investigations, and more. Some items focus on a single, specific instance of EHM activity; others document systematic actions by a variety of entities over long periods. This list is not meant to be comprehensive but rather to illustrate the extent to which the EHM system infiltrates every aspect of our global economy.
I either have quoted directly from articles and reports or have summarized and paraphrased their content, and I have identified key points in boldface. I have not attempted to verify the information provided or the conclusions reached by these sources. Thus, the analyses, opinions, and conclusions presented below are those of the authors, publications, and websites referenced, not my own. I leave it to you to arrive at your own conclusions.
2004
A United Nations study argues that tied aid is “strangling” nations, as reported by the Inter Press Service news agency: “Donor money that comes with strings attached cuts the value of aid to recipient countries 25–40 percent, because it obliges them to purchase uncompetitively priced imports from the richer nations, says a new UN study on African economies. . . . ‘The United States makes sure that 80 cents in every aid dollar is returned to the home country,’ says Njoki Njoroge Njehu, director of 50 Years is Enough, a coalition of over 200 grassroots non-governmental organizations.”
www.ipsnews.net/2004/07/development-tied-aid-strangling-nations-says-un
Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) releases a report that follows up on an earlier series of United Nations reports that documented “the links between business, resource exploitation, and conflict” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The RAID report, titled Unanswered Questions: Companies, Conflict and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, includes a section examining the banking sector, which cites (among other infractions) the United Nations allegation that “MIBA [Societé Minière de Bakwanga, the state-owned diamond mining company] accounts held by Belgolaise Bank have been used to conduct financial transactions involving the purchase of armaments by the Government of the DRC.”
www.raid-uk.org/sites/default/files/unanswered-qq.pdf
United Nations report:
daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/567/36/IMG/N0356736.pdf
United Nations press release on the report:
www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=8706
Global Justice Now (formerly the World Development Movement) releases a report titled Zambia: Condemned to Debt — How the IMF and World Bank Have Undermined Development. The report “clearly demonstrates that the IMF and World Bank’s involvement in Zambia has been unsuccessful, undemocratic, and unfair. The evidence suggests that the past twenty years of IMF and World Bank intervention have exacerbated rather than ameliorated Zambia’s debt crisis. Ironically, in return for debt relief, Zambia is required to do more of the same.”
www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/zambia01042004.pdf
2005
In The Great American Jobs Scam (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005), Greg LeRoy exposes the “$50 billion-a-year scam in which — in the name of ‘job creation’ — corporations play states and cities against each other to win hefty taxpayer subsidies that routinely exceed $100,000 per job.” Later, LeRoy’s organization Good Jobs First releases a “Megadeals” report identifying 240 corporate subsidy awards “with a total state and local cost of $75 million or more each” — more than $64 billion cumulatively. These are subsidies designed to attract or keep industry (and jobs), but which in fact function as legal bribery, to the tune of an average of $456,000 per job. These deals are made possible by some of the most brazen EHMs working today: so-called site location consultants, people who “present themselves as indispensable middlemen between communities seeking investments and companies deciding where to locate new facilities.” Site location consultants are paid as much as 30 percent of the final subsidy package, giving them a perverse incentive to force state and local governments into offering outrageous packages that are worth far more than the corporation can return in jobs and taxes.
www.greatamericanjobsscam.com
www.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals
www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/site-location-consultants
Global Justice Now releases a report titled One Size for All: A Study of IMF and World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategies. Following widespread criticism of the “structural adjustment conditionalities” imposed by the World Bank and the IMF on economically developing countries, the World Bank announced a new approach to promote local ownership of the process: Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. The Global Justice Now report analyzes the content of fifty such PRSPs and finds that the policies contained within them are in fact “remarkably similar” to the harmful policies of previous structural adjustment programs.
www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/onesizeforeall01092005.pdf
2006
William Easterly, a professor of economics and former research economist at the World Bank, publishes The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin, 2006). An American Library Association review by Bryce Christensen describes it as follows: “Though he acknowledges that such projects have succeeded in some tasks — reducing infant mortality, for example — Easterly adduces sobering evidence that Western nations have accomplished depressingly little with the trillions they have spent on foreign aid. That evidence suggests
that in some countries — including Haiti, Zaire, and Angola — foreign aid has actually intensified the suffering of the poor. By examining the tortured history of several aid initiatives, he shows how blind and arrogant Western aid officers have imposed on helpless clients a postmodern neocolonialism of political manipulation and economic dependency, stifling democracy and local enterprise in the process.”
http://williameasterly.org/books/the-white-mans-burden
The World Bank approves $215 million in loans and grants to support an Ethiopian health services project; in 2009, financial support is extended by an additional $540 million. According to insiders, as reported in a 2015 article by the Huffington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, tens of millions of dollars are diverted from the World Bank funds to support Ethiopia’s “villagization” effort — a process marked by intimidation, violence, and rape, according to a 2012 report by Human Rights Watch called “Waiting Here for Death”: Forced Displacement and “Villagization” in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region.
http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/worldbank-evicted-abandoned/new-evidence-ties-worldbank-to-human-rights-abuses-ethiopia
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ethiopia0112webwcover_0.pdf
2007
A World Bank–funded project in Kenya’s Cherangani Hills leads to the forced eviction of thousands of indigenous Sengwer people, according to an investigation by the Huffington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, published in 2015. Advocates for the Sengwer say that “the bank’s funding of the project put the Sengwer in danger because the project redrew the Cherangani Hills’ protected Forest Reserve in a way that included thousands of them inside the reserve’s boundaries,” thereby giving the Kenyan authorities a “pretext for evicting them.” Furthermore, “cash from the World Bank also provided the equipment the KFS [Kenya Forest Service] needed to launch its mass eviction campaign.”
