Must Read Book: Hoodwinked

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Nov 27, 2009 at 09:21:41 AM PST

Here's how it happens. To start, a country has resources that multinational corporations covet. Let's say oil. Economic hit men like Perkins (author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) go into the country and show the leader a number of fancy charts and graphs explaining why they need a generous World Bank loan that would enrich them and their wealthy friends. When the loan is given, it never goes to that country. Instead it goes to multinational corporations like Halliburton or Bechtel to do major infrastructure projects in that country. Then when the country defaults on the loan, we come back and say: No problem. Just sell us your oil cheap, send your troops to fight in our war, remove all of your tariffs on American products, and get rid of all of those pesky environmental and humanitarian laws that make it difficult for our companies to operate in your country. And if the economic hit man is unsuccessful in corrupting a leader, then the "jackals" come in and assassinate him or her.

This much was already revealed in Perkins' earlier book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. It still sounds incredible, but history has to show for it all of the debt owed by developing nations, and each of the assassinated leaders he named. Not to mention that when the U.S. fell into a major recession, its leaders - the very same ones who push the World Bank's advice on foreign countries - took the exact opposite action from what the World Bank advises developing nations.

Hoodwinked introduces a new concept. Once corporations found out how successful their strategy was in other countries, they turned it back on the American people. Get another credit card, buy a bigger house, use your home like a piggy bank so you can buy a boat too. Don't worry about it! You'll be able to pay it back. Remove all of the regulations set in place after the Great Depression. And don't pay attention to what we're doing - watch some American Idol instead. It all works until you're entirely saddled in debt.

Perkins traces this change in the U.S. as a transition from Keynesian economics to monetarism, the economics of Milton Friedman. Keynes basically taught "trickle-up" economics, and it worked to get us out of the Depression. The government must regulate business (to some extent) in order to keep business from acting in ways that are self-destructive (as Wall Street has obviously done). By using taxpayer dollars to invest in things we need, the government provided jobs to Americans while simultaneously improving our quality of life. The government built roads, bridges, and schools, for example. Schools used to receive more funding. If the government insured each of us, there would be more jobs available for medical personnel. And we'd all be better off for it. We'd be better off because we'd have the things we need, and because the people who got jobs from the government's spending will then spend their money on all kinds of other goods and services.

Ronald Reagan changed all of that. He was entirely bought into Milton Friedman's economics, as have each of our presidents since then. (Perkins notes that Obama was elected to bring change to our country, showing that the American people want change, but Obama's top economic advisors are recycled from the Clinton era and they subscribe to the theories of Milton.) Under the new philosophy, government regulation stood in the way. Corporations would know how to behave and it was wrong for us to make regulations stand in their way. Corporations had one role - to make money - and they had no roles at all as social or environmental stewards. In this very backwards way of thinking, people are subservient to the economy, not the other way around.

What needs to be done about this? Perkins provides a two-step solution. First, we need to force corporations to change by boycotting them until they do - and let them know why you are boycotting them. Give your money to people who grow or produce things ethically. And don't buy junk you don't need. Second, the American people need to force our leaders to reinstate Depresson-era regulations, plus whatever updates are needed to make them current for the 21st century. This second part frustrates me because the American people loudly called for change a year ago and instead we got more of the same. Part of the problem is Congress, but Obama's appointments show that he does not represent a true change to the problems described in Hoodwinked. Perkins describes many Latin American countries who have democratically elected leaders who take a stand against corporatocracy. Yet the American people are still hoodwinked, drowning in debt, and watching American Idol. Surely, much of the problem is that six major corporations control our media. Yet, as Perkins reminds us, one hundred years ago, the Robber Barons reigned and ultimately the people elected leaders who busted trusts and put laws in place to regulate corporations effectively. Let's only hope that can happen again - and soon!