Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

[DarkWaters]

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins seems to be a popular book amongst many Liberals. Has anybody read it? Does it contain accurate representations of corrupt thugs using deception and sometimes brute force to con third world governments out of their resources? Is this book predominately just a collection of unsupported conspiracy theories and/or misrepresented accounts?

I am curious to what the opinions of some Objectivists are.

[adrock3215]

Late reply but since no one else did, I will give you what I can.

I read The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption, which is a follow up to CEHM. Truthfully, I would say these books are not worth reading. Perkins most obviously subscribes to a Marxist account of history. The book I read was oftentimes boring, and I had to convince myself to finish it. Mainly the author believes that the US/IMF/World Bank axis is a tool of American coporations, and they manage to turn every country they touch into a third world nation, in the process stealing all the resources they can get a hold of. A particular point I remember that Perkins was frustrated with was that the IMF/World Bank would lend money to countries, and then the governments that borrowed would spend the money on Western goods and services. So the IMF/WB would be lending money that was ultimately serving only the shareholders of large multinational Western companies who were concerned with profit and nothing else. Then the country would be responsible to pay that loan back to IMF/WB, after their country was raped and pillaged by Western firms, and no economic value was added because corporations are greedy money hungry thugs (hitmen) who steal resources.

Anyway, like anything else I suppose, you have to pick out what you think is of value and the rest you must throw away. That being said, there were a few interesting parts and information that I didn't know. When reading Perkins one must throw away roughly 99% of what is said. The author is mainly interested in advancing conspiracy theories and not about facts.

Edited February 16, 2008 by adrock3215