The claim John Perkins makes in the Confessions of an Economic Hitman is not that there is one global conspiracy or that there is a small group of men in a dark room scheming about how to take over the world, but that there are many small conspiracies taking place at the same time, by international organizations, governments, and businesses.
What fuels these conspiracies, what allows them to flourish, is a unanimous belief that growth is always good, no matter the consequences. This is a dogma that has provided the propagators of conspiracies the necessary popular support to carry out their plans with little or no opposition.
John Perkins worked as an economist for an international consulting firm that advised the World Bank. The term ‘Economic Hitman’ was a joke made to him, but over time, it occurred to him that there was more truth to it than he had imagined.
What he learned was that the World Bank functioned like a political tool for the US.
The same scenario plays out in very much the same way: a small country that was going through financial problems would be targeted and offered loans to help build its infrastructure. But this comes with strings attached. The country that is given the aid is forever beholden to this debt, and is forced to sell off its assets, resources, and land to foreign companies. A few families accumulate enormous wealth from this, while the rest of the population remains in poverty and debt.
Many case studies are given throughout the book that show this scenario unfolding – they include Panama, Indonesia, Ecuador, and others.
The case of Saudi Arabia was interesting because it was different to the countries just mentioned – The Saudis was already very wealthy because of oil; they could finance their own development projects. The EHM (Economic Hitman) had a different playbook here. The goal was to get the leaders of Saudi Arabia to want to develop the country’s infrastructure, and then to grant the contracts to US companies.
The oil crisis in 1973 was the precursor to the US-Saudi relationship that continues till this day. At the time, there was an Arab-Israeli war, and because of the US support to Israel, OPEC imposed an oil embargo that raised the price of oil significantly and slowed down the US economy.
Saudi Arabia would not only need an infrastructure around its oil economy, but because it was oil rich, it was vulnerable to foreign attacks – it needed a military to protect it (another source of income for the US). In the mid 1970’s, the deal was that they would buy US protection, and the expertise of US companies in building the country’s infrastructure, but they would also have a political alliance that would protect the US economy from oil price shocks.
Saudi Arabia would give them access to their economy (expensive contracts), and in return, the US would provide political cover for the Saudis internationally. Saudi Arabia also agreed to increase oil production in case there was another oil embargo. This meant that OPEC’s powers were limited – that they would not be able to affect US interests.
The Shah of Iran, another oil rich country, was installed by the CIA. For years, good relationships developed between the two nations, particularly economically. US firms entered the country and invested in many large projects. The SAVAK was a tyrannical police force that worked for the Shah, Muslim resentment in the region grew, and there were warnings that the Shah would be soon overthrown and succeeded by Khomeini was in exile at the time.
This was bad news for the US companies invested in Iran since the new government would not do business with them. Some saw what was happening as the past coming back to haunt the US. Before the Shah, Iran had a democratically elected leader named Mosaddegh, who was overthrown by the US. The events that happened in Iran and Saudi Arabia would threaten the status of the US as an ally to the Middle East for decades.