Opportunism: The farce of the Economic Hit Man gone straight

Opportunism : noun - self-interest, self-seeking, expedience taking advantage of opportunities without regard for the consequences for others.

"Disturbing Opportunism", is what I had originally titled this blogpost. With reference to human opportunism however, that is in essence a tautology. True, opportunism is a basic instinct. Most, if not all species alive to date, owe their very existence to their opportunistic drive. Futuyma states in his Evolutionary Biology that "descent with gradual modification (read: evolution according to the Darwinistic Theory) means that new organisms can only use and modify what they initially are given; they are slaves to their history".

While that may be true enough for organisms such as the lovely, yet highly opportunistic, Duckweed, a slightly different reasoning surely ought to be employed with respect to human beings. We needn't be slaves to our historic imprints. We are after all endowed with one of the most magnificent tools one could ever hope to possess: a brain capable of reaching levels beyond our most primeval of instincts. Which is why I find unabashed displays of human opportunism both unsettling & deplorable, to say the least. The seed for this mornings blog-rant is none other than the publication of :

"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins.
Mr.Perkins spent years working as an Economic Hit Man (EHM) for the US government. An EHM is a highly paid professional, who helps countries like the US to cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.

The general idea is to offer large loans to countries in need, so they can re-build the necessary infrastructures in an attempt to recover from whatever economic, military, natural or humanitarian disaster it was struck with. This loan is conditional: all the restructuring projects need to be assigned to American companies. In essence, this means that the money for the loans provided by the US never actually leaves the US economy: it flows straight back into US companies. But the country that receives the loan is nonetheless ordered to repay it at a cut-throat rate. These loans are cleverly calculated beforehand, so as to ensure that the country will be unable to keep up with the repayments after a mere a few years. It is then that the US comes up with strict demands: in return for leniency, the US gains control of that country's voting behaviour in the UN, the US gets permission to build strategic military basis in that country and gains a certain level of control of valuable resources such as oil. Countries like Iran, Colombia, Ecuador, Afghanistan etc.. have previously all had to succumb to these tactics.

After years of being a well-paid rogue EHM, Mr.Perkins finally decided it was time for a bout of guilty concious and decided to write a book exposing the whole EHM business. While I would generally applaud any book aimed at exposing the greater evils of this modern age, I cannot help but feel utterly digusted. When asked for a justification of his own actions and his part in this fallacy, Mr.Perkins states: "I wasn't fully aware of what I was doing back then, I have finally woken up to the reality and it is time the world does too."

Mr.Perkins meanwhile, is being hailed as the new face of the "OtherGlobalist"-movement. Slightly ironic, to say the least, and it makes me wonder about the levels of intelligence of the people masterminding this very movement. Regardless of the validity of his message, it begs the question why Mr.Perkins, if he truly did experience a change of heart, does not simply distribute his writings freely on the web for everyone to see. If his aim is indeed to provide correct info to the people who are entitled to such knowledge, free distribution surely is the most appropriate method. It seems, however, he is adament on yet again lining his own pockets off the back of the atrocities he helped to effectuate in the first place.

On his official webpage, Mr.Perkins depicts himself as a changed man. A forerunner of the renewed fight for change. In his "What can YOU do?" section, he cleverly suggests: "Offer study groups about Confessions of an Economic Hit Man at your local bookstore or library, or both." Hm... I do wonder who this would benefit more? The global situation? Or Mr.Perkins's salesnumbers? Next up is "Let your local and national TV & Radio networks know that you are interested in seeing Mr.Perkins in their programs". Although one would do well to manipulate the power of media for the advantage of a worthy cause, in this instance, it all has a flair of self-professed heroism. A simple read through transcripts of previous interviews confirms this.

While the validity of his message remains untouchable, and despite my own interest in the matter, I will refuse to buy this book. It is easy to display a guilty concious after more than a decade of sheer corruption and immorality, when that display of concious comes sided by hero-status and tremendous financial benefits. Opportunism, Mr.Perkins, in its most pejorative sense, would appear to be the defining word of your existence thus far.