Confession of an Economic Hitman #3

John Perkin's bipolar conscience comes into play again in this section of the book. Although he was previously sympathetic to the plight of developing nations, he once again changes his mind a decides to ditch his conscience in exchange for money and power. This is expressed fully in the quote, "As the taxi started to move through the night, a paroxysm of guilt flashed through me, but I suppressed it. What did I care...I could become rich, famous, and powerful in one blow," (71). This "selling of his soul" shows him ditching his ethics and ideals for trivial and transitory things like wealth. Other than that little bit of guilt he has very few problems continuing on his path of greed. It seems as though he is trying to make up for his unhappy childhood by surpass all who had ever looked down upon him. This is pointed out when he says, "My friends sometimes flaunted their credentials--connections on Beacon Hill or in Washington, professorships and PhDs--and I would answer this in my role as chief economist of a major consulting firm who traveled around the world first class," (89). He gets rid of his ethics for the because greed and childish contempt back from school have clouded his ideals and turns himself into the kind of person he used to hate.

John Perkins' code of ethics changes almost everyday. While his core ideals might not change, they can get weakened to the extent that it doesn't even matter that they are there. At this phase of the book he is trying to get the president of Panama to agree to allow his company to start large public building projects in the hopes of enslaving Panama through huge debts. Despite the new president being being an advocate for human rights and a catalyst for improvement throughout the country, John Perkins is willing to take ruin Panama if it means securing a contract. This is shown when he says, "Surely he knew foreign aid was a sham--he had to know. It existed to make him rich and shackle his country with debt. It was there so Panama would be forever obligated to the U.S. and the corporatocracy," (86). John's ethics which he had shown in Indonesia had all but dissapeared now, but it is unclear for how long. In fact, his ethics appear only a few pages later when discussing OPEC. He expresses enjoyment at OPEC putting the power in the hands of oil rich underdogs when he says, "My bread was buttered by the corporatocracy, yet some secret side of me enjoyed watching my masters get put in their places," (88). Despite his actions, his ethics are still there. He believes that what he is doing is wrong, so although he is a hypocrite, at least he is an ethical one.

Traitor vs Whistleblower

In the movie On the Waterfront most characters see no difference between traitors and whistle blowers. Even to their own family members, characters show little sympathy for those who "rat" on the mob operation of the docks. For example, after Joeys death his father has a very "I told you so" air about him and instead of mourning he says "If he had listened to me he would have lived longer". He is to contemptuous and cowardly to even stand up for his own son, due in part to his anger at his son for stooling, and his own fear of being called a traitor. A similar thing happens with Tommy, the golden warrior who always follows Terry around. After Terry testifies against Johnny Friendly, Tommy responds to what he thinks is betrayal by killing all of Terry's pigeons. It may be that the characters respond that way because it is the only way of doing things that they have ever known. For Tommy, it takes the death of his brother for him to truly realize the difference between stooling and whistleblowing but most characters never have an eye opening experience like that.

I believe that the difference between stooling and whistleblowing really just comes down to motive. A person who stools will usually do it only to benefit themselves. It could be money, power, protection, or whatever, but the point remains that they are being completely selfish. When a person is whistleblowing, it is to help society as a whole, or really just any group of people larger than themself. If a person brings to light a problem which affects many people takes it to the public eye, they are not tattling but rather doing a service to society which all citizens should be obligated to do. However, if no one is getting hurt by what a person is telling on i.e. victimless crimes such as smoking pot or pirating software, then that is tattling and that person should be shunned.