The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

I’m haunted every day by what I did as an economic hit man (EHM). I’m haunted by the lies I told back then about the World Bank. I’m haunted by the ways in which that bank, its sister organizations, and I empowered US corporations to spread their cancerous tentacles across the planet. I’m haunted by the payoffs to the leaders of poor countries, the blackmail, and the threats that if they resisted, if they refused to accept loans that would enslave their countries in debt, the CIA’s jackals would overthrow or assassinate them.

All the EHM and jackal tools — false economics, false promises, threats, bribes, extortion, debt, deception, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power — are used around the world today,

It has become the dominant system of economics, government, and society today

Fear and debt drive this system. We are hammered with messages that terrify us into believing that we must pay any price, assume any debt, to stop the enemies who, we are told, lurk at our doorsteps. The problem comes from somewhere else. Insurgents. Terrorists. “Them.” And its solution requires spending massive amounts of money on goods and services produced by what I call the corporatocracy — vast networks of corporations, banks, colluding governments, and the rich and powerful people tied to them. We go deeply into debt; our country and its financial henchmen at the World Bank and its sister institutions coerce other countries to go deeply into debt; debt enslaves us and it enslaves those countries. These strategies have created a “death economy” — one based on wars or the threat of war, debt, and the rape of the earth’s resources. It is an unsustainable economy that depletes at ever-increasing rates the very resources upon which it depends and at the same time poisons the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the foods we eat. Although the death economy is built on a form of capitalism, it is important to note that the word capitalism refers to an economic and political system in which trade and industry are controlled by private owners rather than the state. It includes local farmers’ markets as well as this very dangerous form of global corporate capitalism, controlled by the corporatocracy, which is predatory by nature, has created a death economy, and ultimately is self-destructive.

We believe that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. Similarly, we believe that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation. And we believe that any means — including those used by today’s EHMs and jackals — are justified to promote economic growth; preserve our comfortable, affluent Western way of life; and wage war against anyone (such as Islamic terrorists) who might threaten our economic well-being, comfort, and security.

have come to understand that life is composed of a series of coincidences. How we react to these — how we exercise what some refer to as free will — is everything; the choices we make within the boundaries of the twists of fate determine who we are

Claudine told me that there were two primary objectives of my work. First, I was to justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to MAIN and other US companies (such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster, and Brown & Root) through massive engineering and construction projects. Second, I would work to bankrupt the countries that received those loans (after they had paid MAIN and the other US contractors, of course), so that they would be forever beholden to their creditors and would present easy targets when we needed favors, such as military bases, UN votes, or access to oil and other natural resources.

The unspoken aspect of every one of these projects was that they were intended to create large profits for the contractors, and to make a handful of wealthy and influential families in the receiving countries very happy, while assuring the long-term financial dependence and therefore the political loyalty of governments around the world. The larger the loan, the better. The fact that the debt burden placed on a country would deprive its poorest citizens of health care, education, and other social services for decades to come was not taken into consideration.

Claudine and I openly discussed the deceptive nature of GNP. For instance, GNP may show growth even when it profits only one person, such as an individual who owns a utility company, and even if the majority of the population is burdened with debt. The rich get richer and the poor grow poorer. Yet, from a statistical standpoint, this is recorded as economic progress.

small, exclusive club,” she said. “We’re paid — well paid — to cheat countries around the globe out of billions of dollars. A large part of your job is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes US commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire — to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, these leaders bolster their political positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their people. Meanwhile, the owners of US engineering and construction companies become very wealthy

By the time I enrolled in Boston University’s business school, a solution to the Roosevelt-as-CIA-agent problem had already been worked out. US intelligence agencies — including the NSA — would identify prospective EHMs, who could then be hired by international corporations. These EHMs would never be paid by the government; instead, they would draw their salaries from the private sector. As a result, their dirty work, if exposed, would be chalked up to corporate greed rather than to government policy. In addition, the corporations that hired them, although paid by government agencies and their multinational banking counterparts (with taxpayer money), would be insulated from congressional oversight and public scrutiny, shielded by a growing body of legal initiatives, including trademark, international trade, and Freedom of Information laws.2

I also realized that my college professors had not understood the true nature of macroeconomics: that in many cases helping an economy grow only makes those few people who sit atop the pyramid even richer, while it does nothing for those at the bottom except to push them even lower. Indeed, promoting capitalism often results in a system that resembles medieval feudal societies. If any of my professors knew this, they had not admitted it — probably because big corporations, and the men who run them, fund colleges. Exposing the truth would undoubtedly cost those professors their jobs — just as such revelations could cost me mine.

The English major looked me directly in the eyes. “Stop being so greedy,” she said, “and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people don’t even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude. There’s not much time left. If you don’t change, you’re doomed.”

I vacillated between viewing such people as an actual conspiracy and simply seeing them as a tight-knit fraternity bent on dominating the world. Nonetheless, over time I began to liken them to the plantation owners of the pre–Civil War South. They were men drawn together in a loose association by common beliefs and shared self-interest, rather than an exclusive group meeting in clandestine hideaways with focused and sinister intent.

The plantation autocrats had grown up with servants and slaves, and had been educated to believe that it was their right and even their duty to take care of the “heathens” and to convert them to the owners’ religion and way of life. Even if slavery repulsed them philosophically, they could, like Thomas Jefferson, justify it as a necessity, the collapse of which would result in social and economic chaos. The leaders of the modern oligarchies, what I now thought of as the corporatocracy, seemed to fit the same mold

also began to wonder who benefits from war and the mass production of weapons, from the damming of rivers and the destruction of indigenous environments and cultures. I began to look at who benefits when hundreds of thousands of people die from insufficient food, polluted water, or curable diseases. Slowly, I came to realize that in the long run no one benefits, but in the short term those at the top of the pyramid — my bosses and me — appear to benefit, at least materially.

“might makes right,”

The author cited as his starting point Manifest Destiny — the doctrine, popular with many Americans during the 1840s, that the conquest of North America was divinely ordained; that God, not men, had ordered the genocide of native North Americans, the destruction of forests, the near-extinction of buffalo, the draining of swamps, the rechanneling of rivers, and the development of an economy that depends on the continuing exploitation of labor and natural resources.

The Monroe Doctrine, originally enunciated by President James Monroe in 1823, was used to take Manifest Destiny a step further when, in the 1850s and 1860s, it was used to assert that the United States had special rights all over the hemisphere, including the right to invade any nation in Central or South America that refused to back US policies. Teddy Roosevelt invoked the Monroe Doctrine to justify US intervention in the Dominican Republic, in Venezuela, and during the “liberation” of Panama from Colombia. A string of subsequent US presidents — most notably Taft, Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt — relied on it to expand Washington’s Pan-American activities through the end of World War II. Finally, during the latter half of the twentieth century, the United States used the Communist threat to justify expansion of this concept to countries around the globe, including Vietnam and Indonesia.5

Just days after 9/11, wealthy Saudi Arabians, including members of the bin Laden family, were whisked out of the US on private jets. No one will admit to clearing the flights, and the passengers weren’t questioned. Did the Bush family’s long relationship with the Saudis help make it happen?7

the distinction between the ideals behind the old American republic and those of the new global empire. The republic offered hope to the world. Its foundation was moral and philosophical rather than materialistic. It was based on concepts of equality and justice for all. But it also could be pragmatic — not merely a utopian dream but also a living, breathing entity. It could make big mistakes, like denying nonlandowners, women, and minorities the right to vote for more than a century. It could open its arms to shelter the downtrodden, then force their children to work under slave-like conditions in its factories. It could be an inspiration and at the same time a force to reckon with; if needed, it could swing into action, as it had during World War II, to defend the principles for which it stood. The very institutions — the big corporations, banks, and government bureaucracies — that have threatened those ideals could instead be redirected to institute fundamental changes in the world. At least in theory. Such institutions possess the communications networks and transportation systems necessary to end disease, starvation, and even wars — if only they could be convinced to take that course. The global empire, on the other hand, is the republic’s nemesis. It is self-centered, self-serving, greedy, and materialistic, a system based on mercantilism. Like earlier empires, it opens its arms only to accumulate resources, to grab everything in sight and stuff its insatiable maw. It will do whatever is needed to help its rulers gain more power and riches.

I was loyal to the American republic, but what we were perpetrating through this new, highly subtle form of imperialism was the financial equivalent of what we had attempted to accomplish militarily in Vietnam. If Southeast Asia had taught us that armies have limitations, the economists had responded by devising a better plan, and the foreign aid agencies and the private contractors who served them (or, more appropriately, were served by them) had become proficient at executing that plan. In countries on every continent, I saw how men and women working for US corporations — though not officially part of the EHM network — participated in something far more pernicious than anything envisioned in conspiracy theories. They would do whatever they thought it would take — or were told it would take — to perpetuate the system we EHMs advocated. Like many of MAIN’s engineers, these workers were blind to the consequences of their actions, convinced that the sweatshops and factories that made shoes and automotive parts for their companies were helping the poor climb out of poverty, instead of simply burying them deeper in a type of slavery reminiscent of medieval manors and Southern plantations.1 As in those earlier manifestations of exploitation, modern serfs or slaves were socialized into believing they were better off than the unfortunate souls who lived on the margins, in the dark hollows of Europe, in the jungles of Africa, or in the wilds of the American frontier.

The world had shifted, and what I’d later come to understand as the corporatocracy had progressed. We had gotten better or more pernicious. The people who worked for me were a different breed from me. There had been no NSA polygraphs or Claudines in their lives. No one had spelled it out for them, what they were expected to do to carry on the mission of global empire. They had never heard the term “economic hit man” or even “EHM,” nor had they been told they were in for life. They simply had learned from my example and from my system of rewards and punishments. They knew that they were expected to produce the types of studies and results I wanted. Their salaries, their Christmas bonuses, indeed their very jobs, depended on pleasing me. I, of course, had done everything I could imagine to lighten their burden. I had written papers, given lectures, and taken every possible opportunity to convince them of the importance of optimistic forecasts, of huge loans, of infusions of capital that would spur gross national product growth and make the rich much richer. It had required less than a decade to arrive at this point, where the seduction, the coercion, had taken a much more subtle form, a sort of gentle style of brainwashing. Now these men and women who sat at desks outside my office overlooking Boston’s Back Bay were going out into the world to advance the cause of global empire. In a very real sense, I had created them, even as Claudine had created me. But unlike me, they had been kept in the dark.

If corporatocracy was built by three sectors — major corporations, international banks, and colluding governments —

also had to accept personal responsibility for all the mistakes I’d made. Blaming them, as I’d done so many times, was not just foolish and unfair; it was self-defeating

My job was also about people and their families, people akin to the ones who had died to construct the wall I sat on, people I had exploited. For ten years, I had been the heir of those earlier slavers. Mine had been a more modern approach, subtler — I never had to see the dying bodies, smell the rotting flesh, or hear the screams of agony. But I too had committed sin, and because I could remove myself from it, because I could cut myself off from the personal aspects, the bodies, the flesh, and the screams, perhaps in the final analysis I was the greater sinner.

back down to the dinghy. I stood there on the beach, looking out at my sailboat anchored in the azure waters, and I knew what I had to do. I had to take responsibility. I knew that if I ever went back to my former life, to MAIN and all it represented, I would be lost forever. The raises, the pensions, the insurance and perks, the equity . . . The longer I stayed, the more difficult it was to get out. I could continue to beat myself up as I had beat on those stone walls, or I could escape. Two days later I returned to Boston. On April 1, 1980, I walked into Paul Priddy’s office and resigned.

After that, everyone else tried to talk me out of resigning. I was reminded frequently about how good I had it, and I was even accused of insanity. I came to understand that no one wanted to accept the fact that I was leaving voluntarily, at least in part because it forced them to look at themselves. If I were not crazy for leaving, then they might have to consider their own sanity in staying. It was easier to see me as a person who had departed from his senses.

True, I no longer had a job, but since I had been far from a fully vested partner, the cash-out of my stock was not sufficient for retirement. Had I stayed at MAIN another few years, I might have become the forty-year-old millionaire I had once envisioned; however, at thirty-five I had a long way to go to accomplish that objective

Jaime Roldós was moving forward. He took his campaign promises seriously, and he was launching an all-out attack on the oil companies. He seemed to see clearly the things that many others on both sides of the Panama Canal either missed or chose to ignore. He understood the underlying currents that threatened to turn the world into a global empire and to relegate the citizens of his country to a very minor role, bordering on servitude.

Carter may have been an ineffective politician, but he had a vision for America that was consistent with the one defined in our Declaration of Independence

When we compare him to his immediate predecessors and successors, he is an anomaly. His worldview was inconsistent with that of the EHMs. Reagan, on the other hand, was most definitely a global empire builder and a servant of the corporatocracy. At the time of his election, I found it fitting that he was a Hollywood actor, a man who had followed orders passed down from moguls, who knew how to take direction. That would be his signature. He would cater to the men who shuttled back and forth from corporate CEO offices to bank boards and into the halls of government. He would serve the men who appeared to serve him but who in fact ran the government — men like Vice President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Richard Cheney, Richard Helms, and Robert McNamara. He would advocate what those men wanted: an America that controlled the world and all its resources, a world that answered to the commands of that America, a US military that would enforce the rules as they were written by America, and an international trade and banking system that supported America as CEO of the global empire

could not have known, back then, that Torrijos would collaborate with Carter to return the Panama Canal to the people who rightfully deserved to own it, or that this victory, along with his attempts to reconcile differences between Latin American Socialists and the dictators, would so infuriate the Reagan–Bush administration that it would seek to assassinate him.3 I could not have known that on another dark night he would be killed during a routine flight in his Twin Otter, or that most of the world outside the United States would have no doubt that Torrijos’s death at the age of fifty-two was just one more in a series of CIA assassinations. Had Torrijos lived, he undoubtedly would have sought to quell the growing violence that has plagued so many Central and South American nations. Based on his record, we can assume that he would have tried to work out an arrangement to mitigate international oil company destruction of the Amazon regions of Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. One result of such action would have been the alleviation of the terrible conflicts that Washington refers to as terrorist and drug wars, but which Torrijos would have seen as actions taken by desperate people to protect their families and homes. Most important, I feel certain that he would have been served as a role model for a new generation of leaders in the Americas, Africa, and Asia — something the CIA, the NSA, and the EHMs could not allow.

The idea of reducing our oil dependence fell by the wayside. Reagan was deeply indebted to the oil companies; George H. W. Bush had made his own fortune as an oilman. And most of the key players and cabinet members in these two administrations were either part of the oil industry or part of the engineering and construction companies so closely tied to it. Moreover, in the final analysis, oil and construction were not partisan; many Democrats also had profited from and were beholden to them.

As I reflected on those incidents and all that I had experienced while working for MAIN, I found myself asking the same questions over and over: How many decisions — including ones of great historical significance that impact millions of people — are made by men and women who are driven by personal motives rather than by a desire to do the right thing? How many of our top government officials are driven by personal greed instead of national loyalty? How many wars are fought because a president does not want his constituents to perceive him as a wimp

How simple this sounds, and how self-evident; yet, how insidious the nature of these experiences. For me it conjures the image of soldiers. In the beginning, they are naive. They may question the morality of killing other people, but mostly they have to deal with their own fears, have to focus on survival. After they kill their first enemies, they are overwhelmed with emotions. They may wonder about the families of the dead men and feel a sense of remorse. But as time goes on and they participate in more battles, kill more people, they become hardened. They are transformed into professional soldiers.

In some sense, I had become a professional soldier. Admitting that fact opened the door for a better understanding of the process by which crimes are committed and empires are built. I could now comprehend why so many people have committed atrocious acts — how, for example, good, family-loving Iranians could work for the shah’s brutal secret police, how good Germans could follow the orders of Hitler, how good American men and women could bomb Panama City.

Today, men and women are going into Thailand, the Philippines, Botswana, Bolivia, and every other country where they hope to find people desperate for work. They go to these places with the express purpose of exploiting wretched people — people whose children are severely malnourished, even starving, people who live in shanty-towns and have lost all hope of a better life, people who have ceased to even dream of another day. These men and women leave their plush offices in Manhattan or San Francisco or Chicago, streak across continents and oceans in luxurious jetliners, check into first-class hotels, and dine at the finest restaurants the country has to offer. Then they go searching for desperate people. Today, we still have slave traders. They no longer find it necessary to march into the forests of Africa looking for people who will bring top dollar on the auction blocks in Charleston, Cartagena, and Havana. They simply recruit desperate people and build a factory to produce the jackets, blue jeans, tennis shoes, automobile parts, computer components, and thousands of other items they can sell in the markets of their choosing. Or they may elect not even to own the factory themselves; instead, they hire a local businessman to do all their dirty work for them. These men and women think of themselves as upright. They return to their homes with photographs of quaint sites and ancient ruins, to show to their children. They attend seminars where they pat each other on the back and exchange tidbits of advice about dealing with the

eccentricities of customs in far-off lands. Their bosses hire lawyers who assure them that what they are doing is perfectly legal. They have a cadre of psychotherapists and other human resource experts at their disposal to convince them that they are helping those desperate people. The old-fashioned slave trader told himself that he was dealing with a species that was not entirely human, and that he was offering them the opportunity to become Christianized. He also understood that slaves were fundamental to the survival of his own society, that they were the foundation of his economy. The modern slave trader assures himself (or herself) that the desperate people are better off earning one dollar a day than no dollars at all, and that they are receiving the opportunity to become integrated into the larger world community. He or she also understands that these desperate people are fundamental to the survival of the company, that they are the foundation for his or her own

lifestyle. He or she never stops to think about the larger implications, the economic system behind this process — or how it will ultimately impact the future of the world’s children.

The situation has gotten much worse since Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was first published. Twelve years ago, I expected that books like mine would wake people up and inspire them to turn things around. The facts were obvious. I and others like me had created an EHM system that supported the corporatocracy. Together, the EHMs, corporate magnates, Wall Street robber barons, governments and jackals, and all their networks around the world have created a global economy that fails everyone. It is based on war or the threat of war, debt, an extreme form of materialism that pillages the earth’s resources and is consuming itself into extinction. In the end, even the very rich will fall victim to this death economy. Most of us have bought into it in a big way; we are collaborators — often unconscious ones. Now it is time to change. I had hoped that exposing these facts, making people conscious, would inspire a movement that, by 2016, would have resulted in a new vision, a new story.

Fortified by the so-called threat of global terrorism after 9/11, these conspiracies have given excessive power to the very wealthy individuals who control global corporations. Among the most striking are conspiracies to implement “free” trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA, and the more recent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which empower corporations to assume de facto sovereignty over governments in countries around the world; to convince politicians to pass laws that permit the rich to avoid paying taxes, to control the media, and to use media to influence politics; and to terrify US citizens into fighting endless wars.

In my day, it had convinced the majority of Americans and much of the rest of the world that all actions were justified if they protected us from Communist subversives; the fear had now switched to Muslim terrorists, immigrants, and anyone threatening to rein in corporations. The dogma was similar, but the impact was now much greater.

that job for ten long years. And then I realized how difficult it had been to escape. It wasn’t just the seduction of money, flying first class, staying in the best hotels, and all the other perks. Nor was it the pressure exerted by my bosses and fellow employees at MAIN. It was also the aura of the job, my title — the very story of my culture. I was doing what I’d been schooled to do, what I’d been told was the right thing to do. I was educated as an American whose job it was to sell America and to believe and convince everyone else that Communist regimes were out to destroy us

in 34 Conspiracy: Was I Poisoned?

Delving into my feelings of guilt helped me see the ease with which I had deceived myself in those years. It opened my mind to understanding that millions of people are in positions similar to mine. They are no longer taught to fear communism, but they still fear Russia, China, and North Korea, in addition to al-Qaeda and other terrorists.1 They may not travel to foreign lands and confront, face-to-face, the consequences of what their companies do. They may not personally stand beside oil spills in the Amazon or see the hovels where sweatshop workers sleep. Instead, they anesthetize themselves with TV. They succumb to assurances by their schools, banks, human relations experts, and government officials that they are contributing to progress. But in their hearts they know otherwise. Deep down, they — we — realize that the stories misrepresent. And now it is time to admit to our complicity.

I told him that I often thought of middle-class Americans as being like the medieval bourgeoisie — the majority of the people, who lived in the bourgs outside the castle walls. “We pay our taxes so soldiers and jackals will defend us from the knights in the neighboring castles.” “Exactly,” he said, with that smile of his that had enchanted and inspired so many students. “We will do anything to maintain a system that has failed us.”

the only reason the EHM system works is because the rest of us give it permission to work. At best, we look the other way; at worst, we actively support it. One of the things that most bothered me was having to admit to myself that I not only had looked the other way but also had convinced many people to actively support that system. I made a commitment to myself that I’d be more diligent; I’d watch more closely what was going on in my own community, my country, and the world. Although I was determined to follow Howard’s advice, I also found myself envying another man, who did not struggle with his conscience — a friend who became an immense support during my physical recuperation in Florida and who seemed to have no problem justifying his own violent actions. He was a jackal, taking a short leave of absence from the Middle East.

But the most courageous of Correa’s actions was his renegotiation of oil contracts. He insisted that the companies could no longer base Ecuador’s share of oil revenues on “profits” — an all-too-common arrangement between big oil and economically developing countries, which historically has cheated these countries through creative accounting. Instead, the oil would belong to Ecuador, and the companies could only collect a fee for each barrel they produced.

The mainstream US press, which is owned by the corporatocracy, limited its reporting about Honduras to accusations that the coup was triggered by Zelaya’s attempts to introduce constitutional changes that would allow him to run for another presidential term. He had promoted a constitutional referendum, but according to everything I read and heard in Panama and through the online Spanish-language media, the coup had little to do with constitutional reform and everything to do with the deposed president’s determination to raise the minimum wage.

Democracy Now! reported that Chiquita was represented by the Washington law firm Covington & Burling; that President Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of contracting “assassination squads” in Colombia; and that, during the trial, Chiquita admitted to hiring organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups. Chiquita was found guilty in a Colombian court and agreed to pay a $25 million fine.

He proceeded to tell me that in recent years bankers had convinced clients to purchase houses that were beyond their means. “A young newlywed couple comes in,” he said, “and asks for a mortgage on a $300,000 home. We convince them to buy a $500,000 one.” He swished the wine in his glass and studied the residue. “We say, ‘You may have to tighten your belt a little, but soon your house will be worth a million dollars.’” He shook his head sadly. “They’ve been told to trust their banker. Used to be that people in my position would try to talk prospective debtors down, not up. We were supposed to do everything to avoid foreclosures. But that all changed.” “What changed it?” “I’ve asked myself that question many times. Not sure of the answer. It mostly happened in this millennium. Perhaps it had something to do with 9/11, rising oceans, melting glaciers, fear, our feelings of mortality. Make all the dough you can, as soon as you can, and screw everyone else.” He raised his wineglass. “Drink, dance, consume, and be merry. For us bankers, it was money, money, money. We tried to instill in our clients the idea that there is no tomorrow. Bin Laden will kill us all. So go into debt, buy that big house, fancy car . . .” He took a sip of wine. “When the bottom fell out of the market, the banks foreclosed, repackaged the loans, and ended up earning huge returns, while that young couple and thousands like them filed for bankruptcy

“You know,” the banker said, “the whole system stinks. From inflated home mortgages to college loans, it’s all about servitude to debt. Not that homes or a college education are bad. Of course not. The problem is that we all believe we should do anything to achieve the ‘good life.’ Anything for the American dream. Including burying ourselves in debt.”

I mentioned a woman who had recently attended one of my workshops. She’d just finished law school and said she’d intended to use her degree to defend homeless people and abused children. But when she discovered that she’d amassed more than $200,000 in student loans, she realized that she was going to have to get a job with a corporate law firm and devote years to paying off her debts. “After that,” I added, “she intends to follow her dream.” “Intends,” he scoffed. “Truth is, once she’s in that system, she’s hooked. She’ll get married, take out a home mortgage she and her husband can’t quite afford, have a kid, more loans . . . get sucked in, sell her soul to the bank.”

My uncle and the banker I’d just met at the River House were both humans, both Americans, yet they represented two very different value systems. In Uncle Ernest’s view, debt was a means to an end, a partnership between creditor and debtor. For the modern banker, debt paves the road to windfall profits. It delivers people into the EHM system.

The 2012 revelations around the London Interbank Offered Rate, or the Libor, demonstrated that Barclays, UBS, Rabobank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and other international banks were capable of ruthlessly betraying the public trust. The Libor is used to calculate payments on hundreds of trillions of dollars’ worth of loans and other investments. It had been accepted as an objectively and mathematically derived benchmark for establishing interest rates. However, it now was revealed that the Libor had been illegally manipulated by the banks from 1991 until 2012. As a result, the bankers accumulated immeasurable sums of illicit profits. Once found guilty, the banks were fined more than $9 billion.2 As of this writing, only one UBS trader, and not a single bank officer, has been indicted

A major change is that this EHM system, today, is also at work in the United States and other economically developed countries. It is everywhere. And there are many more variations on each of these tools. There are hundreds of thousands more EHMs spread around the world. They have created a truly global empire. They are working in the open as well as in the shadows. This system has become so widely and deeply entrenched that it is the normal way of doing business and therefore is not alarming to most people. These men and women convince government officials to give them favorable tax and regulatory treatment. They force countries to compete against one another for the opportunity to host their facilities. Their ability to locate their production plants in one country, their tax-sheltered banking in a second, their phone call centers in a third, and their headquarters in a fourth gives them immense leverage. Countries must vie with one another to offer the most lenient environmental and social regulations and the lowest wage and tax rates. In many cases, governments swamp themselves with debt so they can offer perks to subsidize corporations. In the past decade we’ve watched this happen to countries such as Iceland, Spain, Ireland, and Greece, in addition to the economically developing countries, where it has been going on longer. When the subtler approaches fail, government officials learn that some damaging aspect of their personal lives, which they thought was secret, will be exposed or even, in some cases, fabricated.

Today, the justification is stopping terrorists, fighting Islamic extremists, promoting economic growth, or saving our affluent way of life.

“Most everybody thinks military might is the driver of empire, but war’s important because it — and the threat of it — instills fear. People are terrified into parting with their money. They take on more debt.” He smiled. “Whether we owe money or favors, debt shackles us. That’s why the economic hit man approach is so effective. More so than war.”

“bought into the game of what you call the corporatocracy.”

pointed out that the globalizing corporate network had destabilized the world economy, building it on wars or the threat of war, debt, and abuse of the earth’s resources — a death economy

It was particularly infuriating to recall that, when we point out that military spending reduces our benefits, we are told that social programs encourage indolence, whereas programs that support armies, subsidize windfall profits, and encourage corporate barons to speculate with our tax dollars fuel the engines of economic growth — that top-down economics works, despite the overwhelming evidence of the past decade to the contrary.

carted off in handcuffs while bank executives awarded themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses. Why were individual bank officers, whose admitted crimes affected all of us, not indicted? The obvious answer is that the bankers are members of the corporatocracy, whereas FIFA officials are not. The story that the Justice Department had uncovered so much wrongdoing among the FIFA people and was aggressively pursuing indictments diverted attention from the bigger story. The banking lobby unduly influences the Justice Department. Banks are so wealthy and powerful that they can buy our elected officials, the regulators who serve us, and the media that is supposed to keep us informed. I found myself once again thinking a lot about Howard Zinn. He and I had discussed the growing power of lobbyists. “We vote,” he said. “But those we elect don’t seem to listen to us anymore. They obey the commands of the people who finance their campaigns, corporate lobbyists.” He pointed out that I’d done something similar. “You obeyed the World Bank.” He paused. “Did you really think the World Bank wanted to end world poverty

A recent Oxfam report revealed that almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just 1 percent of the population and that seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the past thirty years.6 Slum dwellers in countries where I promoted World Bank projects, such as Argentina, Colombia, Egypt, and Indonesia, might now have mobile phones, but they are by no means free of poverty. In fact, from a comparative standpoint, they are worse off than when I was an EHM. According to World Bank statistics, 2.2 billion people still lived at a poverty level of less than two dollars per day in 2011 — a huge number of people, considering the billions of dollars paid to global corporations to “free the world of poverty.”7 Although the percentage of officially “impoverished” has declined, due to population growth and standard of living changes the actual numbers have increased. Over the past three decades, sixty of the world’s poorest countries have paid $550 billion in principal and interest on loans of $540 billion, yet they still owe a whopping $523 billion on those same loans. The cost of servicing that debt is more than these countries spend on health or education and is twenty times the amount they receive annually in foreign aid.8 In addition, World Bank projects have brought untold suffering to some of the planet’s poorest people. In the past ten years alone, such projects have forced an estimated 3.4 million people out of their homes; the governments in these countries have beaten, tortured, and killed opponents of World Bank projects.9

They and their corporate colleagues convince people around the world that success is defined by personal assets rather than by contributions to the greater community, that privatization and deregulation protect the public, that government assistance for the needy is wasteful and counterproductive, that personal debt is better than government investment in social services, and that men and women who live in mansions and travel in private jets and luxury yachts are icons to be emulated. Howard Zinn understood why a majority of us accept these platitudes. Those in the middle class, he said, who have the material trappings of prosperity, are complacent because they possess the things they were taught to covet, and they don’t want to lose them. Those who live in poverty are complacent because they have to devote their energies toward simply surviving.

Most of these politicians, along with thousands of other men and women who pass through the “revolving door,” don’t call themselves lobbyists. They work for law firms and go by euphemistic titles such as “counselor,” “consultant,” or “adviser in government affairs” — just as I officially was “chief economist” for a highly regarded consulting firm. However, their real job, as mine was, is to con governments and the public into submitting to policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. They are EHMs, paid to support the corporatocracy, expand the corporate empire, and spread the tentacles of the death economy across the planet. They hide in the shadows, yet their influence is immeasurable.

significant that the American League of Lobbyists — a professional association for the industry — changed its name to the Association of Government Relations Professionals, in 2013

Business schools and planners may claim that corporate decisions about locating their job-creating facilities are based on rational analyses of such objective factors as proximity to suppliers and customers, labor markets, existing infrastructure conditions of transportation networks, and the price of energy, but the greatest determinant in many cases has become the deal made with local governments. Site location consultants play to fears that communities will be rejected unless they offer the most lenient environmental and social regulations, the lowest tax rates, and other incentives. Although public officials are usually eager to arrange such deals, they overlook the long-term consequences — deteriorating schools, roads, recreational facilities, and natural resources — even though, ironically, such community assets benefit the entire community, including the corporation’s own employees

These stratagems are even more effective than loans. Corporations avoid the need to register the money or to sign contracts that force them to set up systems to ensure that the debtor actually pays. In this US version, no one has to put up the funds. Instead, the money is simply removed from the tax base and handed to the corporation; in essence, the money is stolen from the US taxpayer. Funds that had been earmarked for health care, education, and other social services are diverted to the coffers of greedy corporations — gifts from the lobbyist EHMs and corrupt politicians.

These steal-from-the-poor, give-to-the-rich programs are by no means restricted to arms, energy, and agriculture businesses. They are pervasive across the economic spectrum

One of the most disturbing reports estimated that Walmart workers are subsidized by US taxpayers to the tune of more than $6 billion a year, in public nutrition, health care, and housing assistance programs. The owners of this mega cash cow, the members of the Walton family, are listed among the wealthiest billionaires on the planet. They, like so many of their cohorts, may criticize social programs for everyone else, but they are beneficiaries of the biggest socialized programs in history.14

Vulture funds are one more example of how this EHM cancer has metastasized. After a country has defaulted and fallen into a state of economic chaos, these funds purchase that country’s debt for a few cents on the dollar. Then, when the country’s economy begins to recover, the funds demand payment of the debt, plus interest, often tacking on additional fees. Many take this a step further by suing businesses that try to work with the target country, thus compounding the damage by scaring off potential investors.

The twenty-six largest vultures have collected $1 billion from the world’s poorest countries, and still have another $1.3 billion earmarked for collection. That $1 billion is more than twice the budget of the International Committee of the Red Cross for all of Africa in 2011; it could finance the entire UN appeal for the famine in Somalia.

handful of robber barons and their henchmen, the modern EHMs, have conspired to convince the rest of us that they have the right to do anything they deem necessary to support the debt-and-fear dogma. Citing US Supreme Court decisions and euphemisms about the virtues of their very narrow version of capitalism, they’ve persuaded us to give them license to make themselves fabulously wealthy. And they’ve done this, with our tacit approval, at our expense. One percent of Americans received 95 percent of all the wealth created since the depression was officially pronounced as ended in 2009, while 90 percent of us became poorer. For every $1 billion of wealth created, the average US citizen gets one dollar. Globally, eighty-five individuals own more resources than half of the world’s population.19

President Obama’s former top military intelligence official, retired US Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, described the use of drones as a “failed strategy” that only encourages violence and terrorism. “When you drop a bomb from a drone . . . you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good,” he said. And Flynn should know; he headed up the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency until the summer of 2014.2

Concern for that resentment is not limited to veterans’ groups and the media. It is also expressed by students in US colleges where I speak. They refer to men and women their age who travel from Australia, the US, and Europe to the Middle East to join ISIS and other militant Islamist organizations. They speculate that resentment and desperation drive these young people to take such actions. They worry that US policies encourage terrorism.

In the aftermath of 9/11, fear drove Americans to agree to sacrifice privacy and freedom and give the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies unprecedented powers. Tools perfected overseas, including drones and surveillance aircraft, are now used to spy on us in the United States. Documents released by US federal authorities in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit reveal that at least sixty-three drone sites, located in twenty states, were active in the United States (as of 2012). Many were operated by soldiers and were deployed from stateside military installations. Others were manned by law enforcement agencies and the US Border Patrol. Some, if not all, are designed to assassinate people.4 In June 2015, the Associated Press reported that the FBI has a “small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the US carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government.” The article went on to say that these flights are usually conducted without a judge’s approval and that “in a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country.”5

The draconian, jackal measures revealed in the thousands of pages released by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden tell a shocking, disturbing, and sad story. Many Americans have come to understand that the democracy their government was supposed to protect has been betrayed by that government, that the very foundations of Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” were buried in the ashes of Ground Zero. I was shocked to learn that the NSA monitors about two hundred million text messages each day and has surreptitiously planted spy software in some one hundred thousand computers, allowing it access to the information in those computers.7 Perhaps it’s just ego, but I wonder if my computer is one of those . . . As jaded as I’ve become about the immoral and criminal (even if technically legal) activities of our jackal agencies, I was outraged by revelations that the organization that had recruited me — the NSA — had eavesdropped on the phone conversations of thirty-five world leaders, including listening to confidential discussions held at the highest levels of the governments of Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, the UK, and many of our other allies. According to the Guardian, “The NSA encourages senior officials in its ‘customer’ departments, such as the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their ‘Rolodexes’ so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.”8 This struck me as unacceptable, but it also was incredibly stupid diplomacy. Among the repercussions: German chancellor Angela Merkel objected strongly, and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff postponed a state visit to Washington. Another tool at the disposal of the modern jackal is that of character assassination

n 2015, a top Ecuadorian official told me, “We’d rather accept loans from Beijing than Washington. After all, China has never overthrown or killed our leaders — unlike the US.” When I pointed out that China had a history of invasions in Asia, he replied, “Yes. They’ve seen those places as part of their ancient kingdom. But they haven’t done it in Latin America, or Africa, or the Middle East. The US has.”

We were discussing the debt audit commission that had reviewed the legitimacy of the loans taken on by Ecuador’s CIA-supported dictators during my EHM days. The commission’s findings had convinced President Correa to default on loans worth more than $3 billion. In retaliation for the president’s initial refusal to pay $30.6 million that was due on $519 million of outstanding global bonds in 2012, Standard and Poor’s Rating Services and Fitch Ratings slashed Ecuador’s credit rating.1 Correa turned to Beijing. China offered Ecuador a $1 billion loan, which soon was increased to $2 billion.2 As his government repaid that loan, Correa reestablished Ecuador’s global credit standing, but he also made his country beholden to China and its version of EHMs. By April 2015, Ecuador’s debts to China had risen to almost $5.4 billion — representing 28 percent of its external debt.3

China’s expansionism, like that of the United States and the other empires of history, revolves around lending money to countries, plundering their resources, and paralyzing their leaders with fear. China is playing off the fears of men like Correa and citizens of countries such as Ecuador and Honduras — and just about everywhere else. Whereas we in the United States are taught to fear China, Russia, and terrorists, a large part of the world fears us. They fear the Pentagon and the military presence that Washington has established in more than one hundred countries. They fear the CIA, the NSA, and all the other US spy agencies. They fear the drones, the missiles, and the bombs. They fear our dollarized, debt-based money system. In addition to the obvious physical fears are the more subtle ones. Economically developing countries fear their vulnerability to global corporations. Because of the trade agreements and conditionalities imposed on them through the debt agreements, their economies seem dependent on those corporations. They fear they can’t survive without the corporations. They fear that the corporations will go somewhere else to locate their production facilities, but they also fear that if those facilities are built within their borders, the corporations will bury the country in pollution and force workers to accept unlivable wages. They fear that the corporations will eventually leave them for another country with even less stringent environmental and social regulations, dooming to extreme poverty or starvation the people who abandoned their subsistence farms to work in the now-vacated factories

Union, the new corporate barons believed they had license to do whatever they deemed it would take to realize their goal of maximizing profits, including corrupting politicians and manipulating the legal system. “Aid” organizations such as the World Bank increased the interest rates on loans, made political demands, and imposed conditionalities on the debtor countries, influencing the way they governed themselves and related to the United States and the corporations. It did not take long for people in those nations to recognize that they were being exploited. However, they had nowhere to turn, no counterbalancing power. The Soviet Union was gone. The economically developing countries had no choice but to give in and feel abused and resentful. Then, almost overnight, China emerged as a new world power. Its meteoric rise as an economic giant and major player in international manufacturing and trade thrust it onto the world stage as that counterbalance

China appears to have learned from mistakes made by the United States, its allies, and the corporatocracy. Chinese loans usually are not accompanied by draconian demands — the conditionalities of World Bank and IMF deals — such as voting for specific UN policies, trading only in dollars, or allowing the establishment of military bases occupied by foreign troops. China makes promises that the factories it builds will continue to operate in the long term. It remains to be seen whether such promises will be kept, but the United States promotes “free trade” agreements that do exactly the opposite. However, despite China’s apparent aptitude at doing it better than the United States and its allies, the simple fact remains that China is using debt — massive amounts of it — to further its own EHM system, to control countries and their resources.

ashes of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and, in the years since President Nixon’s first visit in 1972, had enjoyed amazing — “miraculous” — economic growth, like nothing ever before experienced by any country in history. However, this had come at a terrible environmental and social cost. The nation was smothering itself in pollution, and millions of Chinese were living under substandard social conditions. People expressed fear that China was rising to world prominence and that the Chinese model would cause even graver problems than the US model had.

“What can we do? How do we stop China?” If we are truly honest with ourselves, we in the United States have to admit that it is not so much about stopping China as about changing our own mind-sets. We need to admit that a great deal of China’s pollution is our pollution. The same can be said of the social conditions. We purchase the goods made in those factories. We seek out stores with the lowest prices, but the vast majority of their products are made in the polluting factories of China. In a very real sense, China’s economic miracle has been possible only because of the United States — and the global corporations. Key individuals in China have joined the corporatocracy. China is the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods

look at what we in the United States — and our corporations, now gone global — have done. China is trying to emulate a system that is a failure. If less than 5 percent of the world’s population (living in the United States) is consuming more than 25 percent of the resources, how can 19 percent of the world’s population (living in China) hope to replicate our lifestyle? It’s certainly not possible to also add India, Brazil, and the rest of the world to that equation. We must change. We in the United States and across the globe must stop using “them” as scapegoats. Just as we must not fear “them,” we must not blame “them” or expect “them” to solve the problem — the global problem of predatory corporate capitalism, a death economy. We need to recognize that “they” are us. We ourselves — each and every one of us — must take responsibility. We must create a new model — one that the Chinese, the Brazilians, the Indians, our own president, our corporate and government leaders, and everyone else can follow. It isn’t about changing the mechanics of economics. It is about changing the ideas, the dogmas that have driven economics for centuries: debt and fear, insufficiency, divide and conquer. It is about moving from ideas about merely being sustainable to ones that include regenerating areas devastated by agriculture, mining, and other destructive activities. It is about revolution. The transition from a death economy to a life economy is truly about a change in consciousness — a consciousness revolution.

The world is as we dream it, and we’ve been living a dream that combines excessive materialism with a divide-and-conquer, them-versus-us mentality.

This book has described the four pillars of modern empire: fear, debt, insufficiency (the temptation to keep consuming more), and the divide-and-conquer mind-set. The idea that anything and everything is justified — coups and assassinations, drone strikes, NSA eavesdropping — as long as it props up those four pillars has shackled us to a feudal and corrupt system. It is a system that cannot be sustained.

True success comes from following your unique passions, employing your skills, and joining the growing community that is determined to create a better world. You can start with your individual behavior (recycling, driving less, turning off lights, shopping and banking locally, and so forth), but do not fall into the trap of believing that those things alone are enough.

When audience members ask me what, specifically, they can do, I start with, “You must follow your passions and use your talents in the most efficient, satisfying, and enjoyable way you can.” Then I mention some of the appropriate daily actions we all can take. We can join nonprofit and other nongovernmental organizations and consumer movements aimed at boycotting specific corporations. We can support reform movements aimed at such things as taxing corporations, regulating banks, getting money out of the electoral process, and stopping the causes of climate change. We can participate in demonstrations and marches; write blogs, books, or articles; make videos or movies. We can run for elected office or campaign for the place where we work to commit to public service

The lists in chapter 47 are divided into six categories: (1) things we all can do; (2) things students can do; (3) things retired people can do; (4) things people between student age and retirement age can do; (5) things corporations can do (and consumers can insist they do); and (6) things entrepreneurs can do. These are suggestions, intended to inspire you to do whatever it takes to follow your passions and create the world we all know is possible. As you read the lists, please keep in mind that perhaps the most important advice of all is to enjoy the process. Follow your bliss. Make it fun. Don’t burn out. Whenever you come up against an obstacle, see it as an opportunity that excites your creative juices and enables you to experience the joy of finding solutions. Whenever someone criticizes you or tells you the life economy is impossible, or whenever you meet a roadblock such as police officers preventing you from marching, understand it as a manifestation of the old story. Like a good martial artist, gather strength from such actions; use the energy to energize you. It is time for you — and me, us — to do whatever it takes to bury the death economy and birth the life economy.

1. Keep telling a new story, one that is based on creating an environmentally sustainable, resource regenerative, socially just world where one group of people does not make other groups of people desperate. This story is about cleaning up pollution and regarding our planet as a living being; helping starving people grow, store, and transport food more efficiently; living less materialistic and more spiritually fulfilling lives; developing new technologies for energy, transportation, communications, banking, and wholesale and retail trade; bringing diverse communities together with the understanding that we all live on a fragile space station that has no escape shuttles. In other words, tell the story of converting a death economy to a life economy. Spread this story, every chance you get, to as many people as you can. Talk; write; make videos; offer study groups; do whatever it takes.

2. Shop and invest consciously. Replace recreational and mindless shopping tendencies with activities that truly nourish you and those you love. When you must shop, buy locally, as well as at consignment and thrift stores. Make things last. Buy goods and services from (and invest in) businesses that are committed to making a better world. No one is perfect, so seek out the ones that are doing the best in their field. E-mail them about the good things they are doing, encouraging them to get even better. Also e-mail the businesses that you avoid, telling them why you refuse to patronize them. Insist that any organizations, and pensions or other funds that you are part of, do the same

3. Live consciously. Focus on doing things that enhance your relationship with other people, your community, and the world around you, including honoring nature in whatever form it takes in your locale. Break old patterns that revolve around materialism and buying “stuff”; downsize your house, car, and wardrobe; bicycle or take public transportation; avoid activities that use fossil fuels; give talks at local schools, libraries, and other forums

4. Pick a cause that appeals to your deepest passions, and support it on a regular basis. This could be changing a corporation, such as Monsanto, Chevron, or Walmart; or promoting a movement, radio station, blogger, nonprofit, or nongovernmental organization. Give it your attention every day — in the form of time and energy (even if only for a few minutes) or money. Use social media to let all your friends know what you are doing. Craft e-mails and letters about your cause, and distribute them frequently to your social media contacts, ask them to distribute these to all of their social media contacts, and so on

5. Become part of the living local community. Use local banks that invest in local projects, local merchants, locally owned restaurants; as much as possible, buy food that is locally and organically grown; use materials and goods that are local and/or environmentally and socially responsible; create community gardens and urban green spaces. Encourage everyone you know to do the same. Vote for enlightened school and other local leaders. Join or form groups that bring people together to have fun doing such things: bicycle, nature, book, “change the world” clubs — be creative. Drink tap or filtered, not bottled, water. 6. Flood media outlets, corporate executives, and government officials with information about the need to move from a death economy to a life economy. Do this locally, nationally, or internationally — or all three. 7. Support reform movements that most appeal to you. These will be country- and community-dependent activities to encourage geopolitical, economic, and social reforms. Demand such things as guaranteed living wages and/or employment, health insurance, medical care, and retirement pensions.

. Encourage the creation of local, national, and/or international parks, wildlife preserves, and other such areas. If you live in an urban setting or a run-down area, organize people to turn vacant lots into parks and playgrounds. Spend quality time in these places and encourage everyone you know to do the same. 9. Fight for campaign finance reform and/or climate change regulations in the United States and elsewhere. Join organizations such as Move to Amend, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the Pachamama Alliance, or others that appeal to you. 10. Avoid debt. Take positive actions to pay off credit card charges and other debt without incurring interest payments. Make a point of using cash whenever possible. 11. Make heroes and icons of people who are working to create a better world. Honor the founders and managers of institutions and movements discussed in numbers 1 through 9 above, the visible and the behind-the-scenes people who create an environmentally sustainable, resource regenerative, socially just world, who help starving people feed themselves, and who promote better business and living models — rather than the CEOs of irresponsible corporations, overpaid athletes, or celebrities

Work for your passion. Go to work only for organizations and businesses that are consistent with your passions and philosophies. If you can’t find any such jobs, create your own. Take the route of the self-starter, the entrepreneur, and refuse to be caught in work patterns that deplete your energy and creativity.

NINE THINGS PEOPLE BETWEEN STUDENT AGE AND RETIREMENT AGE CAN DO 1. Be aware of what is going on in your community and around the world. Dig beneath the surface. Don’t allow yourself to be duped by the media, politicians, corporations, or governments. 2. Develop communications skills to help everyone around you gain greater awareness of what is going on. Realize that being dogmatic or judgmental usually does not work. “Did you know that . . . ?” is more effective than “Don’t you know that . . . ?” Also, remember to ask questions that spark people’s curiosity and creativity. This can be more effective than overwhelming people with your own ideas and information. Use whatever channels are easiest for you: talking, writing, e-mailing, texting, posting on Facebook and Twitter . . . the list goes on.

. Demand economic and tax reforms, such as accounting practices that internalize costs, strict oversight of Wall Street and big banks, and tax laws that force the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share and that encourage socially and environmentally beneficial technologies. Vote only for candidates who support these, buy only from businesses that comply with and promote such reforms, and let the candidates and businesses know. Write letters to editors and blogs, post on Facebook and Twitter, and so on. 4. Form or join consumer movements, nonprofits, and nongovernmental organizations that promote businesses that serve a public interest — the 99.99 percent rather than the 0.01 percent. Call and/or send e-mails to your local and national representatives, urging them to support these movements and to vote for such reforms.

Help form and/or support community-based businesses such as consumer co-ops, community corporations, Certified B Corporations, local public banks, and worker-owned businesses. 6. Join demonstrations, protests, and worker/student/civil movements that fight for better social and environmental conditions. Actively participate, or give them financial and social media support. 7. Develop an awareness of your own biases around race, religion, financial status, immigration, gender, and other issues, and work toward overcoming those biases. 8. Teach younger people to be activists with soul. Help them to understand that democracy is based on being informed and educated about what is going on in the world, and taking inspired action.

. If you work for a corporation or own stock, speak out. Make it known that you want the company where you work or where you own stock to be successful, and that the successful businesses of the future will be those that nourish a healthy, resilient natural environment and that contribute to the joy, harmony, and equality of their employees and of the communities they serve. See also the next section, “Eleven Things Corporations Can Do.”

1. Follow your heart. Choose an endeavor that fulfills your strongest passions and employs your greatest skills. Don’t be swayed by the opinions of “experts,” parents, teachers, or others who never tried to do what you know in your heart you want to do. Don’t be afraid to offer something radically different from what you see around you, especially if it has the potential to improve current products or approaches. Dare to be great, and trust that greatness will channel through you! 2. Get started. The earlier the better. Recognize that the difference between a person who fails and one who succeeds is that the latter tried one more time. There are no mistakes, just lessons and opportunities to refine your approach, clarify your goals, and deepen your inspiration.

3. Build communities and networks that support you and a more holistic worldview (B Corps, Benefit Corps, social venture networks, for-profit/not-for-profit partnerships, and the like). Use these to inspire and encourage you and to help improve your supply chains, recruitment campaigns, and marketing. Enlist and empower other entrepreneurs. When college classmates, friends, and family see entrepreneurs thriving, it emboldens them to pursue their own passions.

Be the company you envision for the future. By establishing an inspirational approach to a sustainable business you manifest your own dream and set an example that will empower others. Approaches for doing this include the way you hire and retain employees, the products and services you offer, the resources you use, the commitment you make to encouraging activities which regenerate depleted resources and ravaged environments, and the contributions you make to your community. 5. Undertake the eleven actions outlined in “Eleven Things Corporations Can Do,” once you find yourself running a company.

By examining the tortured history of several aid initiatives, he shows how blind and arrogant Western aid officers have imposed on helpless clients a postmodern neocolonialism of political manipulation and economic dependency, stifling democracy and local enterprise in the process.”

Eurodad releases a report titled Hidden Profits: The EU’s Role in Supporting an Unjust Global Tax System 2014. The report compares each country “with its fellow EU member states on four critical issues: the fairness of their tax treaties with developing countries; their willingness to put an end to anonymous shell companies and trusts; their support for increasing the transparency of economic activities and tax payments of transnational companies; and their attitude towards letting the poorest countries get a seat at the table when global tax standards are negotiated.” Findings include evidence that “practices which facilitate tax dodging by transnational corporations and individuals are widely used, in some cases so governments can claim to be ‘tax competitive.’ This is creating a ‘race to the bottom’ — meaning that many countries are driving down standards to try to attract transnational corporations to their countries. Some of the countries that have been most successful in attracting companies — Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — are also currently under investigation by the European Commission for making competition-distorting arrangements with transnational companies behind closed doors.”

an article titled “The Death of International Development,” London School of Economics fellow Jason Hickel reminds us of the ever-increasing wealth ratio between the richest and the poorest countries: “In 1973 the gap was around 44:1. Today it’s nearly 80:1. Inequality has reached such extremes that now the richest 67 people in the world — a number of people who could fit comfortably on a London bus — have more wealth than the poorest 3.5 billion