On the Culture of Dependence

I'm in the middle of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Men," and though having only read the first 80 pages or so of it, it is quite amazing to realize just how dirty the international system is. Economic hit men are a special breed, a tiny gear in a system bent on subjugating the Third World without firing a single bullet. Economic hit men serve the interests of the larger empire without receiving a single dime from them. They are contracted by private firms which function as the backbone of the system. To summarize the central points of the book, economic hit men are those especially trained to do the following (1) convince the public and other countries that billions of dollars of foreign investments are justified by (fake) future economic growth in order to (2) funnel the money back into American private companies by requiring that the receivers of aid contract only American firms en-route to (3) bankrupt these countries, forcing them to heavily rely on the debtor, in this case, the American government.

The plan goes roughly as followed. The U.S. government would signal the willingness to aid Third World countries. The hit men, or the (sham) economists as they would be called, would be hired to "impartially" analyze the economic potential of the host countries and to convince them that the only way to achieve such growth is through borrowing foreign money. As soon as these countries go heads over heels to line up for aid, the U.S. would stipulate that they must contract American firms to do the construction. Most of the times, it doesn't even have to do that, for very few non-American or non-Western firms possess the capacity. Money then would be funneled right back into American hands while the host countries, indebted to the U.S., would be forced to accept American demands.

This theory is disputed, but the idea is certainly not new. It's just a dirtier version of the American Liberal World Order. In the modern international system, wars are the marks of diplomatic failure. To subjugate other countries through a blend of incentives and coercion is the hallmark of excellence. Look at the most recent wars conducted by the U.S., and it comes as no surprise that the majority of them (Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq) lie in the Middle East. The region is rich in oil but it is also rich in culture. The Middle East poses the toughest challenge to the spreading of the American hegemonic order. Unlike Ecuador, which "blossomed" thanks to the U.S.' "aid" in building up its oil infrastructure, the Middle Eastern countries hold a monopoly of oil on their own. They are not at the mercy of American aid, nor are they willing to compromise their cultural values in exchange for material benefits.

The World Bank is no saint; it's a Western creation and will forever remain one. With economic liberalization spreading to remote parts of the world, Western international institutions are cornering the market. There's no such thing as aid without precondition. There's such thing, however, as getting bankrupt and being forced to give up land for American bases or conform to American intentions in the UN. So what does this have to do with Vietnam? Well, the next time the World Bank forecasts a 7% growth over the next 10 years, someone should question that statistics.