The Economic Hit Man Confesses Again: An Interview With John Perkins

Do you think the forces behind "trinket capitalism" - cultivating a demand and hyping selling points of essentially useless items - has been applied to the realm of politics, like in elections?

No question. The politicians are controlled by big money - what I call the corporatocracy. Nobody gets elected in this country - or almost nobody - without the support of the corporatocracy. Nobody gets elected to a major national office without that support. We saw that with Obama. He went in saying he was not going to accept money from big corporations; by the end he accepted a lot of money from big corporations. And we're now seeing the results. His financial policy is essentially run by Wall Street, particularly Goldman Sachs, and his agricultural policy is run by the big agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, because they provided so much money in his campaign. So politicians are very, very much tied in with these corporations.

But we the people ought to recognize that ultimately, we're the ones with the control. Because these big corporations only benefit, only survive, when we support them, by buying their goods and services or allowing our tax dollars to buy their goods and services. So the marketplace is democratic if we choose to make it democratic, if we choose to shop consciously, invest consciously, and let them know. Send emails. Let Nike know that we're not going to buy from them anymore because they've got sweatshops. Send them an email and if enough of us do that, they'll have to turn their sweatshops into legitimate factories that pay real wages and have working conditions that are supportive of life rather than making life miserable for the workers. We have the control. And I say in "Hoodwinked" that the way we vote when we shop is just as important as - and perhaps more important than - the votes we give in polls on election day. We need to recognize that every time we buy something or choose not to, we're casting a vote, but it's important to communicate that and email makes it very easy to communicate to these corporate executives why we're buying their goods and services or why we're not buying them.

~ more... ~