Hitting the Economic Hitmen At the Time of Global Heating

Hitting the Economic Hitmen At the Time of Global Heating

Posted on 18th January, 2025 (GMT 09:55 hrs)

DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY ⤡

AKHAR BANDYOPADHYAY ⤡

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the role of economic hitmen, as outlined by John Perkins, Eric Toussaint and other theorists, in manipulating developing nations for financial gain. These individuals exploit countries through excessive loans, leading to debt traps and policies favoring multinational corporations. The piece connects these actions to global economic institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, highlighting their influence in shaping neo-colonial economic systems. It also examines India’s neoliberal policies since the 1990s, citing key figures who facilitated these strategies.

I. The Extortionist Trio and “Economic Hitmen”

Toussaint’s (2007) book, The World Bank: A Never Ending Coup D’état, showed the World Bank’s role in global economic “development” since its establishment in 1944, enabled through the Washington Consensus (1989), while the earlier Bretton Woods Conference (1944) serves as the foundation to neoliberal policymaking as such. Toussaint argued that the extortionist trio, i.e., World Bank (WB) along with International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as World Trade Organization (WTO), have functioned as instruments of financial control-dominance, perpetuating a form of neo-colonialism under the guise of so-called development assistance, using financial aid as a leverage to promote top-down economic models favorable to these superrich interests. This reveals the ways in which the said institutions (along with its sister organizations) have contributed to global inequalities and served the class-based interests of dominant economic power-blocks, particularly the United States. This is further reinforced by the World Bank’s support for deliberately installing authoritarian/totalitarian puppet regimes by manufacturing conflicts (coup, riots, civil war, genocide etc., that amplify arms sales) in the Global South, enabling such dummy repressive governments to maintain control while implementing the underlying policies that prioritize foreign investors over local populations.

One may watch the following scene from the film “The International” (2009) to better understand this debt-totalitarianism-control correlate:

https://youtu.be/Dpp4vhAxzLU

https://youtu.be/dIdlMdJinP4

According to Toussaint, the WB-IMF-WTO trio encourages external borrowing as a development strategy, leading to a vicious cycle of indebtedness that undermines the sovereignty of such “developing” nations. Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) tied to these loans impose austerity measures and economic liberalization, exacerbating the structures of poverty and inequality through the humungous concentration of wealth in fewer hands that make the rich richer at the expense of making the poor poorer.

Toussaint also examines the World Bank’s selective or “partisan” approach to such debt-ridden developmentalism. He argues that its focus on profit-driven projects excludes critical social dimensions such as wealth redistribution, health, and education. This narrow agenda often aligns with the strategic interests of major shareholders, neglecting the broader, holistic needs of “developing” nations. Toussaint critiqued the Bank’s environmental and gender impacts, highlighting its promotion of an extractivist model that contributes to ecological degradation and its superficial approach to gender equity, which frequently masks exploitative practices.

In this context, an Economic Hitman (EHM) is a term popularized by John Perkins in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman (2004). It refers to a professional, typically associated with corporate and governmental interests, whose primary role is to manipulate and influence “developing” countries’ (as defined by the World Bank, going parallel to the terminological understanding of the so-called “third world”, the latter term being coined by Alfred Sauvy during the Cold War; Toussaint, 2007)1 economies for the benefit of multinational corporations, powerful nations, or private elites. EHMs achieve this through a combination of economic, political, and covert methods aimed at ensuring the dominance of global capitalist systems, especially through the use of fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder to cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their activities align with the predetermined neocolonial or neoimperialistic strategies as part of pre-debt-or, canni-ballistic capitalism. Unlike previous colonial or imperialist methods (such as direct war) to seek control over the Global South, necolonialism instead attempts to dominate over the market economies in order to assert their controlling mechanisms, even at the cost of obliviating ecological entitlements to contribute to anthropogenic glocal (global+local) heating. This expanse was unimaginable to Franz Fanon, the father of anti-colonial struggle.

To summarize, EMH perform or engage in the following:

1. Inducing Economic Dependency: EHMs persuade leaders of developing countries to accept large loans for infrastructure projects, such as power plants, highways, or dams. These loans are often provided by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank.
2. Overestimating Benefits and Underestimating Costs: They prepare inflated economic forecasts, projecting immense benefits for the borrower country while downplaying risks, thus making the deals appear irresistible.
3. Creating Debt Trap Diplomacy: When countries struggle to repay the loans due to manipulated or unrealistic terms, they are forced into debt dependency or “debt traps”. This enables creditors to demand political concessions, control over natural resources, or favorable trade agreements.
4. Securing Corporate Interests: EHMs ensure that infrastructure projects benefit multinational corporations through lucrative contracts while leaving host countries burdened with debt.
5. Suppressing Resistance: If leaders of target countries resist these measures, EHMs may support political destabilization, coups, or even assassinations, often involving shadowy collaborations with intelligence agencies or private contractors.
6. Enforcing Structural Adjustments: They advocate for neoliberal economic policies like privatization, deregulation, and austerity measures, which further weaken local economies and exacerbate inequality.

The activities of EHMs contribute to:

• Asymmetric Economic Exploitation: They perpetuate cycles of poverty and dependency in developing nations.
• Loss of Sovereignty: Nations lose control over their resources, policies, and economic futures.
• Widening Global Inequalities: Wealth flows from poorer countries to richer entities, reinforcing systemic inequalities.

EHMs symbolize the darker underbelly of globalization, highlighting how economic policies can be weaponized to serve powerful military-industrial interests at the expense of vulnerable populations, and the planet earth itself.

https://youtu.be/mPuYkPLLKlM

https://youtu.be/btF6nKHo2i0

https://youtu.be/XWuAct1BxHU

 II. The Case of India’s “Economic Hitmen” (?)

In India, as a Banana Republic, Pranab Mukherjee signed the Dunkel Draft (1991; occurring simultaneously during the fundamentalist Ram Mandir Movement that culminated in the infamous Babri Masjid Demolition in 1992), which was a revised and updated edition of the GATT (1948). By means of the same, Mukherjee was undoubtedly the harbinger of neoliberal economy in India along with Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram. We might call them together as the “P-M-C” combine. In addition to that, Montek Singh Ahluwalia2 was also a deus-ex-machina to restructure Indian economy according to the dictates and grand designs of the WB-IMF-WTO, the extortionist trio.

Noted Journalist Praful Bidwai mentioned:

“A glaring instance of cronyism today is the appropriation of vast powers by planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a quintessential World Bank-IMF crony. The commission has never been more powerful than it is today – ironically, under the sway of anti-planning free-market policies. Ahluwalia decides everything — whether the Northeast will develop or not, how many districts the National Rural Employment Guarantee will cover (without adequate funding), and whether primary schools will run.” (Praful Bidwai, “India’s crony capitalist model”; The News International, May 12, 2007)“

India’s Own Economic Hitman VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 23rd November, 2010 ©New Socialist Alternative)

Note that both Manmohan Singh and M. S. Ahluwalia had their primary credentials at the World Bank and IMF. Prominent Economist Ashok Mitra called Manmohan Singh as the “local agent of the World Bank”⤡.

Thus, from 1991 to 2014, the P-M-C Combine had set the basis for deregulated neo-liberalization of the Indian economy, which permits the free flow of private capital and foregrounds market fundamentalism by obliviating the Nehruvian Second Five Year Plan, also called as the Mahalanobis Model.

After that, during the N.D.A. regime (2014—present), it is found that the burden of external debt has increased by leaps and bounds. While the erstwhile UPA drew its inspiration from Fabian modes of slow motion economic transitions, the N.D.A. government, especially under the leadership of late Arun Jaitley (another possible EHM), has been executing all the neoliberal policies in terms of a fatal military emergency by destructing the natural environment.

Let us view some data in this connection.

India’s debt-to-GDP ratio has experienced notable fluctuations in recent years:

• 2019-20: Approximately 74%
• 2020-21: Rose to nearly 88% due to increased borrowing amid the COVID-19 pandemic
• 2021-22: Moderated to 83.3%
• 2022-23: Further reduced to 80.9%
• 2023-24: Estimated at 81.59%
• 2024-25: Projected to peak at 82.3%

SOURCE: Debt GDP Ratio in India under Modi Government and its implications VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 13th June, 2022 ©INC) 

At end-September 2023, India’s external debt was placed at US$ 635.3 billion, recording an increase of US$ 6.4 billion over its level at end-June 2023. (Source: Department of Economic Affairs, Gov. of India ⤡)

The most recent statistics in this regard reflects the following (as retrieved on GMT 09:09 hrs, 18th January, 2025):

Furthermore, such worrying trends also state:

SOURCE: India Debt Clock ⤡

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cautioned that India’s general government debt could surpass 100% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the medium term. This is largely due to the significant investments required for climate change mitigation and building resilience to natural disasters. A World Bank study supports this concern, highlighting that for emerging economies, a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 64% can negatively impact real economic growth.

IMF warns of debt vulnerabilities: What is the solution? To reduce debt or redefine priorities? VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 13th February, 2024 ©ET Government)

As highlighted in Section (I), the WB-IMF-WTO extortionist trio is adept at installing puppet dictatorial and authoritarian regimes to implement their neo-imperialist agendas, perpetuating “catalyst” debt traps as a means to an end. India’s escalating external debt epitomizes this disturbing trend, exemplified by the current crony oligarchic regime led by the BJP, which operates within a framework of religious extremism and exhibits overt fascist tendencies. It is essential to draw a correlation between the increasing debt per citizen, the nation’s overall financial burden and the rising face of Saffron Fascism. Also note how it was mention in Section (I) that Economic Hitmen are often deployed to rig elections, which have been observed multiples times during this very N.D.A. regime. Marcuse once pertinently noted that in such Orwellian dystopic state: “…rigged election is declared as democratic election.” (Marcuse, 1964/1986)

III. Concluding The Inconcluded: Justice Due…

Hence, the WB-IMF-WTO extortionist trio, functions as the Chomskyan “Backroom Boys” (people in an organization whose work is not seen by or is kept secret from the public; Chomsky, 1973) by being the “masters of the humankind” (a la Adam Smith), or, as the invisible hands that control, dominate and amplify the systemic inequities at the cost of class polarization and environmental degradation (in the name of “development”) under huge debt burdens.

One might refer to Rosen’s book Western Economists and Eastern Societies (1985) to locate the practical instantiations (or case-studies) of the technocratic specialists’ endeavours in economic policymaking, especially culminating through disciplines such as “Developmental Economics”, which are preached to the “third-world” by international groups such as the Ford Foundation in collusion with the native/local specialists of those countries, often involving what are called “fiscal auditors” and also the centrality of CIA-centric military intelligence (The “Invisible Government” of David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, 1964; along with the deployment of “EHM”, or Economic Hitman for consummating the purpose, Perkins, 2004). The interaction that occurs as a result is all about “data”: of its manipulation, of its displacement, of its role in metonymic condensation, of its all-pervasive nature in a Frankensteinian ethic of agentship, funding and sponsorship. The search for wishful wisdom is lost…

Now, we have to address a crucial question in this context. The question is related to the “Orwell’s Problem” as introduced by Chomsky in 1986. This problem relates to the issue of how people can have limited knowledge of the world around them, even when there is a lot of evidence or data. Hence, it is a disparity between “knowing” data and “un-knowing” the state of affairs. Our question is, why are the “secrets” of such invisible governance reveled by Wise, Ross, Rosen, Perkins, Toussaint et al. without being annihilated by the “backroom boys”? Is it because of the market, where anything can be bought or sold in exchange for profits? Or is it because capitalism itself cannot survive without perpetuating as well as subsuming contradictions in its bosom? In fact, no monolithic power-structures could ever sustain itself in the long run, hence it has to hegemonically “selve in” its antithetical others in the pursuit of the profit-motive serving increments to the polymorphic power-entity. In other words, it might be called as rarefaction or synthetic hegemony (Foucault, 1969/1972).

This is how power continues irrespective of particular political parties…

ENDNOTES

1. Such terms are imposed on the countries and nations of the Global South by the World Bank. As mentioned by Toussaint (p. xxxvii, 2007), “…the words used to “define” the countries that have received the WB’s development loans have changed over the years. They were first called “backward areas”, then “underdeveloped countries” (the oldest term which has gradually become obsolete as it implies a reference to “developed nations”), to be now called “developing countries” (or “least developed countries”/”peripheral countries”), some of which are “emergent countries” (or even “countries in transition”, an euphemism!).” The question is, how is “development” defined, first of all, and who defines it? Secondly, in relation to such a definition, how is “poverty” defined? What is THE standard of measuring “being poor”? ↩︎
2. Ahluwalia began his career at the World Bank (1968-79), holding various key positions in Washington, D.C., before transitioning to India’s government during Charan Singh’s tenure. Over decades, he served as Economic Advisor, Finance Secretary, and held critical roles under multiple prime ministers, influencing India’s neoliberal economic policies. His career culminated as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (2004-2014) under Manmohan Singh, showcasing his deep integration into India’s economic governance and global financial systems. 
3. ↩︎

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. (1973). The Backroom Boys. Fontana.

Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. A. M. Sheridan Smith, (Trans.). Pantheon Books. (Originally Published in 1969).

Marcuse, H. (1986). One Dimensional Man. Ark Paperbacks. (Originally Published in 1964).

Perkins, J. (2004). Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Berrett-Koehler. 

Rosen, B. (1985). Western Economists and Eastern Societies: Agents of Change in South Asia, 1950-70. The John Hopkins University Press.

Toussaint, E. (2007) The World Bank, a Never Ending Coup d’Etat, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra.

Wise D. & Ross T. B. (1964). The Invisible Government. Random Hous