"Hoodwinked"

To fend off the forces behind the global recession, suggests former economic hitman John Perkins, consumers need o embrace justice and sustainability as the values that drive their personal purchase decision-making, instead of just cheap prices.

John Perkins

The regulation of corporations' behavior in the United States was much different in the nation's early years, says economist and writer John Perkins. But those tighter controls began slipping away more than a century ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court first embraced the concept now known as "corporate personhood."

Widespread redirection of consumer choice-making, by itself, is not enough to reform corporate capitalism run amok. Perkins says the underlying message with its call for change needs to be clearly and directly articulated as well.

Observing recent world events through the lens of his past experienece as an economic hitman, Perkins says the question about the series of democratic uprisings in both the Middle East and Latin America is not why those people are angry, but what took them so long to rebel.