“Corporatocracy” is Perkins’s name for the combined efforts of the US government and American corporations to dominate and exploit third-world countries through a program of debt and fear.

The debt comes from loans granted to developing nations to pay for extensive infrastructure improvements; the fear comes when those countries, swamped by onerous debt payments, finally default, and American agents force them to accept draconian terms or suffer violent reprisals. The United States compels the countries to permit further exploitation, accept American military bases, and vote as instructed in the United Nations.

As developing countries are bound to the United States through debt and economic dependence, they become yet another piece in “history’s first truly global empire—a corporate empire supported and driven by the US government” (28). Though it is not a true imperial unit, this soft empire functions much like one, with the system enriching corporations and a few wealthy families in each developing country while hamstringing the local poor, whose public services, health care, and education are often sacrificed to pay off the loans.

Chief among the perpetrators of this scheme are “economic hit men,” including Perkins, who present overly optimistic economic forecasts that promote development projects for each country, which helps convince local officials to sign off on the huge loans such projects require.