Abstract

Agents of the New Empire

The U.S. Peace Corps was conceived in 1960 as an election campaign gimmick. It was sold to conservatives as anticommunism and to liberals as altruism. Since then, it has evolved into a public relations device to give legitimacy to American economic, political and military expansionism. Unfortunately, it is still a gimmick, and while its cost is not high as gimmicks go, its benefits accrue primarily to the rich, not the poor, to the volunteers, staff and consultants who run the Peace Corps more than to the countries they supposedly aid. Beyond that, the Peace Corps may be helping to create a new international class of development technicians and bureaucrats who are becoming the instruments whereby a growing number of giant multinational corporations manipulate the economies of developing nations in the service of their stockholders. The Peace Corps is an agency of empire.