On our economic woes: Growth of Psychopathy - August
2011. I came across a worrying trend highlighted in the Irish Times the other
day (June 2011) under the title "Psychopaths rule the world". Looking up a definition I see that
psychopathy is defined as a lack of empathy for others, or a conscience, and can be associated with extreme and
manipulative behaviour. Professor Robert Hare, of the University of British Columbia, a consultant for the FBI and
an honorary professor at the University of Cardiff, has said "Psychopaths are social predators and like all
predators they are looking for feeding grounds... Wherever you get power, prestige and money you will find them",
and "that the arrogance and focus of "corporate psychopaths" helps them succeed." He
considers psychopaths tend towards the higher positions in business and in society. They may also be superficially
charming, prone to rage and likely to take credit for colleague's achievements. Prof. Hare has come to public
attention with his 20 point questionnaire to determine whether a person is, or is not a psychopath.
According to Paul Corry, of the mental health charity Rethink, "It shows that mental health is an issue all
around us." He said there was also lots of evidence that people who were highly motivated and highly
successful - particularly in finance and business - had some psychopathic traits. "These are people who are
extremely focused on achieving their goals, and who are not too concerned about other people's
feelings." Psychologists have warned that there are far more psychopaths around us than we first
thought and that co-workers should become more aware of their existence to avoid being their next 'corporate
victim'. 'Corporate psychopaths' tend to thrive especially in high-powered professions such as politics, the media,
law and business where they can dominate over others during their work. New Scientist magazine has unearthed
research indicating that so-called 'corporate psychopaths' vastly outnumber those who commit crimes and end up in
prison. They tend to be manipulative, arrogant, callous, impatient, impulsive, unreliable, superficially charming
and prone to instability. Other traits include breaking promises, taking credit for the work of others and blaming
everyone else when things go wrong. But the key characteristic of all psychopaths is having no conscience along with
lacking all signs of empathy to those around them.
So how many are we talking about? Psychologists have
estimated that around 1% of Britons will fall into this category. This means that there are around 600,000 of them
in circulation! On this basis, therefore, most offices could reasonably thought to harbour at least one psychopath!
I have long wondered why bankers, financiers and top business people in particular, and I suppose you could include
top politicians, never apologise when they make mistakes. Obviously not all such people are psychopaths, but the
desire to succeed in an increasingly competitive world could cause such traits to surface. As we have seen both in
the recent global depression, and our government's response, the blame always resides elsewhere. For me, more
worrying is that very few found 'guilty' have suffered financially as a result, and that the core problem of what to
do with a 'psychopathic' business culture has not been addressed. These people not only create their own sense of
reality. They stay within their own cocooned set and impose their superiority on others, thus developing the idea of
one law/financial reward for themselves and hang the rest.
Consequently we see large bonuses and pensions
continue to be taken without justification and in some cases openly out of tax payers money (the word used recently
by a banker to a House of Commons Committee was 'leakage' of the taxpayers bailout money!). We see private equity
financiers being allowed to walk away with huge profits leaving clients, including the elderly, in desperate
straights. We see world commodity markets rising unnaturally high because speculators have found they can make a
quick profit. This last week in the UK I see that fishing quotas are up for purchase by anyone with even, it is
alleged, one being owned by a football club. Meanwhile, in sport, at a time when the average person has a reduced
income, that paid in sport continues to increase, particularly in football, at ever increasing rates. At the
Wimbledon Tennis Championship this year (2011), for example, the winner will receive £1.1 million, an increase of
10% on last year (watching the final can cost in excess of £3,500 for one ticket bought on the internet), while the
rest of us on slightly lower incomes take a pay freeze or a reduction. All this indicates a lack of conscience,
social responsibility or empathy for others. It is also worrying that philanthropy seems a declining cause. So much
so that Richard Branson - a charity giver of very notable worth through his 'Virgin Unite' foundation, for example,
has said "In many cases we have seen the demise of the "golden charity cheque" – a company's payment
to assuage corporate guilt and allow it to focus purely on pursuing profit."
Perhaps one really does
need some psychopathic traits of character to succeed these days. The old adage, 'there is no sentiment in
business', should perhaps be changed to 'there is no conscience in business'. Would that we had more philanthropists
like Richard Branson or Bill Gates, or that business at least accepted the need to salve their consciences by
charitable giving. But then I suppose many do not possess one to salve anyway. Equally, when I think of Bill Gates'
Microsoft or Richard Branson's Virgin, can we be sure that all their business practices have never included a degree
of what could be termed psychopathic activity? The main difference in their case is the good they have now decided
to do with their wealth.
Or can it be that psychopathy is not so much a psychological condition, i.e. an
aberration, but a natural condition of humanity, i.e. the survival of the fittest, which the more sophisticated have
learnt to control as part of being an evolved human being, but which resurfaces in extreme circumstances. There are,
after all, times when we all feel 'this is what I want to do/have/be' without regard to any consequences for others.
Through nurture/environment/peer pressure from a very early age we learn to sublimate the 'me', to channel it into
more beneficial activities. Fast forward to a work environment and you can see how psychopathy re-emerges. What we
are used to seeing in TV news items is the often frantic activity in stock exchanges and dealers' rooms. In such
heated environments, focused purely on one activity of personal success and domination, it is easy to see an
increase in psychopathic activity. Similarly in the rarefied atmosphere of a board room, where profit and success
bring rewards while failure brings the sack, I can imagine conscience and empathy becoming rarefied products. If all
success depends on pushing the boundaries by dominating others or the markets, then our base animal instincts come
to the fore, and caveman mentality predominates. Indeed on the radio (15 June 2011) I heard such words as
'testosterone filled' and 'stag rutting' applied to stock exchange activity.
This, however, makes
psychopathy neither right nor justifiable. It should be an advanced trait of society that we exercise conscience,
social awareness and empathy at all times. So, are these traits capable of remedy or control? With very great
difficulty. Because this condition is found in the top echelons of business and politics, the de facto rulers of
society, it has become seen as acceptable behaviour, if possible carried to excess at times, and not as unacceptable
human behaviour, or mental aberrations requiring action through proper forms of control. David Cameron may say, as
he did yesterday (19 June, 2011) that absent fathers should be stigmatised by society, but until there is a
concerted public effort by him and other leaders to equally stigmatise psychopathy in business and politics little
will be done, and humanity will be further demeaned thereby.
Ordinary individuals and pressure groups can
have only a limited effect. The psychopath, like the Assad family in Syria, will always be able to brazen it out.
Major shareholders are unlikely to take action while the profits roll in. We have seen many cases where small
shareholders, e.g. individuals with a conscience, have made a stand at annual meetings against the approval of Board
members remuneration or activity only to be over-ruled by the larger holdings of corporate and institution
shareholders. Psychopathy in action, or a round robin approach to preserving their own remuneration? It is a
political problem, but again how often do we hear an intention to act which is either quietly forgotten, or
inactivity defended, often as a result of bullying threats and ruthless lobbying, because "the country needs a
strong banking and manufacturing base". For whose benefit? Largely that of the shareholders. I denote, for
example, a new trend in the UK, companies who are attracted to transact business in the UK employing UK employees,
but because they position their headquarters in such as Luxembourg, pay no corporation tax in the UK on their
profits derived from the UK. Consequently the benefits to the UK are minimal, to the shareholders large, but do
allow the government to praise them for 'reducing' the UK's unemployment figures.
Consequently, according
to a report to Government in 2010, the gap between rich and poor in the UK is currently wider than at any time since
the second world war. Last year, also, in a global report on individual human development the United Nations said
that higher levels in inequality in the UK meant that it was well below the average for the 30-plus countries that
are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club for rich nations based in Paris.
The UK was 26th.
Therein lies the problem. Both these reports were issued to the government last year.
Has anyone seen any activity yet? And what of the response of organised religion? As I write (June, 2011) they are
much more concerned over the appointment of Gay and Women Bishops. It would appear that moral decline is not only
affecting society. The Church must take its share.
UK Riots - August 2011. As I write this the UK has been sunk into the despair of rioting across a
number of its cities. Here are some preliminary thoughts. Who was to blame? How do we improve relationships
so that it will not happen again? This raises so many integrated problems. Is it a problem of
multiculturalism gone too far, or is it consumerism gone too far? Politicians talk of a sick society, a
fractured society, a society built on greed and immediate gratification, a society lacking in morals,
discipline or social responsibility, a society where the young are deprived, lack of social housing, cuts in
government expenditure, liberalism, lack of parental control, or opportunist activity of criminal gangs. The
list is endless.
One of the problems is that it is the politicians, with their full time media
advisors, who largely control the media. Indeed when I talk of 'a society built on greed and immediate
gratification, a society lacking in morals, discipline or social responsibility', are we not talking
also of politicians and bankers who berate criticism of high pay in business and banking on the basis that
we need to pay the highest to employ the best to get us out of our economic woes. And there was I, in my
naivety, thinking that it was the politicians with their poor sense of financial oversight, and the bankers
with their sense of greed and poor oversight of to whom to lend who had caused the problems.
Consequently, although time is needed to resolve the issue I fear the resolution will be one of politics,
not fairness. From Thatcher's 'on your bike' to find work and Cameron's unwillingness to deal with bankers'
pay and bonuses to the Labour Party's development of multicultural societies and large social welfare
payments, from the rise in a society based on consumerism to the decline in the moral influence of
Christianity, there is little to commend any decisions of our politicians. The issue of child poverty has
already been under consideration by David Cameron. Frank Field, a knowledgable, conscientious and fair
minded MP, chaired the 'Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances' last year, but already its findings
appear to have been kicked into the long grass by the coalition.
For society to be fair it has to
be demonstrably so. It is right that looters should face the full force of the law, but if that means fining
them, locking them up or giving them asbos, then all we can expect is more of the same in years to come with
an increased criminal society who have learnt nothing. We need to think more creatively, to introduce new
forms of community service orders or even to introduce some form of compulsory national social service in
which trades, self discipline and social responsibilities can be learnt. Equally we need to create a new
environment in which capitalist consumerism is not the governing standard of our society. Much of what I
have written above on psycopathy is relevant here - I did hear one commentator describe a number of the
looters as psycopaths, and I am left to wonder whether the overall situation in the UK is worse than
described above. Lastly, to be totally fair we need to prosecute or publically deal with those who created
our economic woes, and I am not thinking merely of bankers and business chiefs. I think of those who, for
example, squandered millions of taxpayers money in failed MOD or NHS procurements. We simply cannot have one
law for the rich and one for the poor and expect society not to react, in however evil a way.