“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.
Psychopaths view any social exchange as a ‘feeding opportunity,’ a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only one winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse.
Many psychopaths describe the traditional treatment programmes as finishing schools where they hone their skills. Where they find out that there are lots of techniques they had not thought about before.
You’ll find them in any organization where, by the nature of one’s position, you have power and control over other people and the opportunity to get something. There are certainly more people in the business world who would score high in the psychopathic dimension than in the general population.
People tend to think of psychopaths as criminals. In fact, the majority of psychopaths aren’t criminal. Not all psychopaths are in prison – some are in the boardroom. I always said that if I wasn’t studying psychopaths in prison, I’d do it at the stock exchange.
Psychopaths show a stunning lack of concern for the devastating effects their actions have on others. Often they are completely forthright about the matter, calmly stating that they have no sense of guilt, are not sorry for the pain and destruction they have caused, and that there is no reason for them to be concerned.”
Robert D. Hare
George Soros comes to mind.
Blankfein and Dick Fuld come to mind, as do Paulson, Geithner, Dimon, and most of the other members of our financial oligarchy…. and at least half of the people I’ve worked with in the securities industry. These people would steal their grandma’s teeth and sell their families into slavery if they thought it would serve them. While most of us try to be “as good as you can be and no worse than you have to be”, these people have the opposite ethos- I remember feeling a chill up my spine when a sales manager of mine, a young buck who I discovered had a Form U4 that read like the annuls of white collar crime, told me that he believed in being “as bad as you can be and no better than you have to be”. Whatever you can get away with, just don’t tell us about it. And the bigger and richer the firm, the more of these people they have running around loose, and the more they are protected and rewarded. The firm’s senior management, most of whom have similar traits, will be very cold-blooded in their assessment of the person’s income potential vs the cost of the heat the person is likely to bring on the firm, and if his or her revenue potential exceeds the cost of all the complaints and arbitration actions he or she generates, that person is staying.
In any line of business you practice, in any industry, you can count on at least half the people you’ll have to deal with being psychopaths, and the higher the stakes, the more vicious they are in pursuit, and in taking out any competition.
And when you have a revolving door between government and massive financial corporations guess where they also dwell?
“People tend to think of psychopaths as criminals. In fact, the majority of psychopaths aren’t criminal. Not all psychopaths are in prison – some are in the boardroom. I always said that if I wasn’t studying psychopaths in prison, I’d do it at the stock exchange.”
Interesting essay. D’you have a link thereunto? An observer as articulate as Mr. Hare must have other writings worth reading.