On the way home last night I overheard the end of a radio conversation, the guest suggested that people who can close down a business causing hardship for all others concerned bar themselves, show psychopathic traits, or indeed are psychopaths to some degree ~ he quickly stated that this doesn’t mean they would go out and kill everyone ect.
He also said that when we view this on a mass scale there is widespread damage caused by such behaviour, this in effect is little different to more individualistic acts of psychopathic behaviour. I suppose he meant that the collective cost to many is similar in effect [in ones mind] to the major cost to the few or an individual, if say the perpetrator had caused them injury and suffering.
Should we be tolerating psychopathic behaviourisms at the top end of the social ladder, where people are in positions of power over the masses?
Indeed should we not be promoting and enforcing policies and personas of the exact opposite types, such that those in power would be more responsible to the disempowered?
could you be more specific about the scenario?
you talking about a government official shutting down a business?
you talking about a business owner losing money on a business and thus shutting it down?
not sure exactly what you mean by “close down a business”
because it’s also true – and is not even surprising – that politicians are frequently socio/psychopathic
I agree, it doesn’t matter if its govt or corporates doing the damage, and the speaker was no more specific than I have been, sorry.
It’s the ethics of the system more than that of the users, if a business is loosing money then indeed why not close it down. If however all businesses were part of a mutually supporting network, and the owners could take the money and run, then maybe less damage would occur.
In this scenario, this really needs to be stressed:
it doesn’t take a psychopath to close down a failing section of a corporation, it is actually, no exaggeration, ILLEGAL to run a corporation and not attempt to be as profitable as possible. It’s illegal.
Hmmm … I think the term psychopath is being used because this person’s moral sensibilities were offended. He possesses a moral ideal and any divergence from it will be framed in a negative manner, in this case, psychopathic.
Capitalists possess a will to dominate, a drive to impose their will upon the other; their method is economic. In this sense they don’t differ all that much to the athlete or anyone else who has a competitive spirit.
Capitalists can only be overcome by a superior force, not by moralistic phrases like “psychopath”. If the aggrieved want “justice” then the “wrongdoer” needs to be subdued by force.
Quetz, Capitalists aren’t psychotic unless you want to label anyone who has investments–of any sort–psychotic. If you want to condemn heads of large corps and members of our government by giving them a ‘psychiatric’ label, then FJ comes closer–they may exhibit characteristics of a sociopath.
That’s a pretty convenient label and, as with all labels, includes everyone you label–all successful (rich) corporate big-wigs are sociopaths. Is Bill Gates? Is Warren Buffett? Or are only the Madoff’s of the world sociopaths?
Capitalism assuredly inspires greed–particularly capitalism as we know it here, today. But is what we have here today a capitalist economic system or is it a quasi-capitalist economic system which somehow evolved from Smith’s proposed economic theory and for which we have no label?
Perhaps it is evolutionary–a sort of, kind of, survival of the fittest–with the ‘fittest’ being those with the most money. If so, it’ll be generations before it can be proven and/or changed.
What can we do about it? With politicians, we can vote the scumbags out, knowing they’ll be replaced with other scumbags, which we then vote out, and so on. We can insist on imposing salary caps–including perks–on corporate higher management. We can insist on a full disclosure of everything a corporation donates to political campaigns, either directly or through PACs and lobbyists–and we can vote out the ones who take too much and then go on to vote for legislation that favors the corps that gave them ‘campaign’ funding. This would take too much time for the average voter, but…
Wouldn’t it be fun to have an election where no one voted? It’d be kind of like the European strikes that are geared to saying, “Listen to US, damn it! We are THE PEOPLE!” I think it would not only be a hoot, but it might just be the only kind of ‘peaceful resistance’ we have. It would also, most probably, take generations to achieve. sigh
PS Psychotics don’t really go off and kill people–that’s really just a legal excuse–‘insanity.’ But isn’t anyone who kills someone else somehow going beyond normal, societal conduct?
Correct. Or do we think it mere coincidence that the top echelons of economic and political life are populated with sociopaths and psychotics? To view other people as mere objects, means to an end, to view money as the most important value in life, is symptomatic of mental illness and degeneracy. Philosophers, artists, poets, writers, musicians have all been seeing this for a long time now, and have been trying to warn us in as many ways as they can, not without an increasing sense of alarm and urgency.
A society predicated on psychopathic behavior is not new - but one as unrestrained in its rewarding of this behavior, is. When global capitalism finally collapses it will remain to be seen how long it will take to clean up the real damage left in its wake.
Moral claptrap.
There are no moral facts. Only moralized opinions. But denouncing one’s enemies as the anti-Christ and then projecting one’s own morality as good in-itself is an old trick. Some here may even fall for it.
To me, those on top of the social ladder, whether they be capitalists or politicians, are winners. They are where they are because they have the will to dominate, the will to win, the will to impose their view on the other. Winners aren’t degenerate, it’s the losers who are. Why are they being subdued by the capitalist and politician? Because they are losers, not winners.
Perhaps the system is wrong if it allows for such behaviour! Mutually supporting networks would supplant such desires to some degree [which is probably all thats needed here].
Flannel Jesus
Right. Yet the markets are cyclic, a business which is running well on the up cycle may not during the down cycle, at which point some owners will take the money and run [as the business is failing].
What we need especially now, is a system that keeps such businesses going during the downturns, that way people are assured of work and will spend more ~ which would bring the cycle back around again [more effectively] and lessen the impact of the downturns.
Fent
Indeed, and perhaps mutually supporting networks + better redistribution of wealth, would ultimately be more efficient. Or anyways I don’t think what we have now is the only option, the problem is that we have always accepted private wealth as our basis, and yet since the bail-out of the banks [in Britain anyhow] we can now say; risk is socialised but profit is privatised! …a contradiction, no?
lizbethrose
Hmm some interesting points there. I don’t think the fittest always or mostly do best, this is true for those who have worked for it but is it true for inherited wealth? isn’t it about who you know, where you went to school and a big bucket of LUCK!
We cannot vote the scumbags out when all the main parties are scumbags, they are nearly all Oxbridge educated and belong to the same societal group. Perhaps the only way to change things is through revolution like north Africa etc.
Yes anyone who kills are psychopaths, …or are normal!
nah, we don’t need anything like that. that’s not really how it works. more than anything, that sort of policy would end up pumping more money into failing businesses that are going to fail anyway, instead of allowing that money to go toward businesses and markets that aren’t failing. there are reasons businesses fail, reasons which would make it not a great idea to keep them going.
It is telling that there is a four-fold increase in “psychopaths” (however this study chooses to define this) when one takes CEOs as a subset of the population at large.
Also to be noted is that historically it is difficult to ascertain an accurate reading of sociopathy, in part because measurement is tough in distinguishing genuine internal reaction from learned social responses (that can occur, even validly, regardless of deeper more genuine feelings - see implicit attitudes), and in part because sociopaths are generally very good at manipulating circumstances and understanding how to create a self-image that conforms to more accepted social standards…
i mean think about it: Arnold Schwartz kept his child a secret for 10 years. What kind of person can do that?
and these ‘homophobic’ politicians turn out gay.
these people lie on a daily basis.
that’s how they make a living.
lying, breaking promises, that kind of thing.
not to mention starting wars, ordering the deaths of thousands upon thousands.
ya, i would bet public officials are pretty socio/psychopathic. you kinda have to be.
Please remember this thread is not purely political, I am as much asking about the mentality and ethics of capitalism.
Flannel Jesus
Those businesses as I described wouldn’t fail in the long run ~ given that the only reasons they are failing is from external sources, bad banking, cyclicity etc. With the middle classes dwindling and low wages spiralling, people will have less to spend and even less desire to. What’s to stop everything from continually falling, if we don’t work together.
phyllo
I doubt if many of them are, its more the effect of the system than the individuals involved. Smaller business owners maybe more ruthless? One needs to look at the whole owner culture rather than purely corporations. I don’t trust stats anyhow. govt’s are probably the worse in society and the most controlling, as something of a market anarchist I expect things would sort themselves out if people were left to their own devices.
From the link you provided;
“I think that capitalism at its most ruthless is the physical manifestation of psychopathy,” Ronson said."