Psychopathy, economics and politics: joining the dots, and "Why Nations Fail"

The author recently read the brilliant book "Why Nations Fail", by Daron Acemoglu, and James A. Robinson. This book explains their theory about why some countries are rich and others are poor; and how historically, various countries became rich, became poor, have always been poor, and so on.

Using many historical and contemporary examples, they show how nation-states can be roughly divided into those that are "extractive" and those that are "inclusive". Essentially, an "extractive" society is one where a closed, ruling elite uses its population to "extract" wealth for its own benefit; an "inclusive" society is one where the population as a whole has easy access to institutions, an open legal system, and their human rights are secured. As you might imagine, "extractive" societies are always significantly poorer than "inclusive" ones, though the scale of "extraction" or "inclusion" depends on the specific circumstances of any one nation-state.

This explanation mirrors something I read years ago about why countries are poor: in a word, corruption. As economics (and politics) is about choices, countries are poor because the wealth and power of the country is concentrated in the hands of a closed elite. An elite could choose to invest in innovation and development, but this would come at a risk of creating other wealthy people, who would want to replace them, or at least ask for more say in how things are being run. If the institutions are corrupt, then this inevitably results in government becoming a closed shop. For this reason, nation-states run in this way would never develop economically beyond a certain level: corruption always holds these countries back. Africa is the poorest continent in the globe for this reason, but this form of "institutionalised" corruption has more-or-less existed in Africa for centuries, going back to before when the Portuguese explored the continent five hundred years ago. In the book "Why Nations Fail", it is also concisely explained why North and South America have such different standards of living: again, the question comes down to corruption and exploitation, of one form or another.

Joining the dots: towards a unified theory?

This got me thinking about some of the points I've made elsewhere about the effect human psychology has on economics and politics, and vice versa. This idea of "extractive" societies sounds similar in tone, at a collective level, to the premise that psychopaths are "leeches" on society at large.

Psychopaths make up roughly 1% of the human population, though with a sliding scale of "severity" of the personality disorder, "semi-psychopaths" may also comprise another few per cent. The glaring differential that marks them out from normal human beings is their lack of empathy (i.e. lack of understanding of human emotion, and how to respond appropriately to it). As described in the linked article earlier:

" ... there are people in human society who do not believe that taxes are "the price of civilisation", and do not believe that government should provide collective services. From a psychological point of view, these people appear to have a severe lack of empathy. "

So economic and political institutions may well also have cumulative effect on human psychology, in that a nation-state's institutions (or chronic lack of them) can erode a person's empathy towards society at large. It must also be said that, by definition,  a disproportionate number of people in corrupt elites around the world - from North Korea's Kim Jong-Un to the richest man in the world, Mexico's Carlos Slim - would also have an empathy deficit, in order to justify what they do. This also explains why the rich (i.e. in the West) complain about paying taxes for public services they do not use; these people display a lack of empathy towards society, and an anti-social attitude towards their responsibilities. More on this later.

In an article last year, I talked about how the historic "hunter-gatherer" society and its contemporary Capitalist equivalent may well generate an environment that is beneficial towards psychopaths. Intriguingly. the authors of "Why Nations Fail" talk about how the hunter-gatherer society's evolution to a sedentary, farming civilisation can likely have only come about through an act of leadership, bringing about an institutional change. In their book, they talk about the example of the Natufian civilisation around 9000BC in the modern-day Holy Land, which was the first known society to make the change from hunting to an agrarian society.
As has been mentioned in earlier posts, psychopaths are also humanity's natural leaders, so much so that Kevin Dutton, who wrote the book "The Wisdom Of Psychopaths", believes that not all of psychopath's psychological attributes are always bad - sometimes, they are even beneficial. In this way, it can be argued that if the authors of "Why Nations Fail" suggest that it was decisive (and therefore, autocratic) decision of a Natufian leader to bring about the "revolution" to a settled farming, it would have taken a great deal of fearlessness (and ruthless enforcement) to bring about this change. And what better person to do this than a psychopath?

Kevin Dutton talks about psychopaths, for all the damage they can wreak on society, as also acting as the "doers" in society, the ones that are fearless at taking risks. Assuming this to be true, it can be surmised that a disproportionately-large number of individuals responsible for humanity's various advances throughout history were psychopaths. If you look at today's entrepreneurs, it's not hard to recognise in a significant number of them the same attributes - the risk-taking, the fearlessness, the occasional amoral ruthlessness - that we recognise in psychopaths. In this sense, they are society's "winners". But this was not always the case.

Different system, different outcome

Different kinds of societies produce different kinds of social environments. The theory of "extractive" and "inclusive" nation-states links to some of the ideas mentioned in an earlier article: that psychopaths thrive in hunter-gatherer/ Capitalist societies, but struggle to advance in stratified and closed societies. This matches, (with some caveats, which I'll explain shortly) to the "inclusive" and "extractive" societies mentioned in "Why Nations Fail".

In the modern world, the most "inclusive" (i.e. egalitarian and open) nation-states can be found in places like Scandinavia: these are societies where inequality levels are very low and standards of living are very high; this is a result of their high-functioning and well-organised institutions. At the opposite end, the most "extractive" nation-states (i.e. the most corrupt, with the most dysfunctional institutions) can be found in the Third World. Nation-states like the USA and the UK are still very high in terms of institutional organisation, but have significantly higher levels of inequality compared to places like Scandinavia.

Modern laissez-faire Capitalism (i.e. the neo-liberal philosophy created by Ayn Rand) engenders a social attitude similar to that found in hunter-gatherer societies, and is probably the best environment for a psychopath to thrive in: this also coincides with the greatest advances in human history. However, endemic to this neo-liberal system is the creation, over time, of a cartel-like structure that has effective control over large segments of economic transactions. This is a natural result of the way "the market" works, when not protected by effective institutions. The creation of this cartel is a fundamental weakness in the system, and also a fundamental problem of what happens when psychopaths rule the roost: they are very good at getting to the top and staying there, doing whatever thy can to preserve their position in society. The creation of these cartels, or "economic elites" are what prevents Capitalist societies from becoming fully inclusive, and explains why psychopaths tend to thrive in them: because fully-inclusive societies are anathema to a psychopath's understanding and interests.

For a psychopath,  an "extractive" society of a closed elite creates a glass barrier he finds difficult to pass; conversely, a fully-inclusive society creates institutions and rights that prevent a psychopath from amorally securing his position at the top for perpetuity. He might get to the top for a while, but "the system" will quickly root out and cast down any amoral usurpers. In a Capitalist system, this is less likely to happen while also giving him more opportunities to amorally profit from others, and would thus be a psychopath's preferred social environment to advance in.

There are psychopaths in any society, "extractive" as well as "inclusive". When psychopaths rule the roost, the result is chaos, regardless of the social make-up of the system. The question is: how to make psychopaths "work", so that the system gets the best out of them, without breaking the system.

How To Spot A Psychopath

Psychopaths are generally thought to exist in a low percentile of the population (but no lower than 1 per cent, and potentially double or triple that). Given that their syndrome affects a larger segment of the population than schizophrenics, and given the wide coverage of the subject in academia, popular culture and the media, it would be wise to know when you've met one.

"What is a psychopath?"

An article here talks about how a psychopath views the world, and how they interact with the rest of society. In essence, psychopaths are like "psychological vampires", but no two psychopaths may be the same. While there are a common set of personality behaviours and characteristics, Kevin Dutton suggests that "psychopathy" operates on more of a "sliding scale", and with a "mixing deck" of attributes.

Generally speaking, we can isolate a number of stand-out characteristics that together may allow someone to suspect they have encountered a psychopath:

Snake eyes

Psychopaths are known for having a lack of the normal range of human emotions. While a normal person displays a range of emotions throughout the day, psychopaths are instinctively unable to reproduce it. They may well be able to successfully mimic (more on that later), but psychopaths naturally have "a predator's eye". Past victims of psychopaths, once they become aware to the reality of who they are dealing with, have told of the emotional "emptiness" they see in the psychopath's eyes. They see the world in a different way to a normal person, and more in the style of a predator hunting his prey. Related to this is the fact that psychopaths are naturally very cool under pressure; which explains why they tend to disproportionately exist at the top end of business and society. It also means they can make decisions unclouded by emotional attachment. This lack of empathy also means that they are easily capable of acts of sadism that a normal person would have grave hesitation about doing, ranging from a "psychopath CEO" coolly firing half of his staff without notice, to someone in a position of high office ordering mass murder.

A natural charmer

One thing that many people in the know can agree on is that psychopaths are charming and charismatic. Funny, persuasive, and manipulative, psychopaths know how to get what they want. They are easy talkers, often being able to even charm their own interrogators when in custody. Having such skills, they can usually talk their way out of any compromising situation (often to the astonishment of others: "how did he get away with that?"), while similarly being able to talk up their attributes into getting promotions or favours far beyond what they actually deserve.

Lie, and lie again

Psychopaths are typically pathological liars. Often their lies come out instinctively. They will shamelessly lie to get what they want, or to get out of an awkward moment. When their lies are found out, they will spin the lie into something entirely new, or make their interlocutor feel like they're going crazy as the psychopath pretends that the lie never existed in the first place. Used in conjuction with their persuasive and manipulative charm (see above), it makes the psychopath a very difficult individual to pin down.  

Rules are for other people

Psychopaths use their skills to get away with doing what they want, when they want. They believe that "rules" are for someone else, and that anyone who doesn't understand that they are "special" or "different" from others is just stupid (see narcissism). Bystanders and colleagues will usually be stunned by the amount of shocking and disruptive behaviour a psychopath will carry out; this can include practically anything, including actions at the workplace that would normally be sufficient for dismissal. At the worse end of the scale, of course, such people may also be serial adulterers, violent, etc.

A high sex drive

While it's not always clearly stated, psychopaths like sex, and usually with lots of different people over a period of time. Tying in with the idea that they are moral vacuums, psychopaths are "charming bastards" that like to play around with sex. Like the narcissists they are, they treat their sexual partners as objects of gratification, to be explored, used, and discarded without a moment's hesitation when things get too "difficult" for them. A "well-adjusted psychopath" may well be satisfied with serial adultery after carefully choosing a suitably-pliant wife (or if he's very lucky, a partner with similarly loose ideas); in the middle range of things, another psychopath will shamelessly bounce from one woman to the next; in the worst case, a psychopath can be a serial rapist or worse (see Jimmy Savile and former rock singer, Ian Watkins).

"I invented the piano-key neck tie!"

The quote above is from a funny scene from the comedy film "Zoolander", where the character Mugatu (a fashion king) angrily loses his patience at others' perceived failings. It's a silly scene, but reminds us of how crazily narcissistic a psychopath can be compared to others. Psychopaths usually have completely unrealistic notions of how they are perceived by others, how their lives will be perceived, and of their future ambitions. It's not unusual for them to think it a realistic aim for them to be a future statesman or athlete, in spite of their complete lack of qualifications or planning. But their lack of planning leads to another related attribute...

Plans are for losers

Psychopaths change their ideas frequently, and rarely think far ahead into the future. There are documented cases of psychopaths, whose long-suffering partners listen to their ideas for making millions suddenly appear from nowhere, only to disappear again a short time later, to be replaced by some other "great idea". In this sense psychopaths ideas seem to rest on bursts of activity, only for them to quickly get bored of the idea or the actual work required ("boredom" is another thing that a psychopath suffers from). This explains at a more prosaic level why psychopaths jump from one sexual partner to another, jump from one job to another, or suddenly decide to completely change the direction of their career, or even where they live. This lack of planning also relates to how they often get into trouble when their many lies catch up with them (by failing to think ahead). Impulsiveness naturally stems from this behaviour as well.

Anger management problems

Relating to the idea of impulsiveness is the fact that psychopaths have low levels of control of their temper. While psychopaths cannot be said to have "real" emotions, they do have sudden bursts of "contrived" emotion when suitably provoked. The provocation may be something seemingly trivial, but to the psychopath, that "trivial" event (in his mind) may be seen as something deadly serious. A psychopath is capable of lashing out seemingly for no reason; in the worst case, killing at a whim, or without any real control of his own actions (being "ruled" by a sudden flush of temper). This behaviour indicates a person who is not following (or capable of following) the normal rules of society, and is a potential danger to those around him.

A leech on society

Lastly, psychopaths are famous for their parasitic lifestyle. In other words, they are talented for living off the efforts of others. Using their various skills (as described above), they are able to wheedle money, food, accomodation, sexual favours, or other "benefits" from people they encounter. While all of us may do this from time to time (when the situation demands), psychopaths make this a habit, and some of them use it practically as a survival technique.

Interestingly, while the vast majority of psychopaths are men, a small proportion of them are women. While female psychopaths may well have the same "core" attributes to male psychopaths, a female psychopath may well use her attributes and sexuality in a manner different from a male psychopath (and for different ends), due to their physical and biological differences. Cultural assumptions (and playing to stereotypes) may also play a factor.

Politics and psychopathy

It's well-established that politics attracts psychopaths.

Finance is another industry that has been known to attract psychopaths due to the many opportunities for fraud and manipulation it provides, the high esteem those individuals are afforded in modern (Capitalist) society, the low risk of being caught, and finally the light punishment received relative to the harm caused to individuals and companies if they are caught.
The above points explain a lot about why the financial crisis happened, and why economic crashes are a regular feature of modern Capitalism.

Psychopaths are drawn to power, and "educated" psychopaths are drawn to those careers that enable the greatest opportunities with amoral power for the least risk; apart from finance, you are next most likely to see them in big business, the legal industry (even within the police itself) and even within the medical profession. It comes as no surprise that one of the UK's (and the world's) most prolific serial killers, Harold Shipman, was a doctor.

In an earlier summary of the main attributes of psychopaths, I compared the psychology and motivations of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Psychopathy consists of a number of variables, and as Kevin Dutton (author of "The Wisdom Of Psychopaths") suggests, it can lead to different "types" of psychopaths (a "mixing deck" approach).

As I said in a previous article about Hitler and Stalin:
"Joseph Stalin...is a prime example of an amoral sadist. This is the "classic psychopath" amoral use of sadism for the purposes of pure convenience eg. a psychopath dictators' unflinching use of mass murder to achieve a particular result (i.e. the preservation of power), without any show of empathy for the victims; likewise, a psychopathic CEO who fires thousands of staff at a stroke, or recklessly causes an environmental disaster (such as in Bhopal, India thirty years ago) could also be classified as signs of "amoral sadism". This psychopath does not feel any measurable "pleasure" from such actions; he simply does it to achieve a result that benefits him. 
By contrast, Adolf Hitler could more realistically be called a "malicious sadist". This is a psychopath who has more a malignantly narcissistic syndrome channeled into a need for "revenge" against perceived enemies or to "right" or a long-perceived "wrong" at the expense of "the enemy"; Hitler's sadism was obviously directed at the Jews (and others who he felt had maligned him in the past). With the "malignant sadist", it is the overwhelming narcissism that is the main motivation for sadism"

The psychopathy of Hitler and Stalin appeared to be "wired" differently. They were both drawn to politics for different reasons, and displayed their "type" of psychopathy in different ways. I mentioned the "classic psychopath" (such as Stalin) and the "malignant sadist" (such as Hitler). More simply, the "classic psychopath" in the political arena seeks amoral power for its own end; the "malignant sadist" seeks power for the purpose of sadistic "revenge", or something similar.

In modern, democratic politics, it is possible to hypothesize that at least some of those people in politics may well fit into this description, simply according to the law of averages and the natural attraction that politics has to the psychopath. 

But using the two "types" highlighted before, it's also possible to hypothesize that a "classic psychopath" and a "malignant sadist" in the modern democratic political system could be drawn to different ends of the political spectrum to achieve those ends.

Put more simply, there is a natural reason why poorer people tend to be left-wing and richer people tend to be right-wing: self-interest.

"The politics of envy"

In the UK, one of the most common criticisms by the right-wing (and the Conservatives in particular) of the Labour Party is that their politics represents "the politics of envy". In the USA, the Republicans and The Tea Party make the selfsame accusations at the Democrats.

Regardless of the motivations for this accusation (more on that later), the redistribution aspect of left-wing politics in general makes the inherent implication that, come the accession to power, there will be "winners" and "losers", and the past "wrongs" will be "righted". Those who were in positions of power and wealth have everything to lose as the status quo is up-ended. 

In this scenario, a "malignant sadist" may be able to exploit the situation: using populism, for example, such a demagogue-like figure may be able to manipulate his faction's willingness to right the injustices enacted by the status quo (the establishment), and may also use other scapegoats to target for his own purposes. It should not be forgotten that Hitler (the original example I gave of "malignant sadism") created a party called the "National Socialists", which was originally more a blend of nationalism and old-style socialism.

Mussolini's Fascists were Hitler's inspiration for this; it is this reason why right-wing conservatives tend to call left-wing ideologues "fascists". 

"There is no such thing as society"

Thatcher's famous quote has been used by the left to demonstrate that Thatcher's vision, continued in today's Conservatives in The UK government, have no interest in the common good. Their current "austerity" feels a lot like an unofficial war on the poor. Right-wing politics tends to favour the inclinations of the rich because the rich will, naturally, want to preserve their situation the most and have government affect them the least.

It is for this reason why the rich have difficulty understanding the needs of the poor; because they are rich, they assume the poor are that way because they are lazy, or stupid. 

The rich resent paying taxes for services they do not use (such as the NHS in The UK); in this way, they have an "anti-social" view of society - or, in other words, refuse to act like responsible members of society. This is where the psychology of the "classic psychopath" appears: a lack of empathy and understanding for others, and the amoral pursuit of power for its own end. This explains why they would support the actions of the current Conservative government in The UK regarding "austerity": the state should be smaller because they see it as useless.
Some of them would rather pay no tax and simply hire private security to protect their assets; indeed, many already do, while legally avoiding paying as much tax as possible. Because they don't need to use government services, they cannot see why they should pay for them. They fail to see tax and government services as the "price of civilisation" and their responsibility as a functioning member of society; instead, those that use government services (that they pay for through tax) are called "skivers" or "benefit cheats".

They talk about "the politics of envy" because they cannot see what they do as an injustice on the rest of society, as the left-wing sees them. The fact that much of their good fortune in life is either due to an inherited lifestyle or through corrupt connections is ignored. The psychology of David Cameron and others like him reflects this.

In this way, right-wing politics (best reflected in Ayn Rand's thinking) reflects much of the world view of the "classic psychopath": where an individual cannot relate to others' lives (especially those in a worse situation), and refuses to act constructively with the rest of society. For these people, there is no such thing as society; only the amoral dog-eat-dog world of the individual.

While my original example of Stalin hardly fits into "right-wing politics", the wider point I was making was how Stalin was an example using amoral methods to achieve his own success at the expense of others, and preserving his status ruthlessly once he was at the top. In this way, he more closely resembles a modern-day venture Capitalist than a Socialist.

A vicious circle of hate

When psychopaths achieve status at both ends of the political spectrum, the result can be ugly.

Politics in the The USA has long been called cynical, due to the amount of negative language used against each side, while all the time the lobbying industry keeps things corruptly ticking over. American politics is widely seen as dysfunctional compared with other democracies in Europe. This is what happens when corporate interests have so much power over the views of politicians, and when negative politics is seen as the only way to achieve power.

I said at the start of the article that politics attracts psychopaths. So a system like in The USA, where an amoral and cunning politician can make lots of money from "selling" his vote to the highest corporate bidder, may well attract them even more. Let's not forget that, at a conservative estimate, there are at least 300,000 psychopaths in The USA. The truth may be double or triple that.

A two-party system (where there is one ostensibly "left-wing" and one "right-wing" party in control of the system) can be manipulated by psychopaths at opposite ends of the political spectrum, so that there is a "vicious circle of hate" where each side feels the need to out-do they other at polarising rhetoric.The end result of this can be horrific, as in Germany in 1932, when the Nazis and the Communists were competing for power, or more recently in Egypt since the "Arab Spring". 

In an office environment, psychopaths manipulate others to breed mistrust and in-fighting, leaving them to walk over the bones of others.

In the political environment, psychopaths can achieve far worse. 

"The Wisdom Of Psychopaths", and why psychopaths don't understand "love"

I wrote an article earlier on this year about the possible evolutionary aspects to psychopathy; the main point being that psychopathy may well have its roots in the hunter-gather instinct in humanity, and that, as a fractional percentile of the overall population, psychopaths, for all their flaws, serve an important function.

Psychopaths may be sexual predators and cynical manipulators, but the author of a recent book ("The Wisdom Of Psychopaths"), Kevin Dutton, makes some excellent points towards a more nuanced understanding of the "disorder".

Dutton's analysis of psychopathy comes from the angle that many of the attributes seen in psychopaths are actually positive for society overall: leadership skills, fearlessness, quick thinking, and heightened perception, for example.
These attributes in isolation allow "socially-adaptive psychopaths" to become the heroes of society: positions of authority and respect like soldiers, policemen, doctors, firemen, and so on. These are people who are drawn to danger like mosquitoes to a flame, and are able to thrive on it, whereas other people would be unable to function, paralysed by fear. They are naturally endowed with the kind of personality attributes that makes them uniquely suitable to roles that require a cool, hard-headed and fast response to a situation. These are the people who are able to make the tough calls necessary that can saves lives.

A "mixing deck" approach

The main thing to consider is that "psychopathy", as Dutton explains, can be seen as a "mixing deck" of a variety of personality attributes. Like when looking at the "Hare Psychopath Checklist", a psychopath doesn't need to have all the attributes fully to qualify; he simply needs to have some combination of these attributes. So a "socially-adaptive psychopath" has the fearlessness and leadership aspects of psychopathy, but not the more anti-social (and obviously destructive) aspects of the disorder. As Dutton points out, it is the more anti-social and less intelligent psychopaths that are the ones you find in prison. So psychopaths can be either heroes or villains (or both!).

And again, "psychopathy" is more a matter of degree. While Hare's psychopathy test says that 30 out of 40 on the list is the "magic number", but it's easier to see the whole thing as a sliding scale of degree. While the average person scores very low on the checklist, the higher up the score, the lower the percentile of the population. So there may still be, say, five or ten percent of the population that could be considered "semi-psychopaths", who might "achieve" a score of more than twenty. Not high enough to alarming, but still considerably higher that average and possibly indicative of anti-social (and criminal) behaviour.

The "love" of the predator

Gong back to the evolutionary explanation, psychopaths therefore have the attributes that make them ideal as hunters.

In many ways, their psychology is that of a hunter. As Dutton mentions, psychopaths have a heightened sense of perception (as successfully shown in psychological experiments). This allows them to spot weakness in "prey": if a person has a low self-esteem, or if a person feels nervous, psychopaths have a heightened perception for the visual signals (body language) that suggest this. A "socially-adapted" psychopath may find a use for this skill as a policeman to spot guilt in suspects, for example; an anti-social psychopath will use this skill to prey on and exploit the vulnerable in society as a con man, for example.

In the modern age, Capitalism has allowed psychopaths an ideal "playground" to flex their muscles and make use of their "skills". Modern globalisation has given psychopaths more freedom than ever before, with the added advantage that their psychology closely matches that of the "pure Capitalist". This explains why psychopaths are disproportionately represented in the board room, and why top companies see them more as an asset than a liability. In this way, modern-day Capitalism is simply an updated version of "the hunt".

The lack of emotions prevalent in psychopaths also brings me on to another aspect of evolution. If psychopaths are incapable of "love", why is "love" so important to humanity?
"Love" is generally equated with empathy and caring for others (which pure psychopaths are biologically incapable of feeling). From a biological point of view, personal relationships may also be nature's way of ensuring the continuation of the species.

"Love" is one thing that separates humans from animals. Animals have sex for procreation, but typically in animals, mothers force their offspring to fend for themselves after a short period. For animals, sex is a purely physical, impulsive act, resulting in short-term empathy between the male and female, and passed on to their offspring for a short time. This can be seen from watching any wildlife documentary about lions, for example.

Humans' brains are designed differently, and are more complex. Consequently, social relationships and sex is more nuanced. We've all experienced "infatuation", and this is generally a typical part of the relationship process. It has been said that emotional "love" fades away in a relationship over time, to be replaced by something more like overall empathy for the partner. There may also be an evolutionary explanation for this, too.

While psychopaths are society's hunters and predators, a more scientific explanation for "infatuation" is that the hormones released at this early stage of the relationship are designed to encourage sex (i.e. procreation). A more scientific use for this in nature is that it ensures that a child is born before emotional "love" (mutual infatuation) fades; the child then acts as a further emotional bond between partners when the partners' mutual infatuation is replaced by a more general respect and empathy for each other and their child (or children).
This also ensures that the child grows up in a healthy parental environment, which is necessary given the long period of human upbringing.

In this way, nature ensures that the species continues.

Psychopaths may also have a sexual role in nature (evolution), too, given that nature needs hunters, leaders, predators and survival skills.
Psychopaths are also nature's survivors, for all their flaws.