Friday, January 31, 2014

Why Labour will (probably) win the 2015 election

Although the opinion polls at the moment (the end of January 2014) give only a small lead for Labour over the Conservatives, there are more reasons that not to believe that Labour will win the next general election.

Party Discipline

For one, the Labour Party is united, and the Conservatives aren't; on Europe, the Tories' division is becoming not only a regular feature of parliamentary amendments, it's showing David Cameron to be a laughing stock as the leader of his party.
The amendment to help deport terror suspects, raised by Conservative MP, Dominic Raab, was called illegal by the government. However, instead of opposing the idea due to its illegality, under the direction of David Cameron, the government told its MPs to abstain - the Conservative MPs that support the government, that is. The fact that the Conservative-led government feels so terrified of its own backbenchers that tells them to sit on their hands, is astounding, and probably unprecedented in modern British politics. So the government had the amendment thrown out thanks to the votes of Labour and the LibDems.

The Conservative Party has basically fractured, and cannot be honestly called a "party" in the fullest sense. As I've said previously, there are now the "Cameroons", who support the government, and the "rebels", who are, for the want of a better word, "UKIP-lite". The "rebels" (who number around a hundred) have no fear of their leader, because they have already calculated that: their re-election depends on how well they come across to their constituents and their constituents' expectations, rather than how well they toe the "party line"; and they will never get a promotion because Cameron and Osborne only promote people within their circle, so therefore have nothing to lose by opposing them.

We know how that went for the Conservatives the last time they were in government (although there were other factors at play, of course). A divided party doesn't win elections.

Public Perception

David Cameron was appointed as Conservative leader partly because of his background in PR. It's therefore ironic that he has given the Conservatives such a radical image re-haul, that the average person on the street thinks they are all a bunch of Eton-educated toffs.
Head-to-head, Cameron beats the personal popularity ratings of Ed Milliband hands down, but both leaders are at odds with the public popularity of their parties. Cameron is more popular personally than his party is; the Labour Party is more popular than Ed Milliband is personally.

Which perception is more important: leader or party? Past evidence would suggest the former, but the issue is more complex than that. Few people warmed to Margaret Thatcher's personality; yet she was elected Prime Minister three times. Jim Callaghan, the incumbent Labour PM that Thatcher succeeded, seemed much more obviously "humane" and "likeable"; but it was his party's perception that did the most damage in that election. John Major was hardly an awe-inspiring public figure, yet he won a huge number of votes in the 1992 general election.

It could be said that "personality politics" is a relatively new fascination, then. We can blame Blair for that (!). In this way, Cameron was always trying to emulate Blair's approach with the Conservatives; by contrast, Ed Milliband has done almost everything to distance himself from that approach since becoming Labour leader. But while Cameron's approach has seemed obviously superficial, the person in Westminster politics that is the biggest example of "personality politics" is Nigel Farage. The UKIP leader has created a new phenomenon in modern British politics, and his party are the great unknown for 2015 (more on that later).

Apart from the "personality" of the leaders, the public perception of the party is just as important, as I mentioned about 1979. In general, few of the public warm to the Tories, but those swing voters that vote for them do so out of a grudging respect for their perceived competence at the job, and doing the best for British interests. The Conservatives' term in office with the LibDems has, apart from the odd exception, been a catalogue of incompetence and a betrayal of British interests. Although the economy may appear to be on the rise (more on that in a moment), public perception has not yet given the Conservatives the benefit of the doubt yet.

Although Labour have appeared rudderless in the ideas department much of the time since the last election, in recent times, Ed Milliband has been able to give more flesh to the bones of his "vision" for the country. He has been able to cannily tap into public dissatisfaction and frustration at the "cost-of-living crisis", correctly seeing this as an issue that the Tories would ignore at their peril. This is because although elections are, in general, about "the economy, stupid", the public also understand that "the economy" improving is not automatically the same as saying that "their life" is improving. In this age of "austerity" and rising living costs, the debate has moved on from simple GDP figures showing that "the economy" is improving. Things are more complicated than that, and Ed Milliband has seen that the public have realised that too.

Ideas like "bashing the bankers" or "squeezing the rich" may be used by the Tories to say that Labour are a bunch of Marxists, but some people also recognise an injustice when they see it, and see that the Conservatives are doing nothing about it.

What's the plan?

Each of the parties have a "plan" for the economy, and for Britain's future.

The Conservatives' plan seems to be a permanently slimmed-down state, and tapping in to people's dislike for "benefit cheats" in order to achieve it. Furthermore, the Conservatives' idea of the economy appears based on (almost) the same national economic model as the previous government's, and all of those of the past thirty years: the promotion and indulging of the financial industry as the major national economic generator, making service industries reliant on the success of the financial industry, while allowing manufacturing to essentially fend for itself (or be given over to foreign investors).

Labour's plan (although it lacks clarity at this point) seems to be based on a more humane approach to government service provision, a less stringent application of "austerity", and more active government support with jobs schemes and the like, as well as some possible steps to help rein in the uncontrolled activities of some privatised utility industries.

UKIP's plan is not taken seriously by either Labour or the Conservatives, yet both of them are secretly terrified what effect they may have the 2015 election indirectly. In terms of domestic politics, UKIP are more "pro-austerity" than the Tories (and appear more "pro-City" as well), but also argue that many of the economic problems are caused by EU workers taking "British" jobs, and EU regulations tie up The UK from spending money on things that are more useful (as well as EU laws affecting a plethora of other issues). Because neither the Conservatives or Labour want to talk about "Europe" seriously, UKIP is given a free rein on this whole issue: this, as well as Farage's version of "personality politics", explains why so many voters see UKIP as the real alternative to the usual suspects.

Based on these three comparisons, it is not hard to see that, on the balance of things, people are more likely to vote for the "easiest" of the three options: Labour. Theirs offers the least hassle for the average person, and the most comfort in the future.

The jokers in the pack

The "UKIP effect" is one thing that makes the 2015 election unique in modern politics; different from the SDP/Alliance in 1983, for example. That election is the nearest comparable general election, but again the variables are different this time around.
The "UKIP voter" tends to be either a former Tory, or a traditional Labour supporter, or a new voter. Nigel Farage seems to think UKIP can supplant the Conservatives as the second biggest party in the North, at least in terms of votes cast. This is possible, given that Northerners have a different social attitude and background to "traditional" Conservative voters in the South. UKIP's simple, anti-establishment appeal is something that would appeal more in the North (this also explains why they are attracting new voters); in the South, they tend to attract "traditional" Conservative voters because their appeal is based on preserving or regaining a lifestyle that has passed with the coming of the EU and social change.

So while UKIP threaten both Labour and the Conservatives in terms of votes (if not many actual seats), this means more problems for the Conservatives than Labour, both in the North as well as the South.

While the recent polls talk of a narrowing of the gap between Labour and the Conservatives, this is due to less a rise in the Tories' popularity, than a relative decline in Labour's, to the benefit of UKIP. The Conservatives are still only in the low thirties even in the more optimistic polls, with Labour in the mid-thirties. No government went on to win an election in such circumstances before. It's almost unheard of for the governing party to increase its percentage of the vote from one election to the next.

Besides, this government is a coalition, in any case. It was formed because the Conservatives couldn't get the votes needed. They are even less likely to do so now; even assuming that the recovery continues purring ahead flawlessly, it relies on ignoring other variables, such as UKIP, and the damage done to the public's perceptions of the Conservatives from their often shambolic (and unpleasant) manner of governing. And the fact that most of the Conservatives' "austerity" programme hasn't even been fully put into practice yet; this may also be at the back of some voters' minds. Would some Turkeys really vote for Christmas?

And then there is the electoral system, still skewed in Labour's favour, which the Tories failed to convince the LibDems to support them to change. That was always going to be a painful opportunity for the Conservatives to miss.
They may not get another chance for a while.






























  

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Extremism, Islam and British appeasement: how Islam has become Britain's "national religion" by default

I've written before about how Islam has slowly encroached into Britain's national imprint, through using the language of "freedom of expression" to defend the interests of its extremists.

As I wrote in that article:
"Islamofascists have been able to preach their violent, undemocratic and pernicious ideas under the protection of "free speech"; at the same time, they have also been allowed to conduct behaviour that could land any British non-Muslim in prison, while claim the right to religious expression; and most subversive of all, have denounced and threatened anyone who criticises their faith, ideas or behaviour with violence"

There are regular stories in the press about this, and another one this week (highlighted by Nick Cohen) displays to what extent the BBC, Britain's national broadcaster, and the Liberal Democrats (part of the government), have succumbed to the will of extremist Islam.

It is as though the very institutions of Britain and its ruling politicians have given up on the idea of real, universal, freedom of expression: freedom of expression is dying as an idea in Britain because no-one in authority believes it is worth fighting for, at least when it comes to Islam.

This seems to be how "freedom of expression" is defined in Britain these days: the state will defend your freedom of expression, unless your point of view questions something about Islam. Thus Islam holds the unique and vaunted position in The UK of being the only religion people are terrified of offending.

In this way, it has become the "default" religion of The UK, by virtue of its unassailable status.

A state within a state?

From a practical point of view, then, extremist Islam has been given almost free rein in The UK. While the police and intelligence services may closely monitor the more radical parts of Muslim society in Britain as part of the "War On Terror", on a day-to-day basis, the authorities do not interfere with the actions of the Muslim community.

On the surface, this may seem a good thing, but this also means that the authorities have been turning a blind eye to cultural practices that are clearly illegal in British law, and would get any non-Muslim in conversation with the police if they repeated the same behaviour.

When I talk about "cultural practices", I'm talking about domestic violence that goes unreported by battered wives; arranged (and underage) marriage that is got around in the Muslim community by being organised in Pakistan rather than in Britain; marriage between relatives, that creates children with deformities and cognitive dysfunction; there was the famous case of the "rape ring" in the Greater Manchester area, which suggests an endemic culture of misogyny; there is the incendiary rhetoric that goes on in the mosque and in the community (the police are paid to monitor this, however); and finally, the idea that all Muslims' first loyalty is to their faith, their family, and only lastly their country.

While the danger of the last point can be over-stated (if you compare this to the "Red Scare" back in the day), the effect that extremist Islam has had on British culture in the past ten years has been noticeable and undeniable. The policies of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey have been called "creeping Islamisation", but in a different way the same could be said of life in Britain.

Assigning blame

Ten years ago, for example, there was no stigma attached to criticising (or simply discussing) some aspects of Islam. In the light of the 9/11 attacks, shining a strong spotlight on Islam seemed like only the most natural thing in the world.

In Britain, this "critical eye" seemed not to last very long, though. Because Britain had had a culture of tolerance, its defenders said, it was unfair to overly-blame "every Muslim" for the terrorism of its extremists. This is a fair point, but at the same time every "ordinary" Muslim has a moral responsibility to stand up to the extremists and pick apart their false arguments and dangerous rhetoric. This has not really happened.

So on one hand the Muslim community has shown weakness as a whole towards its own radical brethren, and thus allowed the radicals to hijack the faith and hold the rest hostage. On the other, some in the British establishment have held up the historical "culture of tolerance" as a sign that Britain didn't really have "a problem" with Islam and its Muslim population; unlike, say, France.

This is complacent and it misses a crucial point, though. Historically, the wave of Muslim South Asians who came to Britain after the Second World War to fill in a weakness in the British economy and labour force: in other words, the arrival of these populations to Britain was a sign of Britain's fundamental weakness and failure of its Imperial model. The empire had collapsed in on itself, almost literally, from a population point of view.

I'm not saying this was a mistake; simply a sign of the times. However, it is possible that the relative weakness of the British state after the Second World War was simply storing up problems for later. While those South Asian immigrants who arrived were subjected to local prejudice, racism and (sometimes) worse for decades, from an official government point of view, they were allowed to live, culturally and religiously-speaking, much the same way as before.
And here begins "the problem" that the British establishment refuses to accept it created. The British government, by the Sixties and Seventies, believed it was creating something like a "multi-cultural" nation. But it some crucial cultural respects, especially in regards to the Muslim community, it wasn't: it was creating mono-cultural ghettos in towns and cities with sizeable Muslim populations.

When "multiculturalism" goes wrong

This form of so-called "multiculturalism" was mostly a sham when it came to the Muslim community, because they either tended to be encouraged to move to post-industrial towns in the North, or to poor inner city areas in larger cities, such as Birmingham and Leicester, to name two. And when immigrants are not encouraged to integrate, but allowed to stay together, the result is a closed-off community. When you introduce religion into the mix, you have a potential time-bomb on your hands, as Britain has seen post-9/11.

By the Nineties, "multiculturalism" had become part of the establishment's "PC" campaign, so that by the late Nineties, the Muslim community was one of many parts of Britain's "multicultural tapestry" that became "Cool Britannia". Britain was "cool" because it allowed different cultures and religions to freely exist without government sanction, or so it thought.

This brings us to the present day, where the British tolerance for "the other" has become almost a fetishisation in parts of the establishment, while the Muslim community has become increasingly dysfunctional. I say dysfunctional, but what I really mean is that the extremists have seized the banner for the whole of the Muslim community. A combination of weakness within the Muslim community, and the British establishment's weakness for allowing "culture" to trump freedom of expression (or even the proper application of the law), have brought us to the current situation.

It is not "multiculturalism" that has brought about this situation: it is the state actively allowing (even encouraging) mass mono-culturalism in some parts of Britain for decades, then congratulating itself on its own "tolerance".

Real multiculturalism does exist in some cities in Britain: places where there are dozens of nationalities living in the same neighbourhood. This is what multiculturalism really means: when people exchange their cultures freely while living in a third country, for example. But this tends to be where Muslims do not make up a noticeable chunk of the local population.

When you have a weak state and a weak community, you allow the social conditions for extremism to breed, take root, and finally control others through fear.

This is what has happened in Britain over the last ten years.


































Monday, January 20, 2014

Benefits Street: the "something for nothing" culture, lifestyle choices and the Conservatives' sadistic welfare policy

The Conservatives' attack on welfare focuses on communicating the impression that welfare for many is a "lifestyle choice"; moreover, they imply that much of Britain's welfare spending is spent on "benefit cheats", "skivers", and people simply too lazy to get "a real job".

The Channel Four show "Benefits Street" plays directly to this perception, in spite of the fact that in many ways, the real "Benefits Street" is in Westminster. And it would make for more shock-value entertainment, as well.
Who else but the Tories could castigate poor people for "living off the state", while some of their MPs feel perfectly entitled to have the taxpayer pay for their moats and duck ponds? Such a shameless lack of regard for misuse of public funds beggars belief, let alone their indifference at what society might think of such amoral behaviour.

And yet, this is the essence of George Osborne's political strategy: no more of the "something for nothing" culture, he says with an evil glint in his eye. His aim is to divide the working poor against the unemployed poor.

Because wages are falling behind the increasingly-high cost of living, it means that, for many, work no longer pays. The government seem to have accepted this truth, but their answer is as cynical as it is sadistic. How? Because the government's solution to the falling value to wages in real terms, is to restrict and cut the value of benefits. This is an act of schadenfreude (or psychological sadism, in English) against those on benefits. To make the working poor feel psychologically better, they punish the unemployed poor.

Crucially, the working poor are still no better-off financially by these cuts; they simply gain sadistic pleasure from knowing that the unemployed poor should be worse-off than they are.

The politics of choice

The Conservatives say that being on benefits is a "lifestyle choice". Well, it's worth remembering what the word "choice" actually means, in an economic and political sense.

In an economic sense of the word, "choice" comes from money. The more money you have, the more options it gives you. This is simple economics. So in this logical sense of the word, being rich is a "lifestyle choice", because those with lots of money choose to keep the money for themselves and spend it on their own lifestyle; they could equally choose to give the money to the needier in society (eg. as charity), or spend the money on investment (eg. to create more jobs by expanding their company).
In this way, as I said in a previous article when talking about the psychology of the rich:

"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"

By contrast, those with little money have far fewer economic choices. The rich resent paying taxes on who they see as "benefit cheats" and "skivers". The reality is that only a tiny percentile of the benefit-eligible population are guilty of fraud; many of those on benefits are still in work, and so the benefits they receive are a testament to the failure of the jobs market to offer a salary that people can actually live on.

Again, the government does nothing to rectify this, but uses the most cynical of misdirection and scapegoating tactics by demonizing the unemployed poor, not to mention the young.

If anything, those people who are guilty of choosing to stay on benefits rather than get a job (yes, there are some!), are only guilty of making a rational economic choice. For them, if the salary offers less money after tax and NI deductions (not to mention lost housing benefit) than they can get while still unemployed, of course it would be in their economic interests not to work!
It's not their fault that they can't get a job that doesn't offer them a living wage. It is the fault of the labour market, and the government, for doing nothing to rectify the broken labour market and the increasing cost of living.

Being on benefits isn't a "lifestyle choice" for those kinds of people, but the only choice that some of the unemployed poor have: to choose to stay on unemployment benefit rather than take a job that will give them less money. For those people, it is their economic imperative, because the government refuses to make it economically worthwhile for them to work.

The "politics of choice" really boils down to how you choose to live your life, but those choices are also defined by the extent of economic choice.
The Conservatives, as they mostly represent (and consist of) the affluent, have no problem with "economic choice", so their political choices reflect this: this explains their hatred of seeing "their money" being spent on the "feckless" unemployed. But as they are rich, the fact they have more economic choice also means that they have more moral responsibility towards society, because their economic choices can have a much larger effect on society, positive or negative, depending on what they choose to do with their money.

Instead, they choose to feel that society owes them something; that they are entitled to special treatment because they are rich (regardless of where the money came from), not to mention getting far more in "benefits" than the poor, in the way of a plethora of government subsidies and financial guarantees.

This is something many of the rich hate being reminded of. It is more a case of the poor funding the government's "something for nothing" culture for the rich.

Sadism as government policy

As Ayn Rand liked to say, people are bound to operate according to their own self-interest.

Of course, if the government restricts benefits to such an extent (as some in government would like to) that the unemployed have no economic choice but to work for a pittance (and therefore get into debt), then the government will have changed the economic choices of those unemployed. But this doesn't make Britain a better place economically or socially, let alone morally.

The attitude of the government simply makes life a race to the bottom; depressing wages by making cheaper and cheaper (even free) labour possible, while at the same time doing nothing to suppress the rising cost of living (because the government doesn't believe in intervening in the free market, unless you're rich). At the same time, the housing market has reached a completely dysfunctional level, helped by Osborne's cynical and economically-illiterate "Help To Buy" scheme. I could go on.

The Conservatives' approach to running the economy is amoral because it operates according to the psychology (and motivations) of the rich. It assumes that because the rich hate seeing their money being spent on others, those economically lower down the food chain will feel the same way. But from a psychological (and economic) point of view, they don't because their economic realities are very different. Those lower down in society sometimes have to rely on the welfare state when they fall on hard times.

Those hard times are these days permanent for some sections of society, including the "working poor".


















Saturday, January 18, 2014

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.

"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. 






























Friday, January 10, 2014

Psychopathy and the sales industry: The example of PerDM

There was a recent case reported in The Guardian about the sales reps who are taking their "employers", PerDM, to court for breaking employment law.

My interest in this case is more than casual, as in a previous life, I too have worked as a sales rep for the same company. So I have a personal interest in the case, as well as first-hand experience of how "PerDM" and other sales companies operate. In many ways, the sales industry epitomises what happens when the psychology of the psychopath is put into practice in capitalism.

The character Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho" worked in big business (or something to that effect), and his personality is often portrayed as purely psychopathic.He lacks emotion, empathy, and has no moral scruples about anything he does. He is also a serial killer.
In reality, though, few psychopaths are openly violent; they are more than capable of causing chaos through their actions, but more than usual will use non-violent means to achieve what they want. It is not that they have moral scruples against using violence; it is just that they would use violence when it is convenient to their goals. Even psychopaths are rational, compared to the mentally insane.

How the sales industry treats its employees

First of all, a sales "company" like PerDM has few real "employees" as the term is generally understood. The vast majority of them, for tax purposes, are classified as "self employed"; the exception are the managers of the individual branches of  the sales company who will usually have set up their own branch in an area with no local company presence, along with a minimal administration. This is how the company expands with the minimum of costs. The company model is simple, and as described in the article mentioned, works like a "recruitment pyramid scheme".

Salaries are based fully on commission, so the number of sales dictates the employees salary. The promotion ladder works by  new employees (A) learning the basics of  the sales strategy and meeting a pre-set sales target. Once this is achieved, "A" chooses new employees  for "training-up"; once that employee has trained-up a number of new employees who have reached their target sales and have their own "generation" of trainees, "A" will move up the ladder and begin to earn his own commission off the sales of those trainees below him. This pyramid of  advancement will continue as long as more "generations" of sales staff are created under him, until "A" has acquired, through the commission earned from his trainees gives him enough capital to set up a branch on his own. And so a new branch of the sales company is created.

Sales companies get contracts from all kinds of businesses, as the sales techniques used are cheaper than conventional advertisement for the company in question, and more effective. Door-to-door sales is generally considered the most effective in terms of "percentages". The "Five Per Cent Rule" is considered in the sales industry to be the marker i.e. that five percent of people encountered face-to-face will say "yes" to the sale, under normal circumstances. Naturally, the most effective salesmen can achieve a percentage far more than the norm.

So on one hand, these types of sales companies expand like a Capitalist virus, while circumventing employment regulations and jumping through tax loopholes to maximise profits. And in the current economic climate, they are thriving. As someone in the industry once explained, when the the economy is doing well, the sales industry does well; when the economy does badly, the sales industry does well. Companies always want more sales in the good times; in the bad times, they need sales even more.

The psychology of the salesman

As a result of this, salesmen tend to compared with conmen, and for good reason.

As the sales reps' salaries are dependent on your sales, people sink or swim very quickly. Those who cannot make door-to-door sales work for them, lick their wounds and leave, if they cannot afford to work for free (or persevere until they become better at the job). The sales company loses nothing; what few sales the "newbie" has made still adds to the manager's commission regardless, and the company incurs zero costs towards its employees as they are classified as "self-employed" for tax purposes. Any travel expenses are taken on the employees own shoulders.

While their is a sales strategy that all sales companies have, the pure Capitalist nature of the job naturally encourages employees to be dishonest. For many, the temptation to use deceit or misinformation to "make a sale" can be too great; those with the gift of the gab prosper, and those who don't will be required to learn it in order to make sales. Those without "the gift" or with too much of a moral backbone stand little chance and will fall by the wayside.
The sales "strategy" operates around psychological tactics to break down a potential customer's resistance. In this way, the "strategy" resembles a form of manipulation akin to an unscrupulous trickster. The salesman will use a number of his "weapons" of manipulation until he either succeeds in making a sale, or fails and moves on.
Apart from the temptations towards manipulation and deceit, the nature of the job also encourages a superficial and insincere attitude towards people; the pure Capitalist nature of the job also encourages sales reps to see people as a cash cow. And as selling is akin to manipulation, it also transforms employees into actors, changing their personality and behaviour depending on the person they are selling to. In other words, sales staff begin acting like sociopaths.

The psychology of the sales office

The sales company's sales strategy also trains its sales staff into a specific psychological mindset. The sales industry operates in a bubble, which can become infectious. While the environment with sales companies varies from place to place, a badly-run sales company may be ran with a sadistic and highly stressful environment in order to meet targets; a well-run company will more likely emphasize "positive mental attitude" (not unlike in a Scientology centre, or a cult), that may well appear freakishly over-zealous to the outsider. Any struggling sales staff will feel intimidated in a badly-run office; in a well-run office, they will either become motivated by the unrelenting enthusiasm of others, or alienated by it, and leave.

Working in the sales industry is like nothing else, a world unto itself, and consumed within itself. In this way, it is an archetypal example of unfettered Capitalism at its purest, as described by Ayn Rand. As the sales staff are encouraged by the nature of their job to become like sociopaths, this attitude becomes more concentrated the longer, and more successful a person becomes in the industry. Sales managers, by definition, therefore are likely to have several degrees less empathy and fewer scruples than their less experienced sales staff.

When you have become hugely successful in the sales industry, you are bound to believe in your own infallibility, as well as have little time for the weaknesses and failings of others. When you have made your own fortune in an industry as uncompromising and unforgiving as sales, you may well believe yourself to be akin to a god, and for good reason.

It is for these reasons that the sales industry is equally-good at attracting people who are natural psychopaths, as well as turning people into psychopaths (or more exactly, sociopaths).