Media reports create the prevailing view that psychopaths are violent criminals. However, psychopaths are not necessarily violent or criminals. A psychopath is a person who lacks a conscience and the ability to empathize, is deceitful, manipulative, feels no remorse, and acts only in his self-interest without regard for the effect of his actions on others. Superficial charm often accompanies these traits, which allows the psychopath to mask his moral vacuity. Of these traits, lack of empathy is the most fundamental, and it has a biological basis.

Neurotransmitters, hormones, “mirror neurons,”  and other physical characteristics of 13 regions of the brain are involved in creating the capacity to feel empathy.^[1] Researchers have shown that disorders involving these factors can make people unable to feel empathy without diminishing other abilities. Although these disorders have degrees, in some cases, the degree is sufficient to eliminate the empathy capacity.

A standard diagnostic tool for psychopathy is the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), which rates a subject for 20 traits in a checklist where each is given a score of 0 to 2, depending on how strongly it applies.^[2] So, the most extreme psychopath would score 40.^[3] Corporate psychopaths tend to score high on the first eight items on the PCL-R checklist, which are termed “factor 1” or “primary” psychopathology criteria. They include callousness and lack of empathy, glibness, and superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, cunning or manipulativeness, lack of remorse or guilt, emotional shallowness or superficial emotional responsiveness, and unwillingness to accept responsibility for actions. A PCL-R score of 30 is typically used as the cutoff for the psychopathology diagnosis, but it can be lower if high scores in primary criteria exist.^[4]

Criticisms of the PCL-R include that many checklist items are difficult to measure or are subjective and that some should not be considered pathological. And the PCL-R has been used unjustly by our criminal “justice” system as a tool in sentencing decisions as if PCL-R scores predict antisocial behavior with certainty, which it does not.^[5] Also, tests resulting in the psychopath label have permanently stigmatized people as untreatably dangerous.^[6] However, the PCL-R is widely used because specific brain abnormalities and future antisocial behavior are associated with its scores.^[7]

Some experts in the field believe that psychopaths are untreatable, which is likely correct for some since there is a physical basis for the disorder.^[8] The mind can change the brain only within limits, and no drug has proven useful.^[9] However, psychopathology has been successfully treated, and cognitive behavior therapy has proven most efficacious.^[10] Also, neurofeedback therapy has shown some promise as a treatment modality.^[11] The physical basis of this disorder can be altered to some degree by improvements in a person’s psychology because psychological characteristics have physiological correlates.^[12]

Many studies exist using the PCL-R on the important role of psychopathy among the incarcerated. But it is difficult to get the cooperation of corporations for research on the extent of psychopathy in corporations and its implications. Corporations are understandably reluctant to be identified as employing executives with serious psychological problems, and executives are particularly unlikely to cooperate. However, some studies have confirmed the expected based on the prior considerations. The PCL-R factors—callousness and lack of empathy, grandiose sense of self-worth, cunning or manipulativeness, lack of remorse or guilt, pathological lying, unwillingness to accept responsibility for actions, glibness, and superficial charm are significantly more common in corporate managers than the general population.

Seven companies participated in one study, ranging in size from 150 to over 40,000 people worldwide.^[13] Four were global, but only their U.S. branches were included. Two hundred three managers and executives participated. 77.8% had a four-year degree, 21.2% a Ph.D., J.D., or M.D., and 1% possessed a two-year degree. The average age was 45.8. Forty-one were corporate directors, 51 were vice presidents, and 21 were CEO or president of a division.

Nine participants (4.4%) scored 25 or higher, and eight (3.9%) had a score of 30 or higher, the typical threshold for psychopathy, which exists in 1% of the general population.^[14] Two had a score of 33, and one had a score of 34. The average in the general population is less than five.^[15] Of the nine participants with a score of 25 or higher, four were very highly ranked in their organization: two were vice presidents and two were directors.

Another commonly used and related measure of psychopathy is the PCL:SV. A PCL:SV score of 13 is the widely used lower limit as an indicator of psychopathy. The study authors found 5.9% of the participants had a 13 or higher PCL:SV, compared with 1.2% in the general population. 3.9% of the participants in the corporate sample had a PCL:SV score of greater than 18, compared with only 0.2% in the general population.^[16]

Performance appraisals were part of the study, which found that several psychopathology traits are adaptive to the corporate environment. PCL-R and PCL:SV scores positively correlated with communication skills, strategic thinking, and creativity. But on the performance measures of being a “team player” or quality of “management style,” the study authors found a negative correlation.

But even bad performance reviews or evaluations from subordinates and peers often do not significantly alter decision-makers’ judgment that a psychopathic individual has “future leader” potential.^[17] Those who hire senior managers tend to avoid admitting errors in their evaluations by rationalizing behavior on the job that is contrary to their expectations. Even when they witness explosions of temper and other expressions of aggression, they tend to view it positively, as evidence of ambition and drive.

A researcher found that when fraud by a psychopathic senior manager was reported to the board of directors, it was met with denial and disbelief. Those reporting him were initially seen as acting out of jealousy. Later they discovered the senior manager had committed serious fraud and issued death threats.^[18]

Psychopaths are adept at analyzing a person’s expectations and desires and then reflecting them in a false persona so convincing the person bonds with them. The charm they display to those determining their status is persuasive and is seen as a beneficial trait of a charismatic leader. However, psychopaths use their charm and persuasiveness for self-serving manipulation.

One commonly reported technique of corporate psychopaths for their ruthless rise in the organizational hierarchy is to create conflict among rivals or between rivals and other workers. Their rise to power often involves creating emotional turmoil in rivals through various routes.^[19]

Another study on the personality characteristics of senior business managers and chief executives included 39 from leading British companies. It compared their psychological profile with 1,085 current and former male hospitalized psychiatric patients, most of whom were hospitalized as a result of criminal charges or convictions; all had received the British legal classification of either Psychopathic Disorder or Mental Illness. They found several psychopathic traits more common in business leaders than in the patient groups, including the criminals, traits that also characterize histrionic psychiatric disorder—superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity, or manipulativeness. And the two groups were equally likely to have traits associated with narcissistic psychiatric disorder, defined as an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a sense of entitlement, a need for constant admiration, grandiosity, lack of empathy, exploitativeness, and behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner. And they were equally likely to have obsessive-compulsive psychiatric disorder traits: rigidity, stubbornness, and dictatorial tendencies, perfectionism, excessive devotion to work. The main difference between the groups was in the criminals’ higher lawbreaking, physical aggression, and impulsivity.^[20]

A study of 261 senior managers in the United States found that 21% had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits, 21 times the estimated rate in the general population.^[21]

Several studies have linked CEO narcissism, lack of empathy, or remorselessness with fraud and insider trading.^[22] These traits led to the massive fraud largely responsible for the financial crisis’s dramatic and devastating social harm.

Citigroup CEO’s fraud and the criminal culture he created and allowed to flourish significantly contributed to the financial crisis. In July 2014, Citigroup reached a $7 billion settlement for financial crisis related mortgage fraud. Then attorney general Eric Holder said Citigroup’s “activities contributed mightily to the financial crisis that devastated our economy in 2008… The bank’s misconduct was egregious. As a result of their assurances that toxic financial products were sound, Citigroup was able to expand its market share and increase profits.” ^[23]

Richard Bowen, a former Citigroup executive turned whistle-blower, stated, “In July of 2008, I gave the SEC a thousand pages documenting fraud and the false representations given to investors in many securitizations… In light of the huge losses this behavior caused our country, it is outrageous that, six years later, a settlement of only civil fraud charges would be announced, with no individuals being held accountable and no real admission of wrongdoing or true penalties assessed.”

Bill Black, Ph.D., the former director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, now professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, said the financial company, JP Morgan, committed frauds “epic in scale, unprecedented in world history. . . $23 billion we’re talking about, these are frauds that made Jamie Dimon [the CEO] and other senior officers incredibly wealthy by creating fictional income that led to very real bonuses.” (Dimon considered a run for the presidency in 2020.^[24]) Lehman Brothers (a major U.S. investment bank destroyed in the crisis) executives committed the fraud of moving billions of dollars of liabilities off the bank’s books at the end of each quarter, then replacing them at the beginning of the next quarter to hide the firm’s financial weakness.^[25]

Several other financial companies’ top executives committed massive fraud. Instead of going to prison, they walked away hugely more wealthy and with what seemed to be a clean conscience. They presented themselves as unbothered by the surrounding chaos, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings, homes, and investments, and lacking any regrets about what they had done. The executives lied about their involvement and were very persuasive in blaming others for their crimes and other misbehavior that resulted in economic and social disasters. They expressed no doubts about their own continued worth and value. So, these executives displayed several characteristics of psychopaths: lack of empathy, grandiosity; a need for stimulation; lying, conning and manipulating people; a lack of remorse; and failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions.  Likely, some of them are clinically psychopathological.

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and HSBC have settled for many billions of dollars in fines for fraud, among other crimes that included: money laundering, currency manipulation, bribery, conspiracy, and rate tampering. In April 2011, Wachovia (since acquired by Wells Fargo) was fined for laundering billions of dollars in illegal drug money. The federal prosecutor said, “Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations.” Its fine was less than 2% of the bank’s $12.3 billion profit in 2009. In July 2016, JPMorgan Chase paid $200 million to settle criminal and civil charges related to bribing foreign officials.^[26]

One would expect the financial industry executives who committed the crimes mainly responsible for the financial crisis that nearly destroyed the world economy to feel overwhelming relief after not being prosecuted and thrown in prison. Instead, they received millions of dollars of personal compensation.  These executives must have felt very fortunate.

However, this did not cause them to “lie low” to not attract any additional attention from law enforcement. Instead, some of them proceeded to blatantly violate fundamental human rights, committing additional fraud in the process. They instituted corporate policies that threw homeowners by the millions out of their homes, many thousands of which were based on false foreclosure affidavits. All these fraudulent court filings were felonies. Five major banks settled for $26 billion in fines to the U.S. government for their illegal foreclosures.^[27] We gave these institutions a total of $156 billion in public bailout money, so they did not pay any penalty at the time. Eventually, though, they paid the $156 billion back with interest.^[28]

Financial company executives are indeed required to maximize profits, but their repeated criminal activity in the process indicates personality disorders and a dysfunctional economic system and political system corrupted by them and their allies.

Intelligent, educated psychopaths would be strongly attracted to the financial industry, where the grotesque size of the financial rewards at the top often exceeds that of other industries. Furthermore, top managers in this industry control vastly larger amounts of financial resources than managers of other industries. (In 2014, just the five biggest banks controlled $6.7 trillion, 44% of the $15.3 trillion in assets held by U.S. banks and 38% of our nation’s 2014 GDP.) And they have extraordinary power over other people based on their massive investment’s effects. And their focus on maximizing profits is likely most exclusive. The above characteristics would attract extraordinarily selfish, greedy, power-hungry, egotistic, remorseless, and narcissistic people.

Investment banks have hired executives with the above traits rejected from other industries. One of the biggest of them used psychometric testing to seek out people with psychopathic traits because these traits suited them to senior corporate finance positions.^[29]

Many commentators have identified the former CEO of the defunct Lehman Brothers, who played a significant contributory role in the global financial crisis, as a potentially psychopathic personality. Consistent with this view, he, in a video to company employees, expressed his displeasure at those who were selling Lehman’s stock short (a transaction which essentially bets on the stock price going down) by saying that he wanted to “rip out their hearts and eat them before they died.”^[30]

Although the financial industry may be most attractive, intelligent, educated people with psychopathic traits would pursue top management positions in any industry for similar reasons. Instead of excluding them from positions of power, we have systems that facilitate their rise.

The destructiveness of hierarchical, profit-maximizing business enterprises is magnified by the tendency for psychopaths or others with similar personality disorders to rise to their top. The tendency is another destructive design consequence. And at the top of large corporations, they have immense power to abuse. With personal and massive corporate wealth they control, they have created a government of the 1% by the 1% and for the 1% to advance their power’s growth. Our corporate structure is making our society unstable and unjust for as long as it lasts.

Psychopaths in powerful corporate positions have been growing more prevalent, resulting primarily from the increasingly rapid personnel turnover over the last few decades. Before the last third of the twentieth century, large corporations were relatively stable, slow to change, and people commonly had a job for life, where they gradually rose through the corporate ranks until they reached a position beyond which they were not qualified. In such a slowly changing environment, employees would get to know each other very well. Corporate psychopaths would more likely be identified, so they were less likely to be promoted to management positions.

A growing focus on short-term profit maximization, globalization, and a rapidly changing technological environment made corporate takeovers and mergers more common, so the corporate environment became more unstable. Jobs for life disappeared, and employees’ commitment to their employers lessened accordingly. Job switching first became acceptable and then common. Employees increasingly found themselves working with other people they did not know in unfamiliar organizations.

More frequent management personnel changes made it increasingly difficult to identify corporate success with any particular manager. Successes could be claimed by those who had nothing to do with them, often those with the most assertive, charismatic, manipulative personality or the best political skills. Corporate psychopaths have these skills and use them efficiently and ruthlessly. Also, sometimes failures were not noticed until the responsible managers moved on to better positions elsewhere.

A culture of greed unfettered by conscience developed in corporations, ideally suited for psychopaths to rise. Once at the top, they pay themselves massive compensations; in the case of the financial industry executives, huge bonuses amid financial hardship they created for many millions of people. Corporate deregulation contributed to the corporate and employment environment’s gradual transformation from a relatively stable one that would more likely hold corporate psychopaths in check to one where they could flourish and advance relatively easily. The more unstable modern corporate environment is more likely to seek out the dominant and charismatic leadership style of corporate psychopaths. 

Research also shows that in times of turmoil and uncertainty in society, people are more inclined to back confident, extroverted, assertive, dominant, and narcissistic leaders in government who would be seen as unacceptably authoritarian in more normal times.^[31] So, psychopaths or others with a significant degree of psychopathological traits in the financial industry that created chaos in society resulted in an environment for people with similar characteristics to be more likely to rise in politics, potentially as leaders of newly empowered right-wing political parties.

German researchers’ analysis of a dataset covering 20 advanced economies and over 800 general elections revealed that, on average, extreme right-wing parties increase their vote share by 30% after a financial crisis.^[32] They state: “Importantly, we do not observe similar political dynamics … after severe macroeconomic shocks that are not financial in nature.” The rise of Donald Trump to the presidency and his capture of the Republican Party is additional evidence of this phenomenon.”^[33]

Below are a few more examples of highly unethical behavior by top managers that caused significant social harm. The following CEOs’ extraordinary power to express their depths of depravity indicates serious systemic problems.

Former CEO Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap was often praised for ruthlessly downsizing companies and making them more profitable. In 1994, Scott Paper Corporation hired him to downsize the company. He fired 35% of employees, 11,000 people, in a restructuring that raised the stock price by 225%.^[34] Dunlap had a reputation for enjoying firing people. He published a book about his methods called “Mean Business: How I Save Bad Companies and Make Good Companies Great.”

In 1996, he moved on to the CEO position of Sunbeam, where a few months after being hired, he announced that half of Sunbeam’s 12,000 employees would be fired. This was, in percentage terms, the largest workforce reduction of its kind ever.^[35]

In 1998, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dunlap with massive accounting fraud at Sunbeam. At least $60 million of its apparently $189 million earnings for 1997 were, the SEC said, the result of fraudulent accounting. Dunlap denied the charges and demanded from Sunbeam and was given $1.4 million to cover legal fees, adding to the $100 million he was paid in his twenty months at the company. In 2002, Dunlap’s legal troubles ended when he agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle various lawsuits and agreed to never again serve as an officer or director of a public company. ^[36] In 2001, Sunbeam filed for bankruptcy.

Some of Dunlap’s other indicators of a serious personality disorder: his first wife charged in her divorce papers that he threatened her with a knife while saying he always wondered what human flesh tasted like, and he skipped his parents’ funerals.^[37]

Another example of a profoundly immoral CEO is Martin Shkreli. In September 2015, as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, he obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim, primarily used to treat life-threatening parasitic infections in newborns and HIV patients. He raised its price by 5,500% (from $13.50 to $750 per pill), creating a media firestorm.^[38] Shkreli didn’t shrink from the attention but instead seemed to relish it. In his media appearances, he came across as friendly and charming. With apparent sincerity, he claimed his company made no profits on the original price, the new price did not result in exorbitant profits, and the profits were needed to develop a better antiparasitic drug than Daraprim.

Let’s give Shkreli the benefit of the doubt on the original price allowing no profit—it was sold at cost. Then the new price results in a 5,400% profit. It is highly unlikely he devoted much of these profits to R&D, considering the veracity of his claim on its size. But even if he spent all the profits on R&D, he sees no problem with most or all of his R&D funding coming from overcharging people seriously ill, or at least those who can afford his price. And he ignored those who couldn’t, some of whose lives his price hike cut short.

Shkreli’s “charisma” eventually failed him. In 2017, he was convicted of criminal fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison.^[39]

For more examples of corporate managers’ depraved behavior in the pharmaceutical industry, see the sections in Parts 3 and 4 on the industry (and Part 4’s proposal for its reform).

Before the corporate failures of the global financial crisis dwarfed it, Enron’s collapse was the most spectacular corporate failure in USA history. It was also based on criminal fraud. The same ruthlessness, greed, and lack of conscience were evident among the top three managers at Enron. Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow omitted huge losses and debts from the balance sheets. In addition to fraud, Enron’s top managers committed the crime of inside trading by selling their stocks at a high price before rumors about Enron’s credibility arose. Skilling was reported to be manipulative, bullying, egocentric, lying, glib, and lacking in regret, remorse, or concern for others. The top three managers at Enron, Fastow, Lay, and Skilling, had several psychopathological traits.^[40]

Enron was one of the most admired corporations in the U.S. before its accounting malpractices were exposed. It had a corporate board ostensibly of the highest quality. Its directors had a wide range of business, finance, accounting, and government experience, and its audit committee had a model charter and was chaired by a former Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. All members of the compensation, nomination, and audit committees were unaffiliated with management. ^[41]

The Enron collapse demonstrates that it is difficult to limit the destructiveness of profoundly immoral people in top management positions of large corporations. Enron’s top managers’ crimes destroyed it with about $74 billion in shareholder wealth and $40 billion in creditor wealth. The crimes also eliminated the jobs of its about 20,000 workers and $2 billion of their pensions.^[42]

In 1996, the National White Collar Crime Center estimated the costs of white-collar crime might reach $1.7 trillion per year in the United States.^[43] Likely,  a more recent estimate would be significantly higher, but we will never know exactly how high because up to 90% of white-collar crimes go unreported.^[44] Robert Hare, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading experts on psychopathology and the creator of the PCL-R diagnostic tool, stated: “Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.”^[45]

Profoundly immoral individuals controlling billions of dollars are also empowered to target great harm to individuals and families. And their power to do so is particularly extreme in societies where they can access a huge reservoir of people under severe economic stress to act as their criminal operatives since they are more vulnerable to corrupting influences than they otherwise would be. Societies such as the US, where vast inequalities exist, have such a reservoir. Ninety-six million American adults can’t come up with $400 for an emergency without selling something or borrowing money.^[46] A significant percentage of them—likely all of the more than 1% psychopathological—would do almost anything for $20,000. People are more likely to accept payment for unethical and criminal acts the more economic stress they feel.

Twenty cents have more significance to you if you are a person of average income and wealth than $20,000 has to the super-wealthy. They likely can enlist any of over a million people to commit even the most horrific acts for this insignificant expenditure. (Just the psychopathological 1% of the ninety-six million adults is 960,000.)  To understand how little $20,000 is to the super-wealthy, consider: Since billionaires have average returns on their investments of about 6% per year, those with “just” $1 billion typically watch $60 million come in each year, which averages $165,000 per day, without doing anything. Six hundred seven have over a billion dollars in the US, and their average wealth is $14.3 billion.^[47] So, on average, each watch $858 million per year or $2.36 million per day come in, doing nothing. Having $20,000 less would be insignificant. $20,000 is 0.00014% of $14.3 billion; 20 cents is a 17% higher share of the median household’s wealth. Of course, $1,000 would be even less significant for a super-wealthy person, and many economically stressed people would crimes, even felonies, for this amount.

Research has unveiled a sub-group of white-collar offenders who are violent either personally or through hired third parties. These “red-collar criminals” tend to commit violent crimes of the “instrumental” kind—goal-oriented, with no evidence of an immediate emotional or situational provocation. In contrast, reactive violence is committed with a high level of spontaneity and no apparent goal other than to harm the victim immediately following a provocation. Typically, the motive for the violence of those red-collar criminals studied has been to prevent the detection or disclosure of their fraud schemes.^[48]

Traits common among psychopaths—a sense of entitlement, a propensity to deceive, cheat, and manipulate, a lack of empathy and remorse, and viewing others merely as resources to be exploited—can result in corporate psychopaths’ fraud. But for some corporate psychopaths, likely more than we know, fraud is the least significant of their crimes.^[49]

The “grandiose sense of self-worth” and other traits that narcissism and psychopathology have in common are particularly strong risk factors for violence, including murder. When criticism wounds a corporate psychopath’s inflated view of self or someone interferes with their high-priority plans, they commonly target the offender, and likely more often than we know, violently. After violent acts, psychopaths experience gratification by fulfilling their desire for dominance and control.

Although corporate psychopaths’ intelligence may make resorting to violence to achieve their ends uncommon, we do not know how uncommon. Since top-level corporate psychopaths tend to be highly intelligent and resourceful, likely only a small percentage of their atrocities committed against targeted individuals, including murders, have been attributed to them. Likely, most of their crimes are contracted, and probably their murders are made to appear as accidents, suicides, or deaths from natural causes.

Regarding the prevalence of serious red-collar crime, one researcher stated, “Lots of people are getting away with murder.”^[50] It is a dangerous misconception among law enforcement personnel and the general public that white-collar criminals are non-violent.^[51] We give profoundly immoral people the power to commit atrocities, so we should not be surprised if some are, in many forms.

Be forewarned: If you get in the way of or anger a super-wealthy person, not only does he have the power to dispose of you easily, he is much more likely than the average person to attach the significance to it that you do to disposing of a piece of paper. And technological advances creating abilities to track and bug you wherever you go combined with their unprecedented financial resources make wealthy psychopathological members of society more dangerous than ever in history. Also, the numbers of people with access to astronomical amounts of dollars are unprecedented. Based on the above facts, it is certain there are many massive monsters in our society lurking in the shadows performing stealth strikes at will.   

Our economic system based on enterprises with a top-down authoritarian management structure dedicated to profit maximization is intrinsically socially destructive partly because of the tendency for psychopaths or those with similar personality disorders to take control of them. A society with systems that concentrate its profoundly immoral members with an incapacity for empathy in its most powerful positions is not sane.

Although the prevalence of psychopathy in corporate elites as measured by researchers is alarming, they likely substantially underestimate it because the diagnostic process partially depends on an interview.^[52] Since corporate psychopaths tend to be highly intelligent, most would perceive the best way to behave in the interview and respond to interview questions to create the impression they would like to create. Intelligent psychopaths’ manipulative skills would bias responses toward minimizing the possibility they are judged to have a personality disorder, especially psychopathology. 

Furthermore, PCL-R scores are an insufficient measure of antisocial personality disorders that should disqualify people from powerful positions because the destructiveness of the afflicted persons is proportional to their power. For example, although 90% of criminals classified by the PCL-R as psychopathic are diagnosable with “antisocial personality disorder” (ASPD), only 30% with ASPD qualify as psychopathic.^[53]

For some people, including many without diagnosable psychopathology or ASPD, the drive for increasingly massive amounts of money continues far beyond the point where they can spend it on improving their lifestyle based on a kind of pathological addiction. To some, money is like a powerful, addictive drug. They need larger dosages to maintain the same level of ‘‘high’’ (state of euphoria). The more they get, the farther they get from enough. This insatiable greed and the resulting massive wealth and extravagant lifestyle motivate corruption, including of our political system, and a sense of entitlement in what has become our ruling class/kleptocracy.

Our ruling class’s wealth is of historic proportions, and with it comes a corresponding amount of power. And as we have all heard, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”^[54] For this reason, we should not allow even the most ethical among us the wealth or power of our ruling class. But, as we have seen, many of them were far from ethical before acquiring the massive amounts of money that further corrupted their character.

This elite is setting the agenda for humanity’s future through their dominant roles in our economy and political system. And they influence all of us through mass media and educational institutions. Their agenda serves their interests at the expense of everyone else.

Corporations of a form that advantages immoral people and that motivates creating harmful externalities even by moral people that rise to their top threaten humanity’s survival.

Here is an easy-to-remember aphorism summarizing most of the facts in this section to help you keep the alarm ringing:

“The most competent of the lowest are at the highest with the most.”

So, we are in an emergency. And since they also live in the world they are descending into hell, among the reasons we need to fix the systems that sent them so high is to save them from themselves.

[1] The neurobiology of antisocial personality disorder: The quest for rehabilitation

and treatment, Jack Pemment (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2012.10.004, and The ‘antisocial’ person: an insight in to biology, classification and current evidence on treatment, Rodrigo et al.

 Annals of General Psychiatry 2010, 9:31

[2] The list in full is: callousness and lack of empathy, glibness and superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, cunning or manipulativeness, lack of remorse or guilt, emotional shallowness or superficial emotional responsiveness, unwillingness to accept responsibility for actions, a tendency to boredom, a parasitic lifestyle, a lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, lack of behavioral control, behavioral problems in early life, juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility, a history of “revocation of conditional release” (i.e. broken parole), multiple marriages, and promiscuous sexual behavior

[3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/spot-psychopath/

[4] Ibid.

[5] For more information on the PCL-R, criticisms of it, and psychopathology see; J Bus Econ (2017) 87:1193–1227: The influence of psychopathic traits on the acceptance of white-collar crime: do corporate psychopaths cook the books and misuse the news? Volker Lingnau, etal.,

Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 26: 124–135, 2016, Risk assessments and recidivism among a population-based group of Swedish offenders sentenced to life in prison.

Validity of Factors of the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised in Female Prisoners: Discriminant Relations With Antisocial Behavior, Substance Abuse, and Personality Patrick J. Kennealy, University of California, Irvine, etal., PubMed 2007 December; 14(4): 323–340

Psychopathy An Evolving and Controversial Construct, Russ Scott, Forensic Psychiatrist, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2014 Vol. 21, No. 5, 687-715, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2014.911056

The Criminal Psychopath: History, Neuroscience, Treatment, and Economics, Kent A. Kiehl and Morris B. Hoffman, Jurimetrics. 2011 ; 51: 355–397

[6] The Problem with Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist: Incorrect Conclusions, High Risk Of Misuse, And Lack Of Reliability, Willem H. J. Martens, Med Law (2008) 27:449-462

[7] A comprehensive neuroimaging review of PCL-R defined psychopathy, Stephanie Y. Griffiths, Jarkko V. Jalavaa, Aggression and Violent Behavior 36 (2017) 60–75, The usefulness of psychopathy in explaining and predicting violence: Discussing the utility of competing perspectives, Henriette Bergstrøma, etal., Aggression and Violent Behavior 42 (2018) 84–95, The predictive quality of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) for violent and sex offenders in Switzerland. A validation study. Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr. 2007 Mar;75(3):155-9.

[8] https://modlab.yale.edu/news/can-psychopaths-be-cured

[9] For information on brain changes with psychotherapy: psychiatrictimes.com/psychotherapy/how-psychotherapy-changes-brain

[10] The Problem with Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist: Incorrect Conclusions, High Risk Of Misuse, And Lack Of Reliability, Willem H. J. Martens, Med Law (2008) 27:449-462

[11] QEEG Guided Neurofeedback Therapy in Personality Disorders: 13 Case Studies. Surmeli, Tanju; Ertem, Ayben. Clinical EEG and Neuroscience; Wheaton Vol. 40, Iss. 1, Jan 2009: 5-10.

[12] Frontiers in Psychology, Psychotherapy and brain plasticity, Daniel Collerton Published online 12/6/13 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3764373/

[13] Corporate Psychopathy: Talking the Walk Paul Babiak, Ph.D., Craig S. Neumann, Ph.D., Robert D. Hare, Ph.D. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28: 174–193 (2010) Published online 6 April 2010 in Wiley InterScience

[14] The Criminal Psychopath: History, Neuroscience, Treatment, and Economics, Kent A. Kiehl, Morris B. Hoffman, Jurimetrics. 2011 Summer; 51: 355–397.

[15] Into the Mind of a Psychopath, Danielle Egan, Discover Magazine, 4/16/19

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Psychopathy screening for public leadership, Clive Roland Boddy, Department of Leadership, Work and Organisations, Middlesex University, London, U.K.

[19] See Snakes In Suits, Robert Hare

[20] Psychology, Crime & Law, Volume 11, 2005 – Issue 1, Disordered personalities at work, , Belinda Jane Board Katarina Fritzon, Pages 17-32, published online 1/31/07

[21] Corporate psychopaths common and can wreak havoc in business, 9/13/16  https://www.psychology.org.au/news/media_releases/13September2016/Brooks/ 

[22] The Irrational Actor in the CEO Suite: Implications for Corporate Governance, Renee M. Jones, Boston College Law School, 6/1/17, Journal of Business Economics, The influence of psychopathic traits on the acceptance of white-collar crime: do corporate psychopaths cook the books and misuse the news? Volker Lingnau, Florian Fuchs, Till E. Dehne-Niemann, published online: 5/12/17

[23] Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, Bernie Sanders, Pg 303

[24] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jamie-dimon-trump-723236/

[25] Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich, pg.77

[26] Our Revolution, Bernie Sanders, 2016, pg. 303-305

[27] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/banks-states-reach-26-billion-settlement-2012-02-09

[28] https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

[29] Psychopathy screening for public leadership, Clive Roland Boddy, Department of Leadership, Work and Organisations, Middlesex University, London, U.K.

[30] Psychopathy screening for public leadership, Clive Roland Boddy, International Journal of Public

Leadership, Vol. 12 No. 4

[31] https://www.pnas.org/content/114/26/6734

[32] https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/events/2015/20151001_post_crisis_slump/documents/c._trebesch.pdf

[33] Politics in the Slump: Polarization and Extremism after Financial Crises, 1870-2014 Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, Christoph Trebesch, 9/23/15 Free University of Berlin, John F. Kennedy Institute, University of Bonn, University of Munich. (To accurately evaluate the items in the PCL-R checklist requires training and a detailed evaluation that includes interviews and non-public records.  However, you may find these peoples’ judgements on Trump based on the public record of his statements and behavior interesting. Mike Taylor, https://reprog.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/a-careful-and-objective-investigation-into-whether-trump-is-literally-a-psychopath/) determined a score of 31. Keith Olbermann, “Could Donald Trump Pass A Sanity Test?” 7/21/16 also found Trump surpassed the 30 threshold for psychopathology. More than 60,000 mental health professionals signed a petition, which states: “We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-time-cure/201709/the-dangerous-case-donald-trump)

[34] https://inequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GreedGood-5-greedy-as-deserving.pdf

[35] Sunbeam to Halve Work Force Of 12,000 and Sell Some Units, New York Times, Glenn Collins, 11/13/96

[36] GQ Magazine, Your Boss Actually Is a Psycho, Jon Ronson, 12/18/15

[37] Ibid.

[38] Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight, Andrew Pollack, New York Times, 9/20/15

[39] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/business/martin-shkreli-sentenced.html

[40] Psychopathy screening for public leadership, Clive Roland Boddy, Department of Leadership, Work and Organisations, Middlesex University, London, UK

[41] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal, https://www.deseret.com/2003/7/12/19734548/enron-reorganization-gives-creditors-little

[42] Ibid.

[43] https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=167026 Data of publication available here: https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=166244

[44] https://www.zippia.com/advice/white-collar-crime-statistics/#:~:text=It’s%20estimated%20that%20up%20to,white%2Dcollar%20crimes%20go%20unreported.

[45] The Independent, Beware corporate psychopaths – they are still occupying positions of power,

Brian Basham, 12/11/11

[46] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf

[47] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/states-with-the-most-billionaires

[48] Red Collar Crime, Frank S. Perri, International Journal of Psychological Studies; Vol. 8, No. 1; 2016

[49] Ibid.

[50] The Atlantic, The Killer in the Cubicle, Rene Chun, October 2018, pg. 34

[51] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4235672/pdf/nihms-580797.pdf

[52] http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html

[53] Counselor magazine, Psychopathology, Part 1, 8/18, Norman Hoffman, etal.

[54] Originally stated by Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887