“Why is the world so unfair?
Why all the economic injustice, those brutal wars, the everyday corporate cruelty?
The answer: Psychopaths.
That part of the brain that doesn’t function right. You’re standing on an escalator and you watch the people going past in the opposite escalator. If you could climb inside their brains you would see we aren’t all the same. We aren’t all good people just trying to do good. Some of us are psychopaths. And psychopaths are to blame for this brutal, misshapen society. They’re the rocks thrown into the pond.
Some psychopaths are serial killers which ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies, they ruin societies.” (Jon Ronson: The psychopath test.)
Listening to various commentators and reading about the war in Gaza, there seems to be from Israel and the USA very little said about the nearing 40,000 fatalities recorded and no doubt many more deaths yet to be discovered, buried under the rubble of the homes people used to live in and the many more who will suffer from the inflicted starvation and health conditions brought about by the brutality of that conflict. It is almost a whispered afterthought in some reports, the focus seems to be to justify the action because of October 7 last year, as though the desperation of the Palestinian people started that day. To her credit, Kamala Harris did state that the suffering of Palestinians needed to stop.
The situation in Gaza and in the West Bank is a direct of the psychopathic leadership of both the current and previous Israeli leaders, and of course having a faithful, uncritical following.
But to restrict the focus on Israel, or even just on leaders committing such horrors in the name of some nationalistic goals is being dismissive of the damage psychopathy has rendered through the history of colonialism and capitalism, self serving politicians and self righteous religious leaders.
To come to even a cursory understanding of the damage inflicted by psychopaths, we need to find a proper definition which covers a bit more ground that the shower scene in the Hitchcock movie Psycho. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary a psychopath is ‘a person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one’s actions, an absence of empathy for others and often criminal tendencies.
Jon Ronson in the book cited above quotes a twenty point test; the Hare PCL-R checklist which, when applied to a person, answers (or observations) credit a 0, 1, or 2 score for each point. A score of more than 30 identifies the person as being psychopathic, although some researchers prefer a cutoff of 23 points.
But even considering the brief dictionary definition and then looking at the impact of psychopaths on society across the fields of corporate, political and religion, we can make sense of prevailing economic and social conditions.
Colonialism and Capitalism
The foundations of modern day capitalism and the global economy each of us is so heavily involved in (try imagining live without capitalism for a moment) has its roots in colonialism, the development of new products and the ‘discovery’ of new lands, the enslavement of people to work those lands. Think for a moment about the coffee or tea to start the day, products of colonialism, sugar, tobacco, cotton. All products we consume every day, became popular, exotic, during the colonial era, changing diets and fashions throughout colonising Europe.
Throughout the history of colonialism and capitalism which grew out of it, the interests of those who had the capital were foremost. Take a look around some of the mansions which host the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, many of those estates were the result of wealth generated through colonial expansion. The billions of pounds sterling King Charles gets are the ongoing fruits of colonialism. Mansions in The Netherlands were built on the wealth generated by the returns on investment in the Dutch East Indies Company, VOC, and elsewhere throughout Europe fruits of colonialism are evident. The people who had the capital to invest reaped great rewards, but those who generated the wealth were ‘cannon fodder’, just tools used to generate dividends. returns on investments.
In Britain, the coupling of the enclosures for increased agricultural production saw peasants who used to work on the estates evicted and provided a ready, cheap workforce for the factories of the newly developed mines and factories. The increase in wealth saw the rise of a middle class and a growing divide in the distribution of wealth, with those at the bottom of the social strata left to somehow or other exist, and should they ‘break the laws’ which protected the newfound wealth of those above, they were sent of to the colonies to work off sentences, pretty much as slaves. After the American war of independence in 1766, the colony of New South Wales was used for the dumping ground of the undesirables.
Is today any different?
Today we face a ‘cost of living crisis’. But is it really? Or is it just going back to business as usual?
The post war period, 1945 to 1975 was called, in French, ‘Les Trente Glorieuses’, the thirty glorious years. Those years were an aberration. What we are witnessing now is a return to the amassing of wealth by the owners of capital, it is more than the Marxist term, ‘the owners of the means of production’, it is the share holders, the stock market players, the venture capitalist who set the rules today.
Recently in the Senate enquiry into the Coles/Woolworths duopoly it became very clear that the return on investment was the most important number to the CEO’s and board members of those enterprises. Similarly, in the recently published book, ‘Hard Labour’ by the journalist Ben Schneiders, the author and researchers who worked with him saw blatant evidence of wages theft, mainly in retail, restaurant and fast-food industries and in the supply chains used to provide produce for resale. In cahoots the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, a union affiliated with the Democratic Labor Party in the 1950’s and later when they (re)joined the Labor party, were instrumental in having workers under-paid thousands of dollars. Sweetheart deals saw that the agreed wages were a bit higher than the minimum wages set at the time, but penalty rates and overtime rates did not apply. Workers were encouraged (compelled) to work overtime, and night shift workers did not enjoy any loadings. Membership was compulsory, with union fees deducted from pay.
In the restaurant industry some chefs in the most expensive, upmarket eateries worked up to 60 hour a week without overtime, their contracts were for 40 hour weeks. Maccas in Australia was the only Golden Arches group to encourage union membership, every else where the golden arches are present, the attitude is decidedly anti-union, and the pay and conditions not good for workers. Wages stagnated while profits soared. The union effectively handed Mc Donalds a very substantial kick back. As soon as the ‘deal’ ended, the union was effectively locked out.
Profits went overseas to parent companies or to tax havens, so no profits were paid to the Australian Tax Office.
Politics
Last month all PAYE income earners got a pay rise… or paid less tax. The stage three tax cuts happened and they hit the pay packets. It was part of a grand plan to level out the income tax system. Marginal tax rates have been adjusted so that the highest rate for those earning $135,000 or more pay a marginal rate of 37 cents in the dollar. Those earning between $45,000 and $135,000 pay a marginal rate of 30 cents in the dollar for each dollar over $45,000. The savings at the lower end are marginal over the previous rates, but for those earning the ‘big bucks’ the savings are substantial.
During the post war period, ‘Les Trente Glorieuses’, the top marginal rate in Australia was 75% and dropped to 60% into the 1980s. The period of the Thatcher-Reagan years, from 1979 to 1990 saw a great shift away from workers, restructuring the global economy to benefit the owners of capital, the ‘trickle down economy’, and since that time an erosion of wages and an increase in corporate profits.
Much of the politicking was aimed at reducing the influence of unions. In the latest iteration, unionism is not compulsory, but when pay and conditions contracts are negotiated, even those who are not union members benefit form the improved conditions.
Some of those contracts, including the QANTAS EBA saw the wages of new recruits being substantially less than long term employees. Wages are then increased on a percentage basis, so the discrepancy is permanent.
Religion
In 2013 The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established and it was found that in many church based facilities, child sexual abuse occurred. The saga of predatory behaviour by trusted members of the clergy and the ways in which perpetrators were allowed to continue, moved from parish to parish, was a shock to the entire community. During the enquiry many accusations were made and legal battles have continued to seek justice for those who were victimised. The cases have drawn on and on, delays called as some church bodies wait for those accused to die so there will be presumably no case to answer. Even an Archbishop was accused, imprisoned and rereleased on appeal. The acceptance that there was wrongdoing is denied repeatedly, obfuscated over or dismissed.
Apart from the horrors that were exposed during and since the Royal Commission, corruption in churches throughout history have seen the deaths of many millions of people who have disagreed with the tenets of one church or another. Religion is a very lucrative game, and those in power protect their cash cows fiercely.
The sense of superiority by claiming ‘salvation’ and then taking that message across the world during colonisation, either accept this new religion or die a gruesome death, bringing a message which included a set of laws, the Ten Commandments, and without any sense of irony stealing the land, raping the women and killing those who dared to object.
As with the colonial and capitalist wielding of power over politicians to gain advantage, the religious leaders too have their influencers with politicians, ensuring tax breaks for churches and financial support for schools to ensure those who can afford the expensive private school education have the best schools, while the public school system struggles with often inadequate facilities and poorer support programmes.
The clock is being wound back to ensure there is a pool of desperate people looking to survive.
It looks like the psychopaths are in control... again.
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