Charles Hugh Smith: Concentrated power and wealth are intrinsically sociopathological by their very nature.
The solution: a culture of decentralization, transparency and open
competition, what I call the DATA model (Decentralized, Adaptive,
Transparent and Accountable)
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I have long spoken of the dangers inherent to centralization of power and the extreme concentrations of wealth centralization inevitably creates.
Longtime contributor C.D. recently highlighted another danger of centralization:sociopaths/psychopaths
excel in organizations that centralize power, and their ability to
flatter, browbeat and manipulate others greases their climb to the top.
In effect, centralization is tailor-made for sociopaths gaining power. Sociopaths
seek power over others, and centralization gives them the perfect
avenue to control over millions or even entire nations.
Even worse (from the view of non-sociopaths), their perverse abilities
are tailor-made for excelling in office and national politics via
ruthless elimination of rivals and enemies and grandiose appeals to
national greatness, ideological purity, etc.
As C.D. points out, the ultimate protection against sociopathology is
to minimize the power held in any one agency, organization or
institution:
After you watch these films on psychopaths, I think you'll have an even greater understanding of why your premise of centralization is a key problem of our society. The first film points out that psychopaths generally thrive in the corporate/government top-down organization (I have seen it happen in my agency, unfortunately) and that when they come to power, their values (or lack thereof) tend to pervade the organization to varying degrees. In some cases, they end up creating secondary psychopaths which is kind of like a spiritual/moral disease that infects people.
If we are to believe the premise in the film that there are always psychopaths among us in small numbers, it follows then that we must limit the power of any one institution, whether it's private or public, so that the damage created by psychopaths is limited.
It is very difficult for many people to fathom that there are people in our society that are that evil, for lack of a better term, and it is even harder for many people in society to accept that people in the higher strata of our society can exhibit these dangerous traits.
The same goes for criminal behavior. From my studies, it's pretty clear that criminality is fairly constant throughout the different levels of our society and yet, it is the lower classes that are subjected to more scrutiny by law enforcement. The disparity between blue collar and white collar crime is pretty evident when one looks at arrests and sentencing. The total lack of effective enforcement against politically connected banks over the last few years is astounding to me and it sets a dangerous precedent. Corruption and psychopathy go hand in hand.
A less dark reason for avoiding over centralization is that we have to be aware of normal human fallibility. Nobody possesses enough information, experience, ability, lack of bias, etc. to always make the right decisions.
Defense Against the Psychopath (video,
37 minutes; the many photos of political, religious and secular leaders
will likely offend many/most; if you look past these outrages, there is
useful information here)
The Sociopath Next Door (video, 37 minutes)
As C.D. observes, once sociopaths rule an organization or nation,
they create a zombie army of secondary sociopaths beneath them as those
who resist are undermined, banished, fired or exterminated. If there
is any lesson to be drawn from Iraq, it is how a single sociopath can
completely undermine and destroy civil society by empowering secondary
sociopaths and eliminating or marginalizing anyone who dares to cling to
their humanity, conscience and independence.
"Going along to get along" breeds passive acceptance of sociopathology
as "the new normal" and mimicry of the values and techniques of
sociopathology as the ambitious and fearful (i.e. almost everyone)
scramble to emulate the "successful" leadership.
Organizations can be perverted into institutionalizing sociopathology
via sociopathological goals and rules of conduct. Make the metric of
success in war a body count of dead "enemy combatants" and you'll soon
have dead civilians stacked like cordwood as proof of every units'
outstanding success.
Make lowering unemployment the acme of policy success and soon every
agency will be gaming and manipulating data to reach that metric of
success. Make higher grades the metric of academic success and soon
every kid is getting a gold star and an A or B.
Centralization has another dark side: those ensconced in highly
concentrated centers of power (for example, The White House) are in
another world, and they find it increasingly easy to become isolated
from the larger context and to slip into reliance on sycophants, toadies
(i.e. budding secondary sociopaths) and "experts" (i.e. apparatchiks
and factotums) who are equally influenced by the intense "high" of
concentrated power/wealth.
Increasingly out of touch with those outside the circle of power, those
within the circle slide into a belief in the superiority of their
knowledge, skills and awareness--the very definition of sociopathology.
Even worse (if that is possible), the incestuous nature of the tight
circle of power breeds a uniformity of opinion and ideology that creates
a feedback loop that marginalizes dissenters and those with open minds.
Dissenters are soon dismissed--"not a team player"-- or trotted out for
PR purposes, i.e. as evidence the administration maintains ties to the
outside world.
Those few dissenters who resist the siren song of power soon face a choice: either
quietly quit "to pursue other opportunities" (the easy way out) or quit
in a blast of public refutation of the administration's policies.
Public dissenters are quickly crucified by those in power, and knowing
this fate awaits any dissenter places a powerful disincentive on "going
public" about the sociopathology of the inner circle of power.
On rare occasions, an insider has the courage and talent to secure
documentation that details the sociopathology of a policy, agency or
administration (for example, Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers).
Nothing infuriates a sociopath or a sociopathological organization more than the exposure of their sociopathology, and so those in power will stop at nothing to silence, discredit, criminalize or eliminate the heroic whistleblower.
In these ways, centralized power is itself is a sociopathologizing force. We cannot understand the present devolution of our civil society, economy and ethics unless we understand that concentrated power and wealth are intrinsically sociopathological by their very nature.
Related:
To Fix Healthcare, Let 100 Solutions Bloom (February 26, 2013)
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