An important task for a socialist writer is to make
capitalism look as bad as it really is. This is essential to the socialist
project because capitalism has so many ways of making itself look good in the propaganda it distributes through the corporate
media and the education system which it dominates. Daily we are shown the
glossy and benign face of capital as providing all good things, from jobs to
all our enticing consumer goods. So it takes a lot of effort to show the system
in its true colors. Yet the underlying and terrible truth about capitalism is
not hard to see if one just burrows a little way below the surface.
Among the many charges we can bring against capitalism is
that it is a system of
organized crime: it organizes the predatory activity of wealthy families and
corporations and protects them from real and potential uprisings of the people
they exploit. It is also, like much crime, psychopathic; in particular, it is
organized narcissism. It seems appropriate to point this out today when we have
a narcissist in the White House.
Here is
a description of the psychopath by
forensic psychologist Barbara Kerwin:
Most psychopaths could pass as normal people. They hold down jobs, they have relationships,
though often superficial ones, and they manage to manage, however
selfishly. But…more than most people,
they are selfish, highly absorbed with securing the primitive comforts of life. They cannot delay their gratification, or set
aside their resentments. … They are
usually charming, eager to please, and quite often very smart. However, though they may function in the
world effectively, they do not conduct their lives according to accepted moral
codes and standards of behavior. They do
not consider their crimes crimes. What seems a crime to us is to them an
expedience, an act of entitlement. As
intelligent as they may be, psychopaths lack …an awareness that they are participating in the
overall drama of the human species.
Accused of a crime, they believe that the world that owes them a living
has done them wrong.[1]
According to Kerwin, psychopathy is
"not a mental disease or defect but a global attitude of selfishness that
governs a person's interactions with others." More than just selfish, psychopaths are
narcissistic. Narcissism makes people
dangerous…because it deprives them of the restraint that
results from empathy and respect for others.…Narcissism permits them to ignore
the humanity of their victims.… It …renders them insensitive to the act of
killing. The blindness of the narcissist
can extend even beyond the lack of empathy; narcissists may not "see"
others at all.[2]
The
notorious Ted Bundy was a psychopath, according to Kerwin, who interviewed him
at length. Bundy raped and mutilated at
least thirty women, felt no remorse, regretted only that he'd been caught, and
bragged that "he owned a girl like he owned a Porsche."[3]
But the narcissism of capital is not the
result of narcissistic individuals, contrary to the capitalist propaganda that
everything is down to the individual. The capitalist is not usually a
narcissist by birth who then inherits, or gains control of a big capitalist
operation. To be a capitalist is first and foremost to have a certain role with
certain powers and responsibilities, and living in this role leads one to be a
capitalist both in action and in one’s heart.
The
capitalist system is narcissistic in two senses. First, its operations are
aimed only at its own limitless growth and it cares nothing for any other
values. (Individual capitalists sometimes have other interests, but qua
capitalist, their job is to put growth ahead of everything else.) Secondly,
capitalism is narcissistic in that it produces
narcissists, for it is far easier to exploit people and the earth if one has no
human feelings for them. The obligation to maximize the bottom line swamps all
other concerns.
Examples
of capitalist narcissism are not hard to find. The benefits of our
corporate health insurance and Long Term
Care insurance are sometimes hard to claim because the insurance companies
would always rather delay than pay, especially if the claimants are likely to
die before the benefits kick in. We now know how opioid manufacturers lied
about the dangers of their drugs and made millions as millions died.
Exxon-Mobil knew in the 1980s that burning carbon based fuel was going lead to
climate catastrophe, but continued to pump, refine, and market it. Like Ted
Bundy, they are unable to see or care about the harm they do. But for the corporation
and the corporate executive, it’s not because of something wrong with them
psychologically, but because of this basic fact about capitalism: What gets
done in a capitalist society is what profits the investor, and what does not
profit the investor is not done. Of course there are some accommodations
capital must make with the public interest, but these are mostly window
dressing – like the warning labels on cigarette packages.
To the extent that we play this game
and allow our social relations with others to be stripped down to the cash
nexus and the quid pro quo, we live as narcissists among narcissists. It's a cold world, this world of organized
crime, the world of the film noir in which only the love interest provides a
momentary respite from the Hobbsean state of war of all against all.
But most people are not narcissists at heart; they do
understand and respond to the experiences and situations of other people, even
people who are far away. The ties
between us are deeper than the cash nexus and the rule of law. We are bound by ties of affection. Ties of affection based on empathy for the
situations of other people are exactly what cannot be felt by the psychopathic
narcissist. The enthusiastic capitalist
in pursuit of the profit margin may love and empathize with members of his
family and circle of friends, but to have these feelings towards those with
whom he exchanges money and commodities is ruled out by the structure of his
work. If such feelings arise, they must
be squelched.
A fully civilized
society, free of the incubus of private property, will be one in which ties of
affection will extend freely to everyone we meet and to all those whose
experiences we come to know about. Only
then can we be cured of the social pathology of universal narcissism.
-------------------------
References
Kerwin, B. (1997). The Mad,
the Bad, and the Innocent: The Criminal Mind on Trial. New York, Harper
Paperbacks.
[1]
(Kerwin
1997),
p. 89.
[2]
M. Scott Peck, cited in (Kerwin
1997),
p. 88
[3]
(Kerwin
1997),
pp. 89-90.
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